University of Connecticut Athletics
UConn MBB Sets High Defensive Bar In Win Over Creighton
1/18/2024 11:16:00 PM | Men's Basketball
By PHIL CHARDIS
Special to uconnhuskies.com
STORRS, Conn. -- Coming into Wednesday's game against UConn, the No. 18 Creighton Bluejays had won four straight BIG EAST Conference games, had three of the top 12 scorers and two of the top five rebounders in the league. As a team, the Bluejays were shooting .458 overall, .307 from three-point range, had a plus-6.0 rebounding advantage and a 71.5 points per game average.
UConn's defensive game plan, to put it in its most simple terms, was to put the clamps on Baylor Scheierman, Trey Alexander and Ryan Kalkbrenner.
Mission accomplished. UConn's sixth consecutive victory was a 62-48 thrashing of Creighton
The Creighton trio was averaging a combined 50.4 points per game. Wednesday? They scored a combined 29. They were pulling down a combined 24.4 rebounds per game. Wednesday? They grabbed a combined 17, and only 2 of them were offensive rebounds. They were shooting a combined .483 from the floor. Wednesday? They shot a combined .393.
In fact, UConn held the Bluejays to .346 shooting, their second-worst of the season. The Huskies outrebounded Creighton by 16, the Bluejays' worst differential of the season, and UConn had 21 offensive rebounds, by far the most given up this year by Creighton. Creighton scored only 48 points, equaling its season-low.
In short, it was a Huskies' defensive clinic. Their ball pressure was relentless and their rotations were sharp – open looks were scarce for Creighton. Add in the return of center Donovan Clingan from his foot injury and UConn's defense is a scary thought for future opponents.
"We weren't very good," Creighton Coach Greg McDermott said, "and UConn had almost everything to do with that."
For UConn Coach Dan Hurley, the performance meant gratification – the shortcomings his team had exhibited over its last few games – even though they were wins – had all but disappeared.
"The question marks about this team and its ability to do the things we aspire to do were answered tonight," he said. "The defense, I thought, looked like a vintage defensive performance for us and a vintage rebounding performance for us versus people that are hard to do those things against. Creighton is one of the best teams in the county."
Hurley explained some of the reasons he thought were behind the Huskies' defensive resurgence.
"Luke (assistant coach Murray) did a great job with the scout," he said, 'but we've been harping on how it has dropped precipitously since the beginning of the year. Now, some of that has to do with Donovan (his absence due to injury) – he obviously changes things. But that's what was going to hold this group back. We're a tremendous offensive team, with Donovan back we're going to become more dangerous and better at both ends of the court and the backboard. Donovan is one of the most impactful players in the country. Last year, we were elite on offense, we were elite on defense and we were an elite rebounding team. That's why we won it."
If Wednesday night is any indication, the Huskies could be on their way to that three-pronged elite status again. While it was the kind of defense and rebounding effort that Hurley would like to see for the rest of the regular season and beyond, it was not one of UConn's better offensive games. The Huskies can be proud of their 21 offensive rebounds, leading to 19 second-chance points, but part of the reason for those was that they missed 45 shots. UConn shot just .357 overall and .263 from three-point range.
Even so, forward Alex Karaban called it UConn's best overall game of the season.
"Just the toughness, just the attitude that we had," Karaban said. "Everyone was locked in. Everyone was locked in defensively. Offensively, we shared, we created for each other. We just were a lot tougher than we had been in previous games.
"But we still know we could have played way better. We still made mistakes, but we know what the standard is now. We can always flip back on this tape and see how energized, how locked in we were into this game. We just have to continue that for the next 13 Big East games."
