UConn shipping up to Boston after win over Northwestern brings Huskies back to Sweet 16

Tristen Newton puts finishing touches on UConn’s rout of Northwestern, sending Huskies back to Sweet 16. (Photo by UConn Men’s Basketball)

NEW YORK — As the theme song to the legendary NBC sitcom Cheers famously posited for over a decade, sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.

The University of Connecticut will be doing just that this coming week in the home of the fictitious, yet iconic, Boston bar after yet another NCAA Tournament victory that seemed almost academic from the start.

Needing only to overcome Northwestern to reach the East Regional semifinals and earn a second straight Sweet 16 appearance a mere 90-minute drive from Gampel Pavilion, the top-seeded Huskies made short work of their opposition Sunday, opening their matchup with the Wildcats on a 17-4 run and overpowering their way to a 75-58 victory at Barclays Center, improving to 9-0 this season under a New York City backdrop that has long been one of UConn’s adopted home outposts.

“I think it’s going to double in Boston for us,” head coach Dan Hurley said of the groundswell of fan support. “I guess you could add Brooklyn to Storrs South. I didn’t know it was part of Storrs South, but I guess it extends from Manhattan to Brooklyn.”

What will also traverse the New England Thruway this weekend on its way to Beantown is a fully-engaged unit that now appears to be playing at its unquestioned best, with its opposition offering little, if any, resistance.

Northwestern had few answers for UConn (33-3) and its combination of size and suffocating defense, a one-two punch that was evident from the opening tip. While Donovan Clingan was a one-man wrecking crew in the paint, Stephon Castle took on the challenge of guarding Boo Buie, the Wildcats’ leading scorer, and shut the all-Big Ten point guard down. The freshman phenom rendered Buie into a non-factor, limiting him to just nine points on 2-for-15 shooting.

“Steph caused problems,” Hurley said of Castle’s impact defensively. “Just the size, the foot speed, the strength. (Castle) is the anti-entitled five-star freshman, he does nothing but help his team win.”

The same can be said of Clingan, who racked up a double-double in the first half alone and finished with 14 points, 14 rebounds and a career-best eight blocked shots in the latest tour de force from the 7-foot-2 sophomore.

“I feel healthier and lighter than I’ve ever felt,” the big man declared. “I really got my confidence back, and I’m just trying to fly around the court and do whatever my team needs me to do to win.”

“It’s amazing,” Alex Karaban said of Clingan’s latest effort. “He continues to prove why he’s the best center in the country. I firmly believe that (with) what he does defensively for us, and just creating everything so much easier on the offensive end for us, he’s a special player.”

After Friday’s equally impressive opening-round win over Stetson, Karaban spoke about the need to create and uphold momentum as UConn attempts to become the first team since 2007 to successfully defend its national championship. Despite being outscored by five points after halftime on Sunday, the Huskies managed to conserve the boost and not sustain too much of a lull, something Hassan Diarra attributed to the burgeoning self-confidence he and his teammates possess.

“We have ultra confidence in ourselves,” Diarra said. “We’re playing very well right now (and) we just have to continue to do that. Just some minor things, but ultimately, we’re riding a lot of momentum right now. We feel like we have as good a chance as anybody in this tournament.”

Karaban, however, cited Northwestern cutting into a 30-point deficit in the second half as a sign that UConn still needs to improve if it is to enjoy the same fate it did last April.

“Last year’s team didn’t have any of the slipups where teams would come back and start to gain hope again,” the sophomore forward intimated. “This year’s team, we’re letting teams come back. We gave (Northwestern) some hope, we got their fans back into the game. Last year’s team wouldn’t do that.”

The small degree of difficulty, to this point in the tournament, has already drawn comparisons to how the Huskies demolished any team that stood in their way on this stage a year ago. But with four more games to play before cutting down a net in Arizona, the message remains the same, keeping in line with Hurley’s foot-on-the-gas approach.

“It’s hard to tell,” Diarra said of the similarities and differences to last year’s championship run. “Kind of the same, but maybe a little bit better. But, man, we’re not done. We gotta keep it rolling.”