Wednesday night is expected to be a special one for the UConn men’s basketball team. It also serves as an opportunity for the fanbase to bring the noise.
After Saturday night’s win over Georgetown, Dan Hurley expressed his frustration with the atmosphere at Harry A. Gampel Pavilion and PeoplesBank Arena.
There are a ton of reasons why the fifth-ranked Huskies (24-2, 14-1 Big East) can expect a more raucous environment as they host the Creighton Bluejays (13-13, 7-8 Big East) at Gampel Pavilion.
UConn has many promotions for this game: white-out, $2 Miller Lites, free t-shirts and Emeka Okafor’s jersey number retirement, the latter of which also includes posters handed out for the jersey number retirement.
The athletic department has also played a key role in helping the student section. In a Top Dogs email sent out to students on Monday night, students are now able to transfer student tickets to other students if unable to attend. While there is a concern for reselling tickets, there is an attempt to make the atmosphere rocking. There were also 150 more student tickets for the Creighton game that dropped at 8 p.m. Monday.
UConn came close to losing against Georgetown on Saturday, with the bench production being an issue once again.
“I feel like probably one of the easiest parts of my job is doling out minutes with players. If you’re hurting a team over a stretch of multiple possessions — offense, defense — I’m going to get you off the court,” Hurley said. “We need the bench guys to step up so I could play them more…At times [this year], the bench has been the strength.”
That was not the case the last time these two teams met. UConn had its most complete performance in Big East play, defeating Creighton 85-58. The Huskies had 20 bench points and connected on 16 3-pointers, with Braylon Mullins leading the way with 16 points.
However, Tarris Reed Jr. was not as impactful in that game, like his performance on Saturday. Eric Reibe stepped up with 10 points off the bench on 5-of-7 shooting against the Hoyas. Reed only had 4 points and fouled out. The rebounding was a concern for the bigs, combining for just three rebounds.
“Eric saved us with his offense,” Hurley said after the game on Saturday. “But to get three rebounds from the center position, that (expletive) didn’t happen when it was Adama [Sanogo]-Donovan [Clingan]. It just didn’t (expletive) happen.”
Silas Demary Jr. has looked great lately. The Georgia transfer nearly had his second triple-double of the season, finishing the game with 15 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists.
“He’s closer to playing more like a first-team all-league/one of the couple guys, for us, for Big East Player of the Year,” Hurley said, still calling for him to be added to the Bob Cousy Award watch list. “He’s playing a little bit like Tristen [Newton] did in year two.”
However, no one has been more impactful in the past two games than Solo Ball, who was named the Big East Player of the Week. After his shooting splits became a concern, he scored at least 20 points against Butler and Georgetown, with the latter game including 16 of his 20 points coming in the first half. With the final few weeks of the regular season on the horizon, it is important for him to get back to dominating consistently on the offensive end.
“He’s really finding his groove right now,” Alex Karaban, coming off an 18-point performance on Saturday, said. “Just his offensive ability itself just makes everyone’s life so much easier on the court, just spacing-wise and how much attention he draws. So, for him to be playing this type of basketball right now, this late in the season, is incredible, and I know he’ll continue.”
Connecticut’s defense has taken a dip recently, now considered a fringe top-10 team on that end of the floor, according to KenPom. The missing piece, according to Hurley, is a wing defender.
“This team doesn’t start a guy who identifies as a shutdown wing defender,” Hurley said, noting that the 2022-23 team had Andre Jackson Jr. and the 2023-24 team had Stephon Castle. “We need those guys [on the wing] to play good defense.”
Creighton is in the middle of a down-year, losing key pieces, including Ryan Kalkbrenner from last season and Jackson McAndrew, out for the year with a foot injury. Creighton has lost five of its last six games.
“I don’t think there’s anyone that you ever have more respect as a program that you coach against,” Hurley said. “We’ve got the ultimate respect for Creighton, so we know we can’t perform the way we performed the other night.”
Josh Dix has stepped up as the Bluejays’ leader, earning a spot on the Big East Weekly Honor Roll after averaging 13.5 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists per game. He leads the team in scoring with 12 points per contest, with Austin Swartz (11.5 ppg), Jasen Green (10.6 ppg) and Nik Graves (10 ppg) all averaging double-figures.
Creighton leads the all-time series, 9-4, but UConn has taken two of the last three meetings (both in Omaha). UConn, a 12-1 record at home this season, has only beaten the Bluejays at home twice.
Tip-off from the Basketball Capital of the World is set for 7 p.m. and can be watched on TNT and HBO Max.