UConn’s toughness a concern as Huskies battle, but drop hard-fought game to Creighton

Although his UConn team remains near top of Big East, Dan Hurley is increasingly concerned with UConn’s toughness and tenacity, problems that resurfaced Saturday in Huskies’ loss to Creighton. (Photo by UConn Men’s Basketball)

STORRS, Conn. — Love him or hate him, Dan Hurley is almost always transparent when addressing the state of his program on a day-to-day basis.

Over the past three years, the UConn coach has obviously had more positive reports than negative as the Huskies have reigned supreme among the college basketball world. This season, however, has brought more adversity to Connecticut, be it through injuries or a retooled roster struggling to defend at the level desired—or required, in this case—by Hurley as he chases history in the form of a third consecutive national championship.

On multiple occasions this year, during and after UConn’s ill-fated Maui Invitational performance, Hurley has taken to task the defense—or lack thereof in relation to his past rosters—as UConn traverses the minefield of the Big East. And after Liam McNeeley missed his fourth straight game with a high ankle sprain, the deficiencies were on display as the Huskies’ 28-game home winning streak came to an end Saturday, evaporating in a 68-63 loss to Creighton in which the Bluejays closed the game on a 10-4 run over the final three minutes.

After lamenting a missed opportunity where his unit could have gone into halftime with a lead, but instead trailed by seven entering the locker room as Jamiya Neal (17 of his 24 points came in the first half) and Isaac Traudt made up for UConn’s defense on Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth, Hurley again chose to shine a light on the harsh reality of the core issue plaguing his group.

“We’re a shell of ourselves from a defensive standpoint,” he conceded. “We’ve only won the rebounding battle twice in Big East games, and the bar is so low for us defensively. We’re just not a tenacious enough team. We’re just a good team. We’re just a good Top 20, Top 25 team, but we’re obviously, this current version of us with the defensive rebounding, makes us nothing like we’ve been.”

“I’m not sure if Liam, when he returns, is going to be able to fix the lack of tenacity that we have right now. If we could find enough ways to win games here while Liam is out and not get totally demoralized like that January a couple of years back, when we reinsert him in the lineup, he’s one of the best players in the league. He would make a huge difference if he’s on the court for 35 minutes. He affects our rebounding, he affects our clutch play down the stretch, he plays with swagger that not a lot of players had on the court today. We’ve gotta find a way just to try to win enough of these games, just gut these games out until he gets back, and just hope we can get consistency out of a Jaylin Stewart. He’s gotta stay consistent.”

Still, for all the missteps before Saturday and during the game, UConn (13-5, 5-2 Big East) had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds when Hassan Diarra appeared to draw a foul in the act of shooting what was a game-tying three. The call was instead ruled a foul on the floor by official James Breeding. When asked about it postgame, Hurley admitted he did not see the potential contact, also citing the officiating in UConn games since the Huskies’ return from Maui to be exemplary. Diarra’s perspective was in a similar vein, not willing to attribute the loss to anything so trivial.

“They’re gonna call what they call,” the point guard said of the officials, who whistled just 25 total fouls Saturday. “They did a great job today. Those missed calls are not the reason why we lost the game, so at this point, it doesn’t matter.”

UConn’s biggest issue is the overall efficiency of its defense. Only once under Hurley has UConn had a defense outside the Top 60 in efficiency, when his first year in Storrs produced a No. 122 KenPom ranking that matches the current standing of the Husky defense. And only twice more has Hurley presided over a defense ranked outside the Top 100, each time coming in his first seasons at Wagner and Rhode Island, respectively. So how does the coach diagnose the issue?

“We haven’t been able to turn these talented nice guys into fierce, savage competitors,” he assessed. “We’ve shown tons of vulnerabilities that our past teams have not shown. Teams with a Top 5 offense that aren’t a good rebounding team, or are not a good defensive team, are soft teams. They’re not tough teams. It just doesn’t reflect who we’ve been.”

“My fear is that we’re such a weak, kind of a soft team that now, (against) the teams that take the court with us, we’ve lost that aura that we’ve had when we’ve taken the court the last couple of years. They see a little bit of it on film when they prepare for us and say, ‘these guys aren’t as vicious and nasty,’ and then they share the court with us and they feel it as well. And that’s become a problem.”

Shortly after Hurley exited his press conference, Diarra was asked if he agreed with his coach’s belief. In a display of candor and accountability not usually seen, the fifth-year senior concurred.

“Yeah, he’s absolutely right,” Diarra deadpanned. “From the top down, we just haven’t been able to do the hard things well, like rebounding the ball on the defensive end, guarding the ball, digging loose balls out. We just haven’t been able to do those this year. I think we need to do a better job as leaders of the team of being a great example, starting with me.”

UConn must turn the page quickly, with its next contest coming at home Tuesday against Butler. After that, a trip to Xavier and a home game against Georgetown precede a three-game gauntlet of sorts against Marquette, St. John’s and the same Creighton team who upended the Huskies Saturday. The return of McNeeley, expected toward the end of this month, will mitigate some of UConn’s inherent problems, but the killer instinct prevalent in each of the last two iterations of Husky basketball is still missing in action. It is the hope of Hurley and his staff that it can be found before it gets too late.

“They’re great guys, but then you take the court and a switch has to flip,” he reiterated. “You have to become a maniacal, ruthless, relentless warrior, competitor, life or death urgency to rebound the ball and win loose balls. It’s about being a warrior, an incredible competitor. There’s a hunger that you have to have when you take the court, there’s a wild desire that you have to have where you will not be denied. That’s not who we’ve been. We haven’t been that.”