UConn flexes its March muscle again, dominates ’Nova down stretch to reach Big East semis

Liam McNeeley celebrates as UConn pulls away from Villanova to cruise into Big East tournament semifinals. (Photo by UConn Men’s Basketball)

NEW YORK — All season, UConn had heard the rumors of its apparent demise.

As the Huskies took a step back in comparison to where they had been the past two seasons, and as St. John’s ascended to the top of the Big East, the two-time reigning national champions seemed to have become something of an afterthought entering this week’s Big East tournament.

Clearly, UConn did not pay the skeptics any mind.

As the calendar has turned to March, Dan Hurley’s team has once again flipped the proverbial switch and resembled the final boss of sorts that it has morphed into during the third month of the year. The latest example of the inevitable transformation came as a Thursday night turned into Friday morning, when the Huskies broke a 51-all tie by closing out Villanova with a 22-5 run over the final 7:31 of their quarterfinal matchup with the Wildcats, powering their way to a 73-56 victory inside Madison Square Garden.

“It’s March,” Alex Karaban declared. “We’re desperate for championships here, so we want to play our best basketball right now. There’s no better time.”

UConn finally played with the urgency Hurley had hoped for all season, particularly over the final push in the second half as the Huskies’ defense shut the door on Villanova and held Eric Dixon to just eight points on the night, his lowest output of the season. With Wooga Poplar carrying the Wildcats through the first half, UConn turned Dixon into a non-factor early in the contest, then shut down the Miami transfer down the stretch to display what Karaban called flashbacks of last year’s push-button runs.

“I feel like, at halftime, we just weren’t guarding very well and we weren’t playing very well,” Hurley recalled. “We were able to just put some game pressure on them, finally get the lead and really execute well and get stops. I thought we made very few mistakes. Obviously, Samson (Johnson) did a great job, Alex did a great job, Tarris (Reed, Jr.) did a great job.”

The Huskies have a similar test to what they faced in the quarterfinals against Dixon in less than 24 hours, facing Creighton and Ryan Kalkbrenner. But regardless of the opponent, UConn’s championship DNA—muscle memory, if you will—has already regenerated to produce the intimidating opponent no program wants to see on the opposite sideline.

“Coach talks about it all the time,” Karaban said. “Wearing that UConn jersey, you have to take honor and pride with it and play with that swagger, especially in March when you want to win championships. There’s no better time to give everything you’ve got right now.”

“Obviously with the NCAA Tournament, you have to have a little magic about you as a program where you have this confidence when this time of year rolls around,” Hurley added. “You think you’re supposed to win. You believe you’re supposed to win.”