Connecticut @ Xavier preview
Cintas Center
Last Meeting ( Feb 13, 2021 ) Connecticut 80, Xavier 72
UConn coach Dan Hurley said his team played with "desperation" in its 80-72 win against No. 18 Marquette on Tuesday.
No. 25 Xavier (16-7, 6-6 Big East) might have to do the same thing when it hosts the No. 24 Huskies (16-6, 7-4) in Cincinnati on Friday night.
Coach Travis Steele's Musketeers have lost two consecutive games and four of their past six, with the latest setback a 73-71 defeat at Seton Hall on Wednesday night.
Once again, the Musketeers got off to a slow start, as they trailed by 10 points at halftime. They have been losing at intermission in eight of their past nine games.
"Give Seton Hall credit," Steele said afterward. "They were flying around. They were creating deflections. ... I thought they absolutely punked us on the glass to start the game."
The Pirates outrebounded the Musketeers by a 23-15 margin in the first half and 41-28 for the game.
That could be a problem against the tall, physical Huskies. UConn outrebounds its opponents by 7.8 per game and dominated Marquette, 46-27, on the glass.
"That's our identity," Hurley said. "When we're at our best, we're not a team that people look forward to playing against because of what we can do on the backboard, the athleticism, the things we can contest at the rim with our length."
Both Adama Sanogo (24 points, 15 rebounds) and Tyrese Martin (18 points, 15 rebounds) had double-doubles as the Huskies completed a regular-season sweep of the Golden Eagles.
As for Sanogo, Hurley said he changed his usual strategy of not feeding Sanogo in the post early in the game until he "got a sweat going."
Hurley said, "We scrapped that (Tuesday) and just started throwing it in."
He added that Sanogo is "one of the best big guys in the country and he's only a sophomore. We've got to get him the ball all the time. The dude is a force."
As for the Huskies' rebounding, Hurley said, "We were plus-19 on the glass. That's our identity."
"We played with a desperation that we need to play with every single night," he added.
Xavier played the final 13:39 at Seton Hall without Zach Freemantle, who fouled out after a brief entanglement with the Pirates' Tray Jackson. The two were assessed double fouls, but Freemantle, who finished with only four points, also was hit with a dead-ball foul, his fifth.
"It's unfortunate for us," said Steele, who maintained that he didn't get a good look at the altercation, yet added, "but Zach's also got to keep his cool, got to know better."
The positive was that seldom-used Cesare Edwards (averaging 3.2 points in only five games) came off the bench and scored eight second-half points on 4-of-5 shooting with the game in the balance.
"He got an opportunity and he took advantage of it," Steele said of Edwards. "I think he can bring another level of physicality to our team. ... He can score the ball."
--Field Level Media