“God is on your side, young man.”
The intonation from legendary commentator Bill Raftery was worthy of an NCAA Tournament call in an environment at PeoplesBank Arena that felt like a postseason atmosphere,
coming after UConn guard Solo Ball saved a terrible offensive possession by rescuing a bad pass and firing up a three-pointer from 35 feet that found nothing but the bottom of the net.
It was the first made three by the No. 5-ranked Huskies in more than 25 minutes of basketball, but happened during the type of crucial stretch that Longhorns head coach Sean Miller warned about before his Texas team headed to Hartford for a game he’d prefer not to play.
Heavily favored, UConn pulled out an entirely predictable 71-63 victory over Texas on Friday that felt inevitable throughout — the last lead for the Longhorns came at the 17:12 mark of the first half as the Huskies pulled ahead by as many as 12 points.
The three by Ball at the 3:39 mark of the second half keyed a surge that truly ended a game that was effectively never particularly close.
Texas junior wing Dailyn Swain had earned a fast-break foul after securing a steal, but missed both free throws, leading to an extremely deliberate possession, even by UConn’s offensive standards.
After Ball hit the improbable three to secure the extremely probable outcome, a forced shot by the Longhorns in transition produced a fast-break opportunity in the other direction and ended with an open three by Huskies star forward Alex Karaban that felt like a made basket before he even caught the basketball.
The triple put UConn up by 11 points and ended any marginal hope of Texas producing an unlikely comeback in a game that featured the ESPN win probability chart understandably giving up with 6:25 remaining in the first half when Longhorns senior guard Jordan Pope committed a foul.
What was the point of it all? Miller publicly wondered the same this week heading into a game that felt like an assured loss, even if the precise machinations of the outcome went against expectations.
The team with the serious defensive problems at least managed to limit their bad fouls, especially on the defensive end, forced 15 turnovers, and held the Huskies to seven second-chance points, potentially signs of the type of incremental progress that Miller wants the Horns to make throughout the season.
More true to form was the Texas ability to create fouls and get to the free-throw line, finishing plus-15 in attempts and plus-12 in makes despite missing key opportunities in the second half to score from the charity stripe.
The struggles by sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis and graduate forward Lassina Traore to score from the floor fell somewhere in between expected and unexpected.
At this point, it’s not a surprise to see Traore finish with one point in 24 minutes and play next to Vokietaitis because Miller doesn’t trust sophomore forward Nic Codie and doesn’t get much of an interior defensive presence from junior wing Camden Heide.
Getting 2-of-6 shooting from Vokietaitis was more surprising than the Florida Atlantic transfer struggling to play through contact against mature opponents and to avoid turnovers and foul problems, elements of his game that feel built in as the big Lithuanian tries to mature in real time.
And it was also surprising to see Swain have issues with foul trouble stemming from two questionable offensive whistles that contributed to five turnovers in a team-worst minus-11 performance.
But God was not on Swain’s side on Friday, nor on the side of Texas in general, producing the type of outcome that UConn head coach Dan Hurley’s coaching brilliance and extreme overall pestilence ensures by dedicating his entire existence to creating it, the will of God be damned.
Hurley’s Huskies feel like a force of nature that way, and Miller knew it was never going to end any other way against his mediocre team that never truly matched whatever NCAA Tournament atmosphere Raftery thought existed in Hartford on Friday.
