Every win counts the same as the UConn men’s basketball team continues its pursuit of a Big East regular-season title. That includes a game like the top-ranked Huskies have in store for Wednesday, as heavy favorites on the road against last-place DePaul.
Dan Hurley, the Huskies’ head coach who would much prefer a top-five matchup – like the one on deck for Saturday against No. 4 Marquette – is focused on weeding out the human nature element that frustrated him during the second half of Saturday’s blowout at Georgetown. Measuring his team only against the standard it has set for itself, Hurley also noted that the Huskies “didn’t play well” against DePaul when they met in early January, a 29-point UConn win in Storrs without center Donovan Clingan.
“The benefit for us is this time of year you have to be playing championship-worthy basketball if you want to pursue championships at this point. There’s a ton to gain by winning and playing to the standard,” Hurley said. “And we look around college basketball and see just teams in general struggling on the road or in conference games period, so it’s a chance to get another road win.”
UConn is 5-2 on the road this season, 5-1 in Big East play, with its two toughest road trips yet to come against Creighton (Feb. 20) and Marquette (March 6). Prior to games tipping off Tuesday night, the Huskies have a 2 1/2-game advantage over Marquette and a four-game lead on Creighton in the Big East standings.
DePaul, on the opposite end of the spectrum, has yet to win a game in the league this year.
“Playing those big, high-level games is not going to affect your seeding a great deal if you’re unsuccessful, whereas these types of games, the Quad 3/Quad 4 road games, they’re brutal games to play because they’re loseable games and they could potentially wreck months of great work,” Hurley said. “And then the human nature piece with your team and with young people, especially when it’s been so long since you’ve lost a game.
“Just really trying to hammer that home to our players: If we stray from what we do, if we get away from our identity, we’re as vulnerable as any team in the country.”
UConn enters Wednesday’s game having won 12 in a row, the nation’s longest active winning streak and the longest in the Big East since Villanova also won 12 consecutive in 2015. The 22-2 start is the program’s best since it began the 2008-09 season winning 24 of its first 25 games.
DePaul has lost 11 in a row and, 20 days after the matchup in Storrs, fired its head coach Tony Stubblefield. Matt Brady was named the interim but the results haven’t gotten any better with the Blue Demons losing all five games since by an average of 24.4 points.
Hurley said his team will come into the matchup healthy, with Alex Karaban feeling better almost two weeks removed from his sprained ankle against Providence and Tristen Newton also on the mend after playing the Georgetown game with a bruised hand.
Karaban combined with Cam Spencer to score 37 of UConn’s 85 points in the first matchup with the Blue Demons, the sharpshooting duo joining to shoot 7 of 11 from 3-point land. Newton only took three shots in 23 minutes, his only scoreless performance of the year, but had five rebounds and seven assists. DePaul got 19 points from its second-leading scorer Da’Sean Nelson, who also had three offensive rebounds, and 17 from Texas Tech transfer Elijah Fisher as UConn limited the Blue Demons’ leading scorer Chico Carter Jr. to just three points on 1 of 9 shooting.
“We just try to stay as consistent with our messaging throughout the year,” Hurley said. “…But also now, this time of the year, sprinkling in that you’ve got to be in championship mode every time that you step on the court. Because we are approaching the time of year, both with the regular season, with the Big East Tournament and with March Madness, where it’s the ultimate pressure moments. So everyone knows what’s at stake, the information is readily available.”
A win Wednesday puts the Huskies one step closer to the program’s first Big East regular season title since 2005-06. UConn hasn’t won the Big East Tournament since 2011.
“The great thing for us this time of year is when you coach or play at UConn, you have the benefit of playing with constant pressure because of the history and the expectations of UConn,” Hurley said. “Other programs that have the benefit of flying more under the radar, they don’t maybe have that constant pressure that we just have become accustomed to coaching and playing with.”
What to know
Site: Wintrust Arena, Chicago
Time: 9 p.m.
Records: No. 1 UConn: 22-2 (12-1 Big East), DePaul: 3-20 (0-12 Big East)
Series history: UConn leads, 18-1
Last meeting: Jan. 2, 2024 – UConn 85, DePaul 56 at Gampel Pavilion
TV: CBS Sports Network – Rich Waltz, Dan Dickau and Keiana Martin
Radio: UConn Sports Network on 97.9 WUCS – Mike Crispino, Wayne Norman
Pregame reading:
