Connecticut has been a top-5 team all season, but the Huskies have struggled defensively lately and it was a problem again on Wednesday night. Creighton tore them apart in a 91-84 home loss for UConn, their second defeat in two weeks.
In the past three-plus seasons, Danny Hurley's Connecticut basketball team has won two national championships, and had been dominant in Big East play, going 59-17 in conference games.
But after Wednesday's stunning 91-84 home loss to a Creighton team that's already lost 13 games, the Huskies are suddenly looking up at St. John's in the conference standings. Sure, No. 5-ranked UConn is 24-3 and 14-2 in the Big East, but Wednesday's loss revealed some serious defensive deficiencies, and on their home court, no less.
Here's a story on the game from UConn Roundtable writer Jami Leabow.
Hurley has been concerned with the Huskies' defense for a while now, but he didn't hold back in ripping into them after Wednesday's loss. They gave up 81 points in their Feb. 6 loss to St. John's, too. The Red Storm are now a half-game ahead of UConn in the Big Ten standings.
Connecticut was a 15.5-favorite in the game.
"The defense has been a joke," Hurley told reporters after the game. "It was a game of just really bad individual defense.
"Our defense has been so bad. We've been playing with fire. Obvioulsy, overall defense was just dreadful. You’re in trouble to start the game when you’re subbing people within the first minute, minute and a half of the game on blown assignments. I mean, I could have just done that the whole game because it was a game of just really bad individual defense.”
Creighton’s Josh Dix, who lost his mother to cancer a a few weeks ago, scored 21 points and Nike Graves added 18 as the Bluejays shot 10-for-21 from three-point range while also making deep while also making 27-of-32 free throws — good for 84 percent. The Huskies made only 11 free throws.
The Bluejays (14-13, 8-8 in Big East) outrebounded the Huskies 41-35 and were plus-10 on the defensive boards. UConn also gave up 30 points in the paint the Creighton and fouled them 21 times.
This was a crazy turnaround from their first meeting in Omaha, Neb., on Jan. 31. UConn won that game 85-58, making 16 threes while the Blue Jays only made five and got outrebounded 37-24.
"It was a perfect offensive game for us, against a very good team.'' Creighton coach ''We were able to attack the rim early in the game. We've talked since the Villanova game about our pace, and how it had fallen. We were able to get downhill, get in the paint, get to the free throw line. And we made our free throws.''