STORRS – Dan Hurley is ready for a basketball game and a heavyweight fight on Saturday as the league’s reigning regular-season and tournament champion Marquette visits Hartford. It is the first meeting of the league’s top two teams this season and the first top-five matchup in Connecticut in 15 years.
It’s been almost a full year since the No. 4 Golden Eagles ousted the eventual national champs in a thriller on their way to the Big East Tournament title last season, and a bit “strange,” Hurley said, that both of this year’s matchups were scheduled in the final three weeks of the regular season. Both championship-level programs last year having similar levels of success now, they meet Saturday separated by only 2 1/2 games in the league standings.
“I guess it works out like genius now that we’ve both held up our end of this and creates just a great day and a great matchup for college basketball. A great day for the Big East,” Hurley said. “We know (Saturday) feels like probably a game of two of the truly best teams in the country, we’re gonna find out some things about where we’re at. It’s one of six regular-season games you have left but (this) is obviously a big one, it’s gonna have a different type of electricity.”
Top-ranked UConn enters the matchup with confidence “through the roof,” Alex Karaban said, having won 13 games in a row – the second-longest Big East winning streak all-time behind only the 1995-96 Huskies. Marquette has won eight in a row.
“I think that there’s a lot of similarities, maybe not stylistically in the some different ways in terms of how we play,” Hurley said, “but when you play against teams like UConn and Marquette, and what you appreciate when you watch the film of opponents like this, is that you’re also playing against the culture too. You can see the buy-in on their bench with the way they interact with each other, with the way Shaka (Smart) is running this program.
“Some games I think we go in with a culture advantage … but in this game you can see the culture on the other side. So you get the quality of the other team and then you also get two great cultures playing.”
Marquette returned four of its five starters from last season and was picked to win the league again before this year began. The Golden Eagles started the season with big-time wins over Illinois and Kansas and then a close loss to Purdue in the Maui Invitational. They lost three of their first five games to begin Big East play but have found their groove recently behind reigning Big East Player of the Year Tyler Kolek.
Kolek has scored at least 27 points in three of the last four games, averaging 25.8 points, 8.8 assists and 5.5 rebounds in that stretch.
“He’s just a nightmare to deal with in the ball-screen game and just a true quarterback. It’s tough, man, you’ve got to mix things up and try to make it as tough on him as you can,” Hurley said.
“What he does, really everything’s impressive,” added Karaban, who’s played against Kolek dating back to his AAU and prep school days. “Just the way he passes, his ability to see everything on the court and just his unselfish factor on the court. And then, if he has to score he can score easily as we all see. He scores in the paint, on the shot, they call him a magician with the ball and he really is one.”
Marquette has also seen a jump in production from Oso Ighodaro, a movement center who will make for an interesting matchup against UConn’s Donovan Clingan. Ighodaro is averaging 14.8 points and 7.5 rebounds this year.
“He’s really athletic and just how fast he gets off of ball screens is really impressive, that’s why we’ve just got to be really locked in on the defensive end,” said Clingan, who’s given the Huskies a defensive boost since returning from injury. “He’s hard to guard and he’s a great player, but I’ve been watching the film and just trying to lock in and really focus on how I’m gonna stop him.”
A win on Saturday could go a long way for the Huskies in their pursuit of the program’s first regular-season title since 2005-06. It would build a 3 1/2-game cushion in what feels like a two-team race to the top as Creighton sits four games back.
“(Marquette is) just a road block in our way and we’re trying to beat them so we can maintain first place,” said the ever-calm Huskies’ point guard Tristen Newton.
“I think it’s just about right now, you better be ready with a championship-level intensity, championship-level execution, you can’t have moments of weakness out there where you think about self,” Hurley said. “You’ve got to be playing with your absolute strongest mindset and just be about winning. Championship time of year, about to head for elimination time.”