For the fourth time in the last five years, the UConn men’s basketball team (23-10, 14-6 Big East) fell in the semifinal round of the Big East Tournament. Two of those came at the hands of the Creighton Bluejays (24-9, 15-5 Big East), who won the season series tiebreaker against UConn, 2-1.
Ryan Kalkbrenner won the tip for Creighton and the Bluejays instantly got to work. Jamiya Neal, who scored 24 points at UConn on Jan. 18, scored the team’s first nine points. He finished the first half with 13 points on 4-5 shooting.
“Just the way that Neal started the game, just scoring one-on-one in a variety of fashions, we were just so weak guarding the ball,” UConn head coach Dan Hurley said in the postgame press conference.
On the other hand, Hassan Diarra started heating up early by making his first three 3-pointers. Nicknamed the “General,” he had 11 points in the first eight minutes of the game to lead all scorers.
Alex Karaban tied the game at 15 points on a floater and would knot the game up again at 28 points before Creighton went on a 7-0 run to take its largest lead of the game up to that point.
Connecticut’s defense was a shell of Thursday night’s performance, allowing the Bluejays to score 46 points, shoot 75% from the field and make their last eight shots.
“It’s hard to fix your defense at this point of the year,” Hurley said.
There are few better performances in the first 20 minutes than the first-half performance from Jasen Green, who scored a career-high 15 points on a perfect 7-7 shooting. It was a remarkable performance from the Omaha, Neb. native, who came into the game averaging 4.3 points per game on 52.6% shooting.
Just before the first half closed, Aidan Mahaney drilled a 3-pointer that stopped the bleeding.
After holding Villanova’s Eric Dixon, the nation’s leading scorer, under double digits for the first time in 47 games, they held Ryan Kalkbrenner to just four points in the first half.
Karaban did not see much of the second half due to getting into foul trouble, picking up his third and fourth foul not even five minutes into the half.
UConn got within five thanks to a 15-0 run, capped off by a Mahaney 3-pointer that forced Creighton head coach Greg McDermott to call timeout.
Kalkbrenner improved in the second half but was not the Big East Player of the Year-caliber player that he was all season long. He finished the game with 12 points on 5-13 shooting.
Neal continued to shine, getting up to 16 points with 5:16 left in the second half, including a 3-pointer that forced Hurley to call timeout.
Green stayed hot and efficient. Before Friday night, he had three double-figure games throughout the season. He scored 19 points on 8-10 shooting from the floor.
“You’re going to lose if a five-point-a-game scorer is at 17 at halftime,” Hurley said.
Liam McNeeley was confident in his offensive ability, despite not making a 3-pointer the entire game. He kept his head down and tried to draw fouls to give the Huskies a chance to get to the free-throw line. However, he did not provide the answer UConn was looking for. The reigning Big East Freshman of the Year shot 6-20 from the field.
Even though Connecticut got within three points of the Bluejays, they were not successful as they fell short of yet another comeback where they were down double digits.
The game did not end without tempers flaring, as Neal’s last-second dunk provided confrontation from Hassan Diarra. Neal and Diarra were assessed technical fouls, while Jayden Ross was ejected for coming off the bench.
“I mean, they were already up with seven seconds left,” Diarra said. “He didn’t want to dribble the ball out. Went in for a fancy dunk. I just felt it was disrespectful to the game of basketball.”
Neal, who finished the game with 19 points, did apologize, saying that he regretted the dunk and got caught up in the moment. Diarra seemed to have eyes on the next prize available, a third consecutive national championship.
“Like Coach [Hurley] said, we’re going to flush [the loss] out, break down the film, watch our mistakes and come together and try to fix them,” he said. “We’re going to be ready for the NCAA Tournament.”
Now, the wait begins to see where they will be for the NCAA Tournament, with the Selection Show beginning on Sunday at 6 p.m. on CBS. The assumption is that UConn will be in the 8-9 game, but all is to be determined.