RALEIGH, N.C. — Pretty? Goodness, no.
But style points aren’t a requisite for NCAA Tournament advancement. And at this point, that’s all UConn cares about. Who cares if the Huskies’ 67-59 win over Oklahoma on Friday night, in a slog of an 8/9 game, was unlike anything from the program’s past two postseasons? What matters is that Dan Hurley’s team won, extending its tournament winning streak to 13 games — and, most importantly, keeping alive its dream of a three-peat.
At least for another 48 hours, that is.
“The championship pedigree, it’s still there for us,” Hurley said postgame. “There’s a belief in the UConn jersey this time of year, with the history of success.”
That’s the bottom line: The Huskies, by virtue of their first-round win over the Sooners, get to keep dancing. No points docked for committing 25 personal fouls and sending Oklahoma to the free-throw line a staggering 27 times. No punishment for shooting a disastrous 24 percent from 3, the team’s worst perimeter performance since its 6-for-23 effort from deep against St. John’s on Feb. 23. An unhappy Hurley, maybe — “there was a lot of suffering going on,” the coach joked — but that’s nothing the Huskies haven’t already experienced this season, amid the two-time defending champs’ fall back to normalcy.
The dynasty Hurley has built in Storrs isn’t — or hasn’t been — satisfied with celebrating singular March Madness wins. UConn is used to being the boulder, of mowing down anyone and everyone unfortunate enough to be in its path. But as has been abundantly clear since the Huskies’ 0-3 no-show in November in Maui, this team is not like the two that preceded it.
All of which is to say, this UConn team should savor its accomplishment while it can.
That Friday’s game was close at all was a testament to Oklahoma’s fortitude, especially that of star freshman Jeremiah Fears, who wound up scoring 20 of the Sooners’ points and making five of their 17 total baskets. He was, at times, the only offensive player capable of creating anything for Porter Moser’s team. There’s no better example of that than the final 10:22 before halftime, when OU mustered a single basket … but kept its halftime deficit at a manageable 6 points by living at the free-throw line.
That — a complete inability to defend without fouling — has been as much a hallmark of these Huskies as anything. But down the stretch, when Hurley’s team most needed to summon something that could save their season, they did. After trailing for 17 seconds with about nine minutes to play, after Mohamed Wague scored a put back and-1, Solo Ball hit a midrange jumper on the other end that gave UConn back the lead — for good, it turned out.
Down the stretch, Ball, backup big Tarris Reed — who had 12 points and seven rebounds in just 20 foul-plagued minutes — and trusty veteran Alex Karaban did just enough to clinch a UConn win.
Karaban, the lone returning starter from the Huskies’ championship squads, fittingly had the decisive sequence with just about four minutes to play. Karaban drove but was called for a charge with 4:11 to play, his third personal, with the Huskies desperately clinging to a one-point cushion. But the very next possession? Karaban drained a 3 from the right wing that gave UConn the little breathing room it needed to stave off Oklahoma’s last-ditch effort.
“I just saw I was wide open, and Tarris had a great screen. I see Fears closing out late, so I decided to take it,” Karaban said. “I passed one up in the corner, and I should have shot that one too, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.”
That wound up being the only 3 Karaban made all night.
“We were on life support,” Hurley said of Karaban’s game-deciding triple. “We needed one of (him or freshman Liam McNeeley) to step up and make some shots, and it was Alex.”
Oklahoma, meanwhile, made only one shot over the game’s final six minutes.
Next up? A role reversal of epic proportions, and a date with No. 1 Florida, arguably the best team in America right now.
Hurley said postgame that Florida’s roster construction — especially the Gators’ skilled two-way bigs and glut of perimeter threats — reminded him of his own rosters, at least for most of the past three seasons. And while UConn will surely dive fully into its scout with the Oklahoma game behind it, Hurley and his staff at least have some knowledge of Florida’s roster already. The Huskies played at Florida in Dec. 2022, four months before Hurley won his first title, and UConn’s first NCAA Tournament game that same season came against an Iona team that featured current UF guard Walter Clayton Jr.
It’s not much, but this time of year? Every bit of familiarity helps.
And no program is more familiar with what it takes to keep advancing than UConn.
Just ask Hurley: “Somebody’s going to have to put us down in this tournament for us to go away.”
(Photo of Dan Hurley: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
