injury reports<\/a> at those times during the postseason.<\/p>\nTarris Reed Jr. had one of the greatest individual performances in NCAA Tournament history on Friday night. He scored 31 points on 12-15 from the field and grabbed 27 rebounds and almost singlehandedly carried UConn to the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mindset coming into the game is really just to be dominant,\u201d Reed said after the win. \u201cThis is my last March Madness. My days are numbered in college basketball. Just giving all I got and having fun with the guys around me. We have a special team and special coaching staff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eleven of Reed\u2019s 27 rebounds came on the offensive glass, including a crucial stretch where he grabbed three in a row before Karaban finally knocked down a three to increase the lead. What\u2019s even crazier about a night like that is that the Huskies needed every bit of it. If he \u201conly\u201d goes for 20 and 15, UConn could easily be on its way back to Storrs by now. It\u2019s arguably the greatest individual performance in a program that\u2019s had a plethora of them.<\/p>\n
The Huskies and Bruins have each been plagued by the injury bug the past week or so. As mentioned, both Demary and Stewart are banged up and will be listed as questionable going into Sunday, but Hurley said that they are each \u201cpushing it to the max\u201d to be available.<\/p>\n
UCLA is having its fair share of injury issues as well. Both Donovan Dent and Tyler Bilodeau departed separate games in the Big Ten Tournament last week with injuries. Dent was good to go and played his usual minutes against UCF, but Bilodeau was held out at the last second as a precaution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see how he looks tomorrow,\u201d Cronin said Saturday. \u201cThat\u2019s what happened yesterday. He looked great on Thursday but did not on Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demary Jr. and Bilodeau\u2019s impact on their team is crucial if either one wants to advance. Not having Demary against a UCLA guard room that is deep and talented isn\u2019t a great recipe for success, nor is not having a big like Bilodeau after seeing how dominant Reed was Friday night. You\u2019d love to see the two historic programs battle it out at full strength, but it may come down to the healthier team advancing Sunday.<\/p>\n
Hurley and Cronin share a lot of qualities on the sidelines with their emotions and antics, even if they may disagree with it from time to time. With a combination of the two of them battling it out in the past when Cronin was at Cincinnati and UCLA\u2019s opponent on Friday night, Cronin remarked that he \u201cfelt like he\u2019s back in the American Conference with UCF and UConn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The history with Cronin and UConn stems back years, with Cronin having coached against all three of Jim Calhoun, Kevin Ollie and Hurley during his tenure in Cincinnati. Even if he isn\u2019t regarded well, or disliked, by Husky fans, you have to respect the job that Cronin has done throughout his career. He guided UCLA to the Final Four as an 11-seed and play-in team in 2021 and had another great team in 2023 before losing to Gonzaga in the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n
Hurley echoes the respect that Cronin gives to him, both well aware of their roots as sons of high school coaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I look at Mick and coaches like Mick, they\u2019re all the coaches I have either modeled myself after or admired,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cThey\u2019re the ones who can balance holding their players to the highest standard where the players have that respectful fear of their coach, and they love playing for their coach, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
The media portrays both coaches as complainers and crybabies, and while they occasionally have their moments, you don\u2019t see many head-to-head matchups between coaches like this in the Round of 32 very often.<\/p>\n
Rookie struggles continue<\/p>\n
There was always a world where Mullins figured it out in his first NCAA Tournament game and took March Madness by storm from beyond the arc, but that world isn\u2019t this one. Mullins shot 0-8 from three on Friday night against Furman, the first time he failed to make a three in a game since he was inserted into the starting lineup post-injury in December.<\/p>\n
Could it still just be a slump for Mullins? If what we\u2019ve seen from him in games such as the road win at Providence or that aforementioned game in Storrs against Creighton, there\u2019s still obvious reason to believe in a resurgence. Still, 20% over the past calendar month-plus is concerning and trending towards exiting slump territory.<\/p>\n
UCLA boasts one of the more unique starting backcourts in the country. The Bruins start three \u201cundersized\u201d guards in Dent, Skyy Clark and Trent Perry and each of the three has the free will to control the offense and take over games, especially driving to the basket.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got three guys with point guard type of handle,\u201d Hurley said Saturday. \u201cThey just take a lot of pressure off of each other. And then the shooting scoring that they have been able to put around Dent allows him to just pick his spots when he wants to score it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest reason that UConn was struggling to get stops on the defensive end during its cold stretch in February was their ability to fail to contain people blowing past and not having a great second line of defense. Since then, guys like Jayden Ross have stepped up on the perimeter and Reed has evolved even more as a shot blocking threat in the short time. UCLA is still going to stick to its identity with its gameplan, but the Huskies have built a solid foundation over the past few games to counter them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UConn men\u2019s basketball (30-5) is looking to punch its ticket to the East Regionals in Washington D.C. next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,2681],"class_list":{"0":"post-672482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-uconn-mens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116272415307863655","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}