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Connecticut's R.J. Cole, right, is fouled by Maryland-Eastern Shore's Donchevell Nugent in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, in Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Jessica Hill / Associated Press
HARTFORD — When it was all said and done, when UConn had finally put the finishing touches on an unimpressive win over one of the worst teams in the country, coach Dan Hurley and point guard R.J. Cole were asked if there were any positives to be taken.
“No,” Hurley said, matter-of-factly. “We didn’t blow up our season. That’s good, I guess.”
“We won the game,” Cole added. “That’s about it.”
Yes, that was about all the Huskies could glean from a 72-63 win over Maryland Eastern-Shore before 8,782 Tuesday night at XL Center. Cole poured in 25 points, continuing his mastery of a team he routinely dominated while playing at Howard, Tyler Polley added 14 and Jalen Gaffney gave a nice spark off the bench with five assists and six points.
And, indeed ... that’s about it. The 17th-ranked Huskies barely outrebounded a team that didn’t start a player taller than 6-foot-5 or played anyone taller than 6-7. They held a mere one-point lead five minutes into the latter half and led by just four inside the final 3 1/2minutes.
Oh, and there’s this: the Huskies were without the services of Tyrese Martin, perhaps their most complete all-around player, who could be out about 2-4 weeks with an avulsion fracture of his left wrist. And Adama Sanogo, UConn’s leading scorer and reigning Big East Player of the Week, left the game midway through the half with a “lower abdominal thing,” per Hurley.
Just a bad night all-around for a team that got a five-spot bump in the AP Top 25 rankings a day earlier, on the heels of a third-place finish in last week’s competitive Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.
“Obviously, I did a horrible job preparing these guys to play this game,” Hurley said. “I will not allow us to look like that again. Or else, you’ll see a different group of people on the court.”
No matter how much of a post-Bahamas letdown you might have envisioned UConn could have had, it would have been hard to predict the following:
The Huskies being outrebounded in the first half.
Sanogo and Isaiah Whaley grabbing nary a rebound over those first 20 minutes.
UConn being “out-blocked,” 2-1, in the opening half.
The Huskies missing 10 of their first 11 shots from the floor — and all four of their foul shots — over the first five minutes of the latter half and allowing UMES, rated 351st out of 358 teams in KenPom, to get within a point.
The Huskies unable to put the Hawks away, holding onto a mere 66-62 lead inside the final 31/2 minutes before finally pulling away with six straight free throws down the stretch — four of them by Cole.
But it happened. All of it.
UMES fell to 2-5.
“I’ve got to give them a lot of credit,” Hurley said of the Hawks. “The way they played today, they probably played to a mid-major-plus type of game.”
The same could be said for UConn, which was beaten on the boards 14-11 in the first half and allowed UMES to shoot 47-percent for the game.
“They made a lot of tough shots, they drove us, they played great,” Hurley continued. “We obviously had our issues out there, but credit them.”
And ultimately, thanks mainly to Cole, UConn won the game.
That’s about it.
“They played great, maybe a little bit of the (Bahamas) trip (affected UConn), and I did a horrible job,” Hurley summed up. “So, there you go.”
RIM RATTLINGS
Martin, who was sporting a cast, initially hurt his left wrist in Wednesday’s double-overtime win over Auburn in the Battle 4 Atlantis. Hurley called him a “tone-setter” whose toughness was proven by playing the final two games in the Bahamas despite the injury.
“Trust me,” the coach noted, “he didn’t want the cast.”
Added Polley: “We miss a guy who brings great toughness, a lot of energy to our team — defense, scoring, rebounding. We’re missing a big part of the team, so we’ve got to have a next-man-up mentality and just build from there.”
With Martin out, freshman Jordan Hawkins made his first career start. The 6-5 guard picked up two fouls and missed both of his shots in the opening half.
“He’s got to slow down on offense,” Hurley said. “He’s gonna play. Defensively, he was bad in the first half, which got him sent to the bench early.”
Polley started the second half instead of Hawkins, though the frosh had a key tip-in midway through the second half, followed shortly by a 3-pointer to give UConn a nine-point lead at the time.
As usual, Bristol Central 7-footer Donovan Clingan, a UConn signee, sat behind the Huskies’ bench.
It was the inaugural Pride Night at XL Center. The national anthem was performed by the Hartford Gay Men’s Chorus.
david.borges@hearstmediact.com