Look, if you called the metropolis of Storrs, Connecticut home you would probably prefer to be anywhere else around this time of year than in your neck of the woods. Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii would probably be near the top of any such list.
So who can actually blame college basektball’s two-time defending champions UConn Huskies if they were a tad distracted and perhaps below par over the last three days as they competed in what has now become the premier “Feast Week” conclave of all , the Maui Classic.
Except I’m not all that sure even their most forgiving fans expected what transpired, capped off by the news that the HARTFORD COURANT’s Joe Arruda dropped early this morning:
It will be an extra-long flight back to Connecticut for the UConn men’s basketball team, which was stunned for a third-consecutive day in the Maui Invitational and lost the seventh-place game to Dayton, 85-67.
Fans headed for the exits with about two minutes left in what turned into a blowout as the Flyers surged to an insurmountable 16-point lead and secured the game, which didn’t tip-off until 12:32 a.m. ET.
The Huskies came out with a different defensive intensity than they’d shown through their first two games at the 2,400-seat Lahaina Civic Center, but it started to slip away as the first half went on.
“It’s scary that a five-point game with five minutes to go turned into that,” coach Dan Hurley said. “When you come to a tournament like this, and it’s three games in three days, it starts to go bad, there’s no way of fixing it ’cause there’s no time to. You just have to deal with the situation. It was a humbling trip obviously for the program that’s accomplished what we’ve accomplished.”
And if you’re take the headline of yesterday’s column from CBS SPORTS’ Gary Parrish with more than a mere grain of salt, the Huskies may apparently already be suffering as a result of this Hawaiian hangover:
College basketball rankings: Kansas locks down No. 1 spot, UConn drops from Top 25 And 1
It seems Parrish publishes a DAILY poll that does the AP and USA TODAY one better, because, hey, clickbait is clickbait. And it did give Parrish a chance to laud praise on the team that was already on their way to supplanting UConn who only had to deal with the bright lights of a casino as distraction:
Kansas and Duke — two of the sport’s biggest and best brands — met late Tuesday on a neutral-court in Las Vegas. It didn’t pop like it otherwise would’ve in a true home-road environment, but it was still a fun game that likely ensured the Jayhawks will remain No. 1 when the AP Top 25 poll updates Monday regardless of what happens in Maui, Atlantis or anywhere else.
Final score: Kansas 75, Duke 72.
Despite CBS Sports preseason All-American Hunter Dickinson getting ejected after just 24 minutes on the court for kicking Duke’s Maliq Brown in the head, the Jayhwks shot 49.1% from the field to improve to 7-0 with victories over Duke, North Carolina and Michigan State. Needless to say, Bill Self’s program remains No. 1 in Wednesday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings for the 24th straight day of this season.
But as we suggested in Tuesday’s musing, the concept of polls is increasingly unnecessary in sports where playoffs ultimately determine champions. And since basketball has nearly six times the current field of football, and arguably has landed upon the most dramatic and decisive format to crown one, the thoughts expressed then are reamplified when it comes to hoops.
UConn isn’t going to be playing in such balmy climes any time soon, and short of true disaster will somehow find their way to the field of 68. And it’s a looooong way to March. After what Hurley and company have demonstrated over the past two Marches and Aprils, I’m not counting them out. I’m not distracted by warm weather and palm trees.
Courage…