University of Connecticut Athletics
Castle-Diarra Defense Key To Huskies' NCAA Round 2 Win
3/25/2024 3:05:00 PM | Men's Basketball
By PHIL CHARDIS
Special to uconnhuskies.com
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – When the UConn coaching staff did its scouting report on NCAA second-round opponent Northwestern, Boo Buie's name was at the top.
There were certainly others with talent on the Northwestern roster that UConn would have to deal with, but it was clear that any discussion of shutting down the Wildcats' offense would have to start with Buie. The grad student guard, a First Team All-Big Ten selection and Northwestern's all-time leading scorer with more than 2,100 career points, led the team in scoring at 19.3 points per game this season, had 18 games of 20 points or more and was the Wildcats' top shooting threat, hitting 44.7 percent overall and an impressive 44.1 percent from three-point range.
The Huskies' solution? Stephon Castle and Hassan Diarra.
The result? It was 30 minutes before Buie scored his first basket of the game and that came on a putback of his 10th missed shot. The Northwestern star finished with 9 inconsequential points on 2-of-15 shooting as top-seeded UConn rolled to a 75-58 victory and earned a berth in the NCAA Sweet 16, meeting No. 5 seed San Diego State on Thursday (7:39 p.m.) at TD Garden in Boston. The game is a rematch of last season's National Championship contest.
"I just tried to use my athleticism against him, use my height advantage against him," Castle said afterward about Buie. "On film, I thought he looked better than he played. He might have had a bad game – I don't know if that was because of my defense or not, but he wasn't what I thought he was going to be. I thought we kind of showed that."
Castle and Diarra tag-teamed the defense on Buie and never let the Northwestern star find and uncontested shot.
"We practice super hard every day, just to be able to guard like that," Castle said. "We've been doing it all year, so what better time to show it?"
"We understood that he's a very good player and as he goes, the team goes, so we were just locked in on him defensively," Diarra added. "I think it was a team effort – Donovan (Clingan) and those high flats, being very active, Samson (Johnson) with his high hedges are amazing, guys are in the gaps, rotating. I think it was a team effort slowing him down. Steph just has these tools, he's been physically gifted, and he's able to use these tools against anybody. He can guard one through four, just an amazing defender and he's relentless. His motor just keeps going and going."
The Huskies got the sense that Buie was getting frustrated.
"Yeah, maybe late in the second half," Diarra said. "I would be frustrated too."
UConn Coach Dan Hurley explained the Huskies' defensive game plan, which limited Northwestern to 25.8 percent shooting in the first half, when the Huskies built an insurmountable 40-18 lead.
"Steph just causes problems – the size, the foot speed, the strength. He's the anti-entitled five-star freshman. He does nothing but help his team win," Hurley said. "We felt like the only way they could beat us today was if they made lot of threes. If Boo was hitting sick, deep Trae Young-type threes, like he's made throughout his career, So we blew everything up, got over everything. We're uber aggressive with our centers and we are really trying to funnel the ball to their five men. That was the game plan."
Northwestern was just 4-of-15 from three-point range as a team and Buie was 0-of-3.
"Steph was the reason we won this game, I firmly believe," Alex Karaban said. "What he did defensively on Buie, who is an All-American capable guard, just shutting him down with his physicality and strength. He continues to show why he's the best freshman in the country, not just offensively, but what he brings defensively. You could tell they were getting frustrated with how their offense was going and that's a credit to our defense. We thought that they hadn't seen a defense like ours, where we'll pressure and really get after them."
The guards' defensive blanket over Buie was helped by the rim protection provided by Clingan, who set a UConn record for an NCAA Tournament game with 8 blocked shots.
"Steph and Hass just locked him up," Clingan said. "They talked about it before the game and at halftime, just trying to give him nothing easy. I was just trying to protect the rim. I was telling everyone to force him into me, force everyone into me, stay on your feet, don't foul and if they make the shot, and I don't block it, that's on me."
Suffice it to say, Northwestern didn't make enough shots. When it came to the UConn defense, the only thing better than the game plan was its execution.
