“You want to play your best basketball heading into the Big East Tournament and March,” Alex Karaban said after the UConn men’s basketball team (22-9, 14-6 Big East) ended the regular season with an 81-50 win over Seton Hall.
As the Huskies defend their Big East Tournament title, they must continue playing their best basketball. They have won five of their last six games, including a revenge win over its quarterfinal opponent: the Villanova Wildcats (19-13, 11-9 Big East).
The Wildcats had won three straight before dropping its regular season finale at Georgetown.
However, they bounced back on Wednesday night to close out a tripleheader first round at Madison Square Garden.
Villanova defeated Seton Hall 67-55 behind Wooga Poplar, who scored 13 points and grabbed 10 rebounds on 5-10 shooting. UConn head coach Dan Hurley has called Poplar an NBA player on numerous occasions and could give the Huskies fits.
Each of the first two meetings has come within single digits, including a heartbreaking upset loss on the road after Alex Karaban missed a pair of free throws that could have tied the game and taken the lead.
Villanova, like they have all year, is powered by the nation’s leading scorer Eric Dixon, who averages 23.5 points per game going into Thursday’s nightcap. That takes into account the 20 points he scored in the second half after sitting most of the first half due to foul trouble.
With a rivalry so fierce and so much on the line, do not expect these two teams to be kind to each other. At the 7:55 mark in the first half of Villanova’s win over the Pirates, the two teams got into a scuffle after elbows were being thrown before both teams were separated.
Seton Hall did climb back into the game within eight points, but the Wildcats surged back to take a 21-point lead with 12:38 remaining in the game.
Circling back to the quote at the beginning of the article, Karaban’s confidence plummeted after missing those two free throws in the first of the two regular-season games against Villanova and played at a level beneath him for a significant stretch. It could be a redemption arc for the two-time national champion as he is playing his best basketball right now, averaging 16.4 points per game in his last five games. His true shooting percentage is up in that span at 64.6%, which ranks in the 90th percentile nationally.
The center duo of Samson Johnson and Tarris Reed Jr. is trending in the right direction. Johnson had his first career double-double in his final home game as a Husky. Reed, on the other hand, had a career performance at Providence and produced a 13-point performance off the bench the last time the two Big East foes met.
The Huskies will face the Wildcats in hopes of making the semifinal round of the Big East Tournament for the fifth consecutive time. Villanova still holds the edge in the all-time series, 40-37.
The Huskies’ road to a ninth Big East Tournament title begins with a 9:30 p.m. tip-off on FS1.