UConn basketball‘s early woes have continued, losing to Dayton in a deflating 85-67 blowout at the Maui Invitational. In what has been three consecutive losses to unranked teams for the Huskies, head coach Dan Hurley has taken a lot of flak with each day of the tournament, and he addressed his squad’s struggles in Hawaii this week.
Hurley mentioned in the postgame press conference “it was scary that a 5-point game with 5 minutes to go” turned into a total blowout. The Huskies were down 41-34 at halftime, and they had the deficit cut to 58-55 after a Solo Ball three-pointer at the 7:24 mark in the second half.
It appears that the Huskies have lost their magic from the last two national championship seasons. Hurley’s 2023-24 team had three total losses on the entire year, which is wildly alarming to see just how far they’ve fallen since early April.
Can UConn basketball quickly recover from the early slump?
UConn should have a great chance to bounce back against Maryland Eastern Shore on Saturday when the team returns home to Hartford.
The Huskies must improve on their perimeter defense and rebounding, as they allowed Dayton to shoot 47.1 percent from behind the arc, and were defeated on the glass 41 to 25. UConn’s offense also went 8-of-29 from three.
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It’s been a rough transition moving on from last season’s star players Stephon Castle, Donovan Clingan, Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer – all selections in the 2024 NBA Draft.
Junior forward Alex Karaban suffered a head injury against Dayton, so the team will have to closely monitor his status ahead of Saturday’s game.
Hurley has to find a way to get more out of his rotational weapons. Karaban leads the team in scoring (15.9 points per game) and should be able to continue shooting at a high clip, but the other players in the lineup have to step up and contribute if they are going to get out of this rut.