Through battle-hardened OOC slate, UConn has learned and honed resilience entering second half of season

Alex Karaban and Dan Hurley have led UConn to 17-1 start in which Huskies have learned their identity through resilience and adversity. (Photo by UConn Athletics)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — UConn has played six ranked opponents this season. Its only loss was a four-point defeat to the current No. 1 team in the country while its senior center was unavailable. It currently stands third in the nation, and will most likely rise to second in the new polls this coming Monday after Iowa State’s loss to Kansas.

Casual observers may see the Huskies’ 17-1 record and assume there may be little more upon which to improve. But the sensational start begs the question: What has UConn realized most to date in a campaign that could very well end with a third national championship in four seasons at the rate the program is going?

Alex Karaban, the most consistent presence in the room amid a fluid landscape in and out of Connecticut, credits the early-season mitigation of injuries to Braylon Mullins and Tarris Reed, Jr. as one of the major galvanizing points behind this latest iteration of success.

“We’ve learned how to stay together,” he revealed after UConn’s win at Seton Hall last Tuesday. “We’ve learned how to battle through adversity and just always finding that will to win a game. That’s what we found out (at Seton Hall), at Providence, and now we’ve just gotta take what’s happened and just learn from it moving forward.”

One of Karaban’s fellow veterans in the locker room concurred, praising his teammates for their collective resolve.

“Just our resilience and our adversity,” Silas Demary, Jr. pointed to as factors that have impressed him most. “I think being able to come out on the winning side of a close game, even when a team is clawing back, even looking back to BYU. They made a big run and we were able to hold them off, so just being able to be resilient and fight through that adversity late in the game, knowing that we’re good even when they’re putting the pressure on us. We’ve just gotta take a deep breath and know that we can still win this game.”

In 18 games this season, UConn has played six within five points or less, and a seventh against Texas was decided by just eight points. Head coach Dan Hurley acknowledged the slew of nail-biter affairs his team has contested, and has also leaned on that as a sharpener of sorts for his group as it approaches the halfway point of the conference season, and perhaps the season as a whole.

“We’ve had to play some close games,” he said. “We let BYU back in the game, obviously without Braylon playing and Tarris with a leaky hamstring in that one, the Florida game at MSG, the Arizona game at home. We’ve played some tight games in such a great non-conference slate that prepared us.”

The only red mark on the ledger separating the Huskies from perfection is a 71-67 defeat at the hands of Arizona on November 19. In that game, freshman center Eric Reibe played a majority of minutes with Reed nursing a hamstring injury. Mullins, who missed the first six games of the year due to a high ankle sprain, was integral to the come-from-behind win at Providence on January 7, and saved the Seton Hall game with a block of a potential game-tying three-point attempt in the final seconds. Although a freshman himself, the Indiana native has matured on the fly and not only knows what to expect in the weeks to come, but also gave credence to his upperclassman teammates who have been down this road before and know how to properly react.

“We all have that mentality,” Mullins said. “It’s just like, you gotta come into these (thinking) everything’s gonna be a dogfight, every team’s gonna bring their best when they’re playing UConn. We’ve got grit, and I feel like we can win in any building, especially on the road. We’ve got guys, we’ve got leaders on the team who are like, ‘hey, we have a good team.’ We’re not gonna back down, we’re not gonna lay off the gas.”

Inevitably, though, there have been instances where the Huskies have let their guard down. Hurley did not shy away from that last week, as he bemoaned having to reinsert his starting lineup in the final minutes of a win over DePaul, sending a message to his second unit to not let up regardless of the margin of any lead. UConn’s rim protector did not make excuses for the missteps, but did herald his teammates for not losing their composure and coming together to salt away games, owing that to the difficulty of practices, a Hurley staple.

“We’ve made a lot of mistakes down the stretch, but we’re poised,” Reed said. “I feel like practice is a huge indicator of that, just being in that chaotic environment in practice that Coach Hurley just gives us every day, it really helps us down the stretch. In those moments, we’ve gotta trust each other more, so I feel like we’ve been really, really blessed.”

At stake Saturday at Georgetown is a chance for UConn to cement itself further as a national championship contender, even if a win against the Hoyas does little to advance a set of already impressive metrics. But with the road the Huskies have already traveled to this point, and having gotten off to their best start in Big East play since the 1998-99 season that brought the first of six titles to Storrs, there is room for reflection while also being cognizant of what remains ahead.

“It’s really hard to get to 17-1,” Hurley admitted. “It’s really hard to go 7-0 in the league. I think the schedule that we’ve played and the injuries we dealt with, the team’s got the potential to be a great team and compete for the championships.”