No. 11 UConn appears to have its swagger back as it prepares to face Xavier to begin Big East play on Wednesday in Hartford, Conn.
The Huskies (8-3) stumbled to an 0-3 mark in the Maui Invitational during Thanksgiving week, but the two-time defending national champions are now on a four-game winning streak after beating then-No. 8 Gonzaga 77-71 on Saturday in New York.
“We’ve got momentum,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “I think we’re in a good place in terms of our confidence and our belief that we can be where we want to be with this team. We’re excited about Big East play. It’s an awesome conference and the regular season is such a war, and we know Xavier is gonna be a heck of an opener.”
UConn, which is 6-0 at home, may be without center Samson Johnson, who sustained a head injury in the first half against Gonzaga. He left the game and did not return.
Johnson is averaging 7.4 points per game and 2.5 rebounds per game. Following the Saturday victory, Hurley said Johnson was in concussion protocol.
Xavier coach Sean Miller hopes his team can play a cleaner game than it did during a 68-65 road loss to then-No. 22 Cincinnati on Saturday. The Musketeers (8-3) committed 14 turnovers in the rivalry game, and several of those came at key moments.
In the last three minutes of a tight contest, Xavier turned the ball over on consecutive possessions, and the Bearcats turned those giveaways into four points.
“Fourteen turnovers is too many for us to win the game,” Miller said. “… What’s tough is that we just folded in the end with our turnovers. They came in bunches when we needed to be safe, we needed to be poised. In those final … minutes, you can’t play against UC and yourself.
“That’s been something that’s plagued us our entire nonconference season, and it plagued us again (vs. the Bearcats), where we get to the end and we’re not a good finishing team. Tough loss, but we have to be ready for the next task at hand.”
The Musketeers will try to slow a UConn offense led by Alex Karaban, who is averaging 15.6 points per game. Tarris Reed Jr. ranks third among Big East players in rebounding (8.0 per game), and freshman Liam McNeeley is averaging 13.6 points and 6.1 rebounds per game. McNeeley tossed in a career-high 26 points in the victory over Gonzaga.
“He’s playing winning basketball — smart tough basketball,” Hurley said. “He’s doing it at both ends. He’s doing it on the backboard. He’s not volume scoring and there’s so much pressure on him because he’s our second-best player next to (Karaban).”
Karaban added, “Big East play is no joke. I’m glad we proved to everybody who we are, but we have so much more work and so much more we can do as a team.”
Xavier’s Zach Freemantle is fourth among Big East players in both scoring (16.9) and rebounding (7.7). Ryan Conwell (16.5) and Dayvion McKnight (10.3) are the other Musketeers averaging in double figures. Conwell is hitting 3.5 3-pointers per game.
