Few teams — maybe no teams — scheduled as aggressively for the nonconference portion of their schedule this season like UConn.
After the turbulent, high-profile failure from last season — when the Huskies fell well short of being Final Four material, let alone winning a third straight national title — Dan Hurley leaned into the obstacles. It would’ve been understandable if the Huskies merely scheduled competitively.
But look at what’s still to come.
They scheduled like they wanted to atone for bad behavior.
On Saturday night, they played like it — for the most part.
The six-pack of notable high-majors Hurley’s third-ranked program has on the docket over the next four weeks began on Saturday, with the highly hyped top-10 matchup against No. 7 BYU in Boston at TD Garden. No. 3 Connecticut won 86-84, staving off a collapse after leading by as many as 20 points in the second half against a shorthanded Cougars team that opened the game down one starter and soon lost another.
What felt like a trending Connecticut runaway through the first 25 minutes of gameplay turned into a teeth-clenching save of a victory against a dangerous offense and one of the most talented players in college basketball, Cougars freshman AJ Dybantsa, a possible top pick in the NBA Draft
BYU made UConn earn it in the final five minutes. Hurley doesn’t like to finish that close, but he also can take satisfaction that this team can pull out a win like this. His group last season blew a few games of this ilk. It wasn’t beautiful, but it was a win.
It was different than how this probably would have gone a season ago.
Credit to Dybantsa, who scored 21 of his game-high 25 points in the second half, with more than half of those points coming in eyebrow-raising fashion. Dybantsa played his first of what will be an untold number of games in an NBA uniform TD Garden. Had he brought BYU all the way back, it would have been the most notable individual performance of the first two weeks of the season. Even shy of that, it’s still encouraging for Dybantsa and BYU that he was able to easily find the switch to flip in the second half and be the catalyst for what would have been a remarkable comeback — especially down two starters.
DeMary is next man up
BYU didn’t dress Kennard Davis Jr. in the wake of his arrest for charges of driving under the influence of a substance that has still not yet been revealed. In the first half, critical senior big man Keba Keita took a blow to the head from Silas Demary Jr., eliminating him from the game.
Even without two of its five best players, BYU carved itself back into a close game — and could have tied it or won outright if not for Rob Wright III’s sixth turnover, which came with 12 seconds remaining when he lost the ball between his legs when BYU trailed 85-82. Dybantsa never got a chance to touch the ball with the game on the line.
Who was there to pick up the steal when Wright coughed it up? Demary.
And he’s my biggest takeaway from Saturday night. Yep, even above Dybantsa’s highlight -reel display in a losing effort.
If UConn is going to return to Final Four form this season, it’s going to take a lot of things coming together. Silas Demary Jr.’s role on this team is paramount to that objective. They need a guy like him in order to win out a handful of games against really good teams.
We saw it for the first time on Saturday night. We’ll see it multiple times again over the next four months.
At 6-foot-4, nearly 200 pounds with above-average strength for a combo guard, Demary brings a player profile that UConn lacked last season. That Huskies team needed toughness, size and game-over-game continuity in the backcourt. On Saturday, Demary provided the antidotes. No doubt, he probably had Hurley thinking to himself, Where was this last year?, like when he hit a pair of shots (one a bunny with 3:15 remaining, the other a delicate mid-range fadeaway with 1:31 left) that increased UConn’s cushion from five to seven each time. Those four points were critical as BYU kept slicing away at the deficit.
His two-way presence is going to go a long way to making sure this season won’t be like last season for Connecticut.
Demary finished with 21 points, seven assists and five rebounds. Alex Karaban and Tarris Reed Jr. also had 21 points apiece, but their ability and value are understood in that locker room and by UConn’s fan base. (Reed was playing through a hamstring strain that’s still not fully healed, per Hurley’s postgame comments.) It can’t just be Karaban and Reed and Solo Ball, who didn’t have a good game.
Who stepped up and made up for Ball’s foul-plagued evening? Demary. He looks like a Dan Hurley player. When BYU sniffed blood, Demary wouldn’t let the pendulum swing all the way in the Cougars’ favor.
Tough stretch ahead for Huskies
So, one big opponent down and five more to go in the ensuing 27 days. Next up for Connecticut is another glitzy game, a matchup that has the potential to be the best we’ll get in November. Saturday was a top-10 affair, but how’s top-five sound? Because that’s what we’re getting on Wednesday at Gampel Pavilion, when No. 5 Arizona flies cross-country to take a crack at the Huskies. The Wildcats just knocked off No. 15 UCLA on Friday night in Los Angeles and look like an incredible test with Koa Peat, another potential top-five pick in the frontcourt.
Another massive game in a loaded November slate for college basketball.
Another opportunity for UConn to show that last season was an aberration, that the Huskies again have the pieces to match up with the best teams the sport can offer.
