UConn unable to close out as insecurities mount up in OT loss at Seton Hall

NEWARK, N.J. — After a January that Dan Hurley would sooner want to forget than relive, February has not proven any easier for him or his UConn team.

The second month of the year has largely been a case of one step forward, two steps back for the Huskies. A massive win at Marquette to begin what looked like a get-right stretch was followed by a home loss to St. John’s six days later. And after Hurley channeled Captain Ahab this past Tuesday in Omaha, his white whale of a victory at Creighton was beached on his home turf of New Jersey four days after that, as the Huskies were left searching for answers after two leads of two or more possessions in the final minute of both regulation and overtime evaporated in a 69-68 loss to Seton Hall.

“I feel like we, in the end, got what we deserved in this one,” Hurley lamented as UConn (17-8, 9-5 Big East) walked off the floor at the Prudential Center on the losing end of a road battle with the Pirates for a fourth consecutive season. “We should have won it in regulation, should have won it in overtime, but just did a lot of things that make you look like you’re a poorly-coached team to close out the game multiple times. Credit Shaheen (Holloway) and credit their guys for fighting back at the end of regulation, fighting back at the end of overtime, and just credit us for just really putting forth a regrettable performance.”

In a game where neither side led by more than eight points at any given time, where exactly did it go wrong for UConn? The Huskies recovered from deficits of 25-17 and 35-28, erasing the latter on an 11-2 run capped off by a Solo Ball three that put them ahead by a 39-37 margin with 8:36 to play in regulation. Seton Hall responded, as it would numerous times after that, but a 10-2 UConn spurt seemed to put the game away when Hurley’s team found itself ahead by seven with 45 seconds left in regulation. Then, Dylan Addae-Wusu, making his first appearance since January 28, scored the last eight points of regulation for the homestanding Pirates. The fifth-year senior drew contact from Ball on a 3-point attempt, then drove for a layup after Ball split two free throws. While this went on, UConn’s inbounding issues gave the Pirates new life, as Liam McNeeley committed a 5-second violation after Alex Karaban needed a timeout to extricate himself from Seton Hall’s ball pressure.

Addae-Wusu’s final points of that stretch came after the turnover, when Seton Hall’s hustle led to the veteran draining a game-tying three after Godswill Erheriene’s missed dunk was tipped out to the backcourt and into the hands of Isaiah Coleman, who found an open Addae-Wusu in the left corner. Ball’s running heave at the buzzer fell short, necessitating overtime.

In the extra session, UConn went up five with a minute to go, but was again done in by mental and physical miscues, most notably McNeeley attempting a home run pass off an inbounds following two fortuitous bounces on Erheriene free throws. Karaban tracked down McNeeley’s pass, but his momentum carried him out of bounds, giving Seton Hall another chance to tie the game.

“It’s tough, because Alex is the smartest player and he’s the guy we trust the most with the ball,” Hurley said as he explained the machinations behind the inbounds play. “If it was there, throw it. Obviously a two-hand overhead is not how we wanted (McNeeley) to throw it, but it was Alex going deep and to be honest with you, we were making such weak cuts to get the ball that it was an option. But we didn’t have to throw it.”

Hurley then elected to foul with a three-point lead, an option he eschewed at the end of regulation. Coleman proceeded to make both free throws, cutting the UConn lead to 68-67. But in a flashback to the January 2023 game in Newark, when KC Ndefo completed a double-digit comeback for Seton Hall, Garwey Dual and Scotty Middleton played heroes for the Pirates. Dual stripped Ball off the inbounds, with Middleton picking up the pieces and then getting his own rebound and putback after an initial layup attempt misfired. Hassan Diarra’s ensuing halfcourt attempt clanked off the front rim, leaving the Huskies to contemplate what could have been.

“I just thought (Ball) should have kept the ball there and not tried to split,” a morose Hurley admitted. “He had the one in front of the bench that he turned over. We were soft in the first half offensively. We were weak at the rim with our finishes, and just finding ourselves down eight in the first half, I felt like it was justice today. They deserved to win. We got what we deserved.”

At 9-5 in the Big East, UConn now sits three games behind conference leader St. John’s with six games to play, making a successful defense of its regular season championship improbable, but still not impossible. And while the Huskies’ NCAA Tournament hopes are not entirely damaged even with the magnitude of a loss to a 7-18 Seton Hall team, Hurley knows the aftertaste will linger considerably.

“I’ve never been involved in a game like this,” he said. “The chaos and missing a dunk, and the ball bouncing out and skipping it, then hitting a three and the 26 percent free throw shooter bounces one off the front rim and it goes in, and then banks the other one in…some of the things that went on were beyond description. I sat back there and I didn’t even know what I could possibly say in here, just based on the overall performance and the Keystone Cops shit that went on at the end of regulation, at the end of overtime.”

“When another team’s fouling you and it’s a multiple-possession game, and it’s 40 seconds or whatever, all you gotta do is take care of the ball and make free throws, not foul 3-point shooters. We did all the things that lead to a meltdown like this, and the ramifications of this one will be felt because of all of it.”