UConn’s offensive rebounding identity highlights Sweet 16 win over San Diego State

By Sam Federman (@Sam_Federman)

BOSTON — Twenty-six years ago, Richard Hamilton rescued a tipped ball from Khalid El-Amin and put the ball in the basket, falling back as time expired to send UConn to just its fourth-ever Elite Eight.

While that 1998 team lost its regional final, there was no better way for it to win than with an offensive rebound, and the legend has only grown.

The Huskies’ 1999 championship team, with many of the same players, was the 17th-best offensive rebounding team in the country en route to a 34-2 record and its first of five national championships.

Following that, in Hall of Famer Jim Calhoun’s final 13 seasons as the UConn coach, the Huskies placed among the nation’s top 10 teams in offensive rebounding nine times. Fast forward to Thursday night, where just ten miles from Calhoun’s hometown of Braintree, Massachusetts, Dan Hurley’s team penned its latest masterpiece.

Top-seeded UConn moved within just one win of back-to-back Final Four appearances with an 82-52 victory over 5th-seeded San Diego State. In the group’s program record-tying 34th victory, the Huskies had 21 offensive rebounds, and finished plus-21 on the glass.

The lone thread that connects the UConn staffs under Calhoun to the one that Hurley and others have called the best in the nation is Tom Moore. The Millbury, Massachusetts native spent 13 years on Calhoun’s bench before becoming the head coach at Quinnipiac, a gig he held for ten seasons. During his time in Hamden, the Bobcats were a top 3 offensive rebounding team six years in a row, and top 10 for eight consecutive seasons.

It’s no coincidence that after ranking in the top 100 just twice in his first seven years as a head coach, Hurley’s teams have finished in the top 100 each season since Moore joined his staff for the final season at Rhode Island in 2017-18, and in the top 25 in each of the last five seasons at UConn.

“Tom is Mr. Rebound,” Hurley told reporters after the game. “He begs for it in the practice plan, and he takes his share of credit for it, and rightfully so.”

While the intricacy of the offense has gotten much of the press over the last two seasons, the offensive glass has been a hallmark of Hurley and Moore’s entire tenure in Storrs. Over their first four seasons, when UConn ranked outside the top 150 in effective field goal percentage, it was the offensive rebounding that made up the conversation around the teams. Just because they’ve now shot the ball at a high level over the last two seasons does not mean that that has gone away.

“We have good size, we have guys who are locked into the scout,” Moore said after the game of his team’s tenacity on the glass. “And Dan pushes all the right buttons when we’re playing a team that we think will be a challenge on the glass. No one is better than him at emphasizing it and stressing it for like four or five days in a row in advance.”

After the best game of his UConn career, scoring 14 points, grabbing 14 rebounds, and swatting eight shots against Northwestern on Sunday, Donovan Clingan couldn’t find a rhythm Thursday.

SDSU’s Jaedon LeDee used his strength to keep the 7-foot-2 sophomore away from the basket, and he finished with just eight points on 4-of-9 shooting from the field. In the first half, he made just one of six, missing a few layups, but still gave UConn three second chances on the offensive glass.

“We were boxing each other out of bounds in practice the past two days,” Clingan said. “We were just really realizing that that was a key point to this game, and if we wanted to win this game, we have to out-rebound them, so we did that tonight.”

He credits Moore with instilling the rebounding mentality of this group.

“He’s always yelling at us to rebound,” the Bristol native said. “He’s always under the basket in practice, just making sure that we get our box-out techniques right.”

As UConn’s offense ground to a halt towards the end of the first half, and it wasn’t even able to score second-chance points off its rebounds, the tenacity provided another positive. San Diego State wasn’t able to create a ton of easy offense itself, and limiting the Aztecs' transition opportunities was a major key for the Huskies holding a nine-point lead at the break.

The only two fastbreak baskets for SDSU all game came from a Reese Waters mid-range jumper, and a Micah Parrish triple, neither of which truly ended up mattering in the long run.

“We send as many guys to the glass as we can,” Clingan said. “We just try to get extra shots, and realizing that that can break a team as well, we’re always trying to be the most aggressive team on the floor.”