When the NCAA Tournament field was selected, the East was pegged by many as the toughest region. Tradition-rich programs Kansas, Louisville, and UCLA couldn’t advance past the tournament’s second round leaving Duke, St. John’s, Connecticut, and Michigan State to battle it out for a spot in the Final Four.
As one might expect, the coaches leading these programs are as impressive as the programs themselves. Jon Scheyer, in his fourth year at Duke, has done the near impossible in following a legend in Mike
Krzyzewski. Scheyer has already led the Blue Devils to one Final Four and the overall number one seed for this tournament. Rick Pitino has coached in the NBA, won national championships at Kentucky and Louisville, and now, in his third year with the Red Storm, has resurrected a long-dormant St. John’s program. Dan Hurley won the 2023 and 2024 national championships at UConn. And then, of course there’s Tom Izzo, who has guided the Spartans to eight Final Fours and the 2000 national championship.
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After Michigan State got past Louisville in the Round of 32, they had to wait a day to see if they would get conference foe UCLA for the third time this season or Connecticut, who the Spartans faced in an exhibition game way back in October.
UConn, behind 27 points from Alex Karaban, moved past UCLA 73-57 in what was a close game for 30 minutes or so. So, it is Spartans vs. Huskies for a spot in the Elite 8 on Friday at 9:45 PM Eastern (yikes) in Capital One Arena in Washington, DC. The game will be televised on CBS.
Connecticut Overview
Connecticut is the 2-seed in the East Region while fellow Big East member St. John’s, despite winning the Big East regular season and tournament championship and defeating the Huskies in two of three matchups this season, is the 5-seed. UConn probably got the nod based on what they did out of conference. St. John’s lost their marquee non-conference games against Alabama, Iowa State, Auburn, and Kentucky. Connecticut lost to Arizona but defeated BYU, Illinois, Kansas, Florida, and Texas.
The Huskies went 27-4 overall in the regular season and 17-3 in the Big East. That was good for second place in the league behind St. John’s (18-2). UConn split the season series with the Red Storm, losing at SJU 81-72 on February 6 before getting massive revenge with a 72-40 victory on February 25.
The Huskies’ only other regular season loss was a puzzling 68-62 defeat at Marquette, who finished in seventh place in the Big East at 7-13, in the regular season finale on March 7.
In the Big East tournament, Connecticut recorded convincing wins over Xavier and Georgetown before dropping the rubber match to St. John’s, 72-52, in the tournament championship game.
UConn opened the NCAA tournament with an 82-71 victory over Furman before dispatching UCLA to get to the Sweet 16. As mentioned above, the second round game with the Bruins was close most of the way but a 9-0 run in the second half eventually helped the Huskies pull away.
As was the case with Michigan State and Louisville, the Spartans and Huskies are close in several key statistical categories:
In the Evan Miya stats, UConn ranks eighth with a relative rate of 27.4 by adding their O-Rate (14.8) and D-Rate (12.6). Michigan State is 11th with a 25.5 relative rate (13.1 + 12.4).
The Exhibition Game
When the Spartans and Huskies played an exhibition game in Hartford, CT way back on October 28, Connecticut won 76-69 but that final score could be a bit deceiving. UConn led 44-33 at the half before MSU cut the lead to eight with 13:17 left. But on Connecticut’s next possession, Divine Ugochukwu was called for a flagrant-1 foul for grabbing a UConn player’s jersey. This sparked an 11-0 Huskies run over the next two minutes.
The Spartans did outscore UConn 25-10 the rest of the way to make the score more respectable but, other than that stretch, Connecticut was a few steps ahead the whole night. And the Huskies did this without senior center Tarris Reed Jr.
What does this matter now? Probably not much other than each team’s familiarity with the other goes beyond what they’ve seen on film.
UConn Rotation
The Huskies seem to go eight deep and sent out this starting lineup in the win over UCLA:
- #11 6-8 SR F – Alex Karaban. 13.3 pts, 5.2 rebs, 2.3 assts, 48.2% FG, 39.4% 3FG on 5 3-point attempts per game.
- #5 6-11 SR C – Tarris Reed Jr. 14.2 pts, 8.9 rebs, 2.4 assts, 62.8% FG, doesn’t shoot the three – 0-3 on the year. Michigan transfer; second year at UConn.
- #24 6-6 FR G – Braylon Mullins. 12.1 pts, 3.5 rebs, 1.5 assts, 43.5% FG, 33% 3 FG.
- #1 6-4 JR G – Solo Ball. 13 pts, 3.3 rebs, 1.5 assts, 39.1% FG, 29.6% 3FG.
- #0 6-1 SR G – Malachi Smith. 3.5 pts, 1.5 rebs, 2.9 assts, 36% FG, 46.3% 3FG on only 1 3-point attempt per game. Dayton transfer; first year at UConn.
Karaban played 36 minutes against UCLA and hit four of his eight three-point attempts. Mullins added 17 against the Bruins in 32 minutes while Ball only saw the floor for 13 minutes in the UCLA game.
Reed, with 10 points, was below his scoring average against UCLA but he did grab 13 boards in his 29 minutes. Putting Carson Cooper on Reed and Jaxon Kohler on Karaban are perhaps the best options for the Spartans and these will be key matchups. His primary assignment will likely be Mullins or Ball but it will be interesting to see if Coen Carr, giving up some size but coming off a strong defensive performance against Louisville, is assigned to guard Karaban when Kohler is out.
Connecticut’s main contributors off the bench include:
- #23 6-7 JR F – Jayden Ross. 4.8 pts, 2.4 rebs, 0.9 assts, 52.2% FG, 37.7% 3FG on 2 3-point attempts per game.
- #12 7-1 FR C – Eric Reibe. 6.5 pts, 3.6 rebs, 66% FG, 30.8% 3 FG, 30.8% 3FG on only 0.5 3-point attempts per game.
- #2 6-4 JR G Silas Demary Jr. 10.6 pts, 4.5 rebs, 6.1 assts, 45.7 % FG, 40.5% 3FG. Georgia transfer; first year at UConn.
Demary has been a regular starter for Connecticut, in place of Malachi Smith, but he suffered an ankle injury in the Big East tournament. Demary didn’t play in the Huskies’ first round game against Furman but came off the bench against UCLA for 21 minutes.
UConn Coaching
Connecticut is led by their . . . animated and highly successful coach Dan Hurley. Sure, Izzo has probably had some moments on the sideline, but Hurley seems to be next level.
After head coaching stints at Wagner (2010-2012) and Rhode Island (2012-2018), Hurley took over at UConn and has certainly cemented their status as an all-time great program. Hurley is 196-74 (.726) overall at Connecticut and 15-5 in the NCAA tournament. He was named the Naismith college coach of the year in 2024 after leading the Huskies to their second consecutive national championship.
Hurley and Izzo appear to have great respect for each other and it’s been reported that Hurley sought Izzo’s advice when contemplating leaving the college ranks to coach the LA Lakers in 2024.
It’s just stating the obvious to say that this will be a fascinating coaching matchup.
Keys to the Game
Not to be lazy on this preview, but this post from one of our readers seems pretty spot on:
O also mentioned turnovers being a problem for MSU in the tournament’s first two rounds in his Like & Dislikes article.
In addition to turnovers, O, as well as several of our readers, have brought up the open three point looks that MSU continues to give up. There might be a couple of ways to look at that. Louisville is a heavy three point shooting team so their offense must be structured to create some open looks – it’s what they do.
Still, MSU did hold the Cardinals to 13-37 from deep and, the Spartans may be changing from where they allow teams to shoot three pointers.
It’s a very small sample size, but in losses to Michigan and UCLA just prior to the NCAA tournament, 55% of the Wolverines’ and Bruins’ three point attempts and 65% of their made threes came from less than 25 feet.
Michigan and UCLA shot a combined 23-49 on three pointers against MSU but, so far in the tournament, North Dakota State and Louisville are 19-61. The Bison and Cardinals have still shot well from the three point line out to 25 feet in going 5-12, but those 12 attempts represent only 20% of NDSU’s and Louisville’s total attempts. The majority (54%) of their attempts have come in the 25 to 28 foot range while 26% come from 28 feet out or greater.
Basically, even though some of the looks may be “open”, the Spartans are making teams shoot “harder” threes (attempts from farther away) in the tournament. This chart attempts to show this trend:
* Shot distance was determined from reviewing the box scores of the above games on ESPN.com.
For their part, Connecticut – even though they do numerous things incredibly well – is not really a prolific three point shooting team. The Huskies went 8-24 against UCLA and had been in a bit of a slump in the latter part of the Big East season. They went 12-32 in the Big East tournament quarterfinals against Xavier but then you have to back to February 28 for their last really solid shooting effort from deep – a 9-21 performance in a win against Seton Hall. Recent low points include 3-19 against St. John’s in the Big East tournament final and 3-24 in the regular season finale at Marquette.
Meanwhile, the Spartans, with sudden help from Trey Fort, are starting to become a more dangerous three point shooting team. A major factor in this game could be if the Spartans can remain effective in the mid-30’s to low 40’s on their three point shooting percentage while preventing UConn from thoroughly breaking out of their slump.
Finally, one more factor may be how many Spartans can hit on all cylinders in this one. Carson Cooper starred against NDSU and then Coen Carr took over versus Louisville. Jeremy Fears has been distributing at an elite level, even for him, but has also struggled to shoot in the tournament.
How does Carr build off his Louisville game? Can Fears find his shooting touch? Can Jordan Scott, who seems to be in an offensive slump, find any sort of rhythm? Will Fort stay hot and how much can the MSU bench contribute? Whose bigs will be better in this one?
As TOC reader Im thinking Im back noted above, it feels like the team with the least mistakes wins. Perhaps it also feels like the team that has more players finding their A+ game will win.
What do you see happening in this one, TOC? Are the Spartans headed back to the Elite 8 and how do they make it happen?
Go Green.
