If you watched UConn’s AAC Tournament run this weekend, then you undoubtedly noticed the change. The team that struggled to find consistency throughout the season seemingly harnessed its talent at the most opportune time, beginning in the second half of the Cincinnati game and crescendoing in a 14-point drubbing of Memphis in the championship game.
Jalen Adams’ 62-foot buzzer-beater may have salvaged the Huskies’ season, but it was a collective change in how the team functioned on offense that secured UConn’s automatic tournament birth. The haphazard, disorganized offerings of the past four months washed away into a simplistic, yet devastatingly effective game plan that saw the Huskies shoot over 47 percent in the tournament and commit only 25 turnovers in 140 minutes of action.
With the season on the line, everyone on the roster finally settled into their roles.
The formula is relatively simple. You lean on Daniel Hamilton to do the creating. Adams provides the fast-paced drive and kick alternative. Keep the interior of the defense honest by running set plays for the more-than-capable Shonn Miller on the low block. Get Amida Brimah as many easy dunks and layups as humanly possible. Sterling Gibbs and Rodney Purvis get open on the perimeter and fill the open spaces when Hamilton or Adams is out of the game. And everyone looks to get out on the break at all times.
Throughout this season, that formula has been disrupted by injuries, ineffectiveness and a seeming unwillingness to adapt and compromise. However, to the great credit of the players and coach Kevin Ollie, everyone came together when it mattered the most.
In each of Ollie’s four seasons leading the program, his teams have always found ways to rise to big moments. Never was that more obvious than in 2014, but the 2013 team (playing under a tournament ban) played their best games in big moments, winning the midseason games that were essentially their championships. Even last year, the Huskies made an impassioned run at the AAC tournament before Ryan Boatright’s body finally gave out in the title game against SMU.
The growing pains haven’t been easy to watch this year, but if the result this month is performances like we saw in Orlando, it was worth the wait.
