The end result was what most people expected: Duke came into the game a 10-point favorite and won by 10, 66-56. How we got there was how we thought we’d get there: Amida Brimah was overmatched against Jahlil Okafor (12 points, eight rebounds). UConn continued to struggle offensively. The Blue Devils controlled the glass (40-29).
But there was so much more to this UConn-Duke matchup than what you can tell from the scoreboard.
For one thing, UConn showed poise and an energy level that it hasn’t displayed since last NCAA Tournament. When the Blue Devils threatened to blow it open, the Huskies found a way to come back. For stretches defensively, UConn gave Duke fits — the Blue Devils coughed it up 19 times.
And when one guy went down with foul trouble (or two, or three, or four), the next guy stepped up.
Brimah picked up two quick fouls, and Kentan Facey had his second straight double-figure scoring performance with 14 points. Facey picked up his second foul and even Rakim Lubin came in and contributed the only basket of the game from the bench.
“We played our hearts out,” said Brimah, who played 13 minutes and did not score. “And we could have played better than that.”
Head coach Kevin Ollie agreed.
“We did a lot of good things and the gameplan was good on the defensive end,” he said. “We’ve just gotta capitalize.”
Despite all of that, Duke led for all but about two minutes on Thursday at the Meadowlands, and there’s plenty for UConn to work on. Duke attempted 34 free throws to just 13 for the Huskies. UConn shot 3-12 from three and the guards, particularly Rodney Purvis, passed up more than a couple open opportunities. Though Facey emerged as an option offensively and Daniel Hamilton contributed 10 points, Ryan Boatright still had to carry the load. His 22 points included a couple threes late in the game that gave the Huskies a fighting chance down the stretch.
They fought. They battled. It just wasn’t enough.
Facey made a layup before the under-four media timeout to bring UConn within six, and Justise Winslow hit a three out of the break to stretch the lead back to nine. Winslow finished with 12 points.
Then Boatright answered with a three of his own with two minutes left and UConn benefited from two missed free throws by Okafor. But Winslow got the offensive rebound and laid it in. The Huskies didn’t have another run left in them.
Duke is the better team right now, and come April, might be the best team in the country.
Can UConn get there too? Maybe not. But the Huskies can get a helluva lot better. They’ll have to.
“We played the way we wanted to play, not offensively but defensively,” Ollie said. “We gotta take it to the rim and we gotta get offensive and defensive rebounds. At the end of the day, they shot a lot of free throws, and they made 25 and we made 7. That’s the ballgame.”
A ballgame that ended as a missed opportunity for a team that is now 4-4 and may not face another ranked opponent for the rest of the year. It’s way too early to project into March, but it’s safe to say that the Huskies are going to need to start winning, and start winning a lot, to put themselves in a favorable position down the stretch.
That will have to start Monday when they face Columbia in Bridgeport. The Lions have already given Kentucky all it could handle, and given how the season has started, UConn can’t afford to take anything for granted.
They showed a lot on Thursday. It just wasn’t nearly enough.
