UConn’s desperation sparks hot start, carries Huskies to finish line at Marquette

Solo Ball reacts after one of seven 3-pointers as UConn overcame 25 turnovers to defeat Marquette in first of three-game gauntlet to open February. (Photo by UConn Men’s Basketball)

MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Just over three minutes into the second half of UConn’s Saturday night clash with Marquette, Dan Hurley had a defiant, yet passionate question to his team during a timeout.

“With everything we’ve been through this year, how are they more desperate than us?” Hurley demanded, his consternation picked up by the Fox television cameras.

Marquette had cut a deficit that once stood at 22 points before the intermission to nine at that juncture, and would respond with several more rallies even after the Huskies had stemmed the aforementioned tide. But it was UConn, still without Liam McNeeley and Ahmad Nowell—and with a limited Hassan Diarra—who matched its coach’s desire just long enough to emerge from Fiserv Forum with a 77-69 victory over the ninth-ranked Golden Eagles to put an inconsistent January to rest with arguably its biggest and most resonant result in Big East play.

“You’re not coming into this place, versus that coach and this program and you’re not getting out of here clean and easy,” Hurley shared as he recounted his message during the aforementioned timeout. “They were gonna make multiple runs that we would have to respond to, and we were gonna have to hold on and make enough plays at the end of the game, too. The message is these runs are gonna keep coming, and we gotta respond.”

And respond, UConn did. In more ways than one.

Three days removed from a slow start where they trailed DePaul by double digits in the first half Wednesday, the Huskies stormed out to a 14-4 lead in the opening minutes, with three 3-pointers from Jaylin Stewart inflicting enough damage to force Marquette head coach Shaka Smart into a timeout as UConn (16-6, 8-3 Big East) started the game making 14 of its first 20 shots and six of its first eight threes.

“Those points early in the game took the crowd out of it a little bit,” Hurley said of Stewart’s torrid beginning. “Without those points and without that start, we’re not in this position. His start is a big reason why we won.”

The other major contributor was Solo Ball. On a night where Marquette’s frenetic defensive pressure rendered UConn into 25 turnovers, the Huskies needed every bit of Ball’s 25 points and 10 rebounds, the former achieved on 7-of-11 shooting. Each of the sophomore’s made baskets came from beyond the 3-point arc, one backbreaker after another in the second half when it appeared the host Golden Eagles would complete the comeback.

“He hit a big shot every time that we were able to make a run and threaten to come back,” Smart conceded. “He was huge. There’s a lot of stuff underneath that, on both ends of the floor, where we need to be better. UConn deserves a ton of credit, but obviously, our focus is on ourselves and what we can improve. We have to make them miss. That’s our job.”

“We have to have an understanding that beating Marquette is a quality win, and there’s a level of desperation that the other team has when they play us. That’s whether it’s UConn, Butler, Villanova…it doesn’t matter who it is. We talk about that a lot, but acceptance only works 100 percent. If you 75 percent accept that, that ain’t gonna work.”

Circling back to the desperation Hurley cited in the huddle, the UConn coach again called out the lack of a killer instinct among his side Saturday, even after a hard-fought win.

“There was a stretch in the second half where it was like we weren’t desperate enough or urgent enough,” he lamented. “It’s been the story of our season. These are the things that we haven’t done this year that our past teams have done. They were just way hungrier to the ball, especially in the second half. These are things that are gonna happen to us during the course of the year. I’m proud of the win, but we don’t play with that tenacity that our past teams have played with. We got bailed out by Solo having a crazy shooting night.”

“To be able to hold on and win it with the 25 turnovers, it took 60 percent shooting from the field to overcome that, and some clutch shots by this guy.”

That next game comes against a St. John’s team that is now—after UConn’s win Saturday—in sole possession of the Big East lead, and owner of a Top 5 defense in the nation. McNeeley will most likely be good to go against the Red Storm, as will Ahmad Nowell and Hassan Diarra, the latter of whom has been limited in recent games from a mobility perspective. But more importantly, the Huskies get a well-deserved and much-needed break before the Johnnies come to Gampel Pavilion on Friday, a matchup that is sure to be every bit as physical as the gauntlet from which UConn just emerged.

“For us, we gotta get Hassan healthy, and Liam will be at full strength as long as there’s no setbacks,” Hurley said. “We’ll get Nowell back too, I think, and Hassan, they gotta figure that out. We can’t afford to have him hobbling around like that. Obviously, it was a huge win for us, and now we get a chance to get healthy going into the next game. We’re looking a lot healthier.”