In what was a highly competitive game, the UConn Huskies held a small lead through most of the second half. With 4 minutes left in the game, they held a 61-58 lead.
Florida’s Alex Condon hit one of two free throws, and on the next possession, Walter Clayton Jr. hit a three pointer, to give the Gators a 1 point lead. Then, Will Richard knocked the ball away from the Huskies to Condon, who immediately through the ball back down the field to Richard for a big dunk.
The Huskies would not back down as Solo Ball hit a three-pointer to tie the game with about 2 minutes to play. Florida tried to run a dribble hand-off between Condon and Clayton, but the Huskies fouled Condon trying to get the ball. Condon hit the first free-throw, and as the TV did a close-up on him at the line, all I could think was “He does not look like a player confident he will hit this shot – he looks like he would prefer if anyone else was shooting.”
Sure enough, he misses the second free-throw, but the Gators deflect the ball back out and Clayton dribbled hard to the basket and got fouled. Clayton hit both free throws and the Gators led by three. Liam McNeeley missed a three-pointer to tie the game for the Huskies, and then the dagger was struck.
This time, the Gators successfully ran their dribble hand-off to get the ball into the hands of Walter Clayton Jr. but the Huskies successfully stopped Clayton from heading to the hoop. They ended up regretting that, as Clayton dribbled to the wing and hit a fade-away three-pointer to extend the lead to 6 points.
After Tarris Reed Jr missed a three-pointer, the Huskies fouled Conton. And Conton missed both free-throws to give the Huskies hope, and that would be short-lived as Alijah Martin would get the offensive rebound and dunk the ball to extend the lead to 8. I would never advise missing free-throws to try to win a game, but in this case, the Gators scored 4 points off those misses.
The Huskies did try to come back. Liam McNeeley made a layup to make it a 6 point game, and UConn called time-out. Which leads me to say this. I really would have loved it if the referees have given Dan Hurley a technical foul when he immediately used the stoppage of play to go out and scream at one of the refs. Lets remember that in the play-in game between American and Mt. St. Mary’s, the refs called a technical foul on the American coach for falling to the ground in protest of a call. So why when Hurley does all of his antics and screams about every call that it doesn’t get a technical called. I have a ton of respect about how talented of a coach Dan Hurley is. But I hate how he conducts himself, and it makes it easy to root against him.
Well, it is probably good that the referees are better tempered than me – since they let it go and let the players decide the game. With about 12 seconds and after some Gators’ free throws, McNeeley made another layup to cut the lead again to 6, and then he got a steal and was fouled. After the free-throws, the Huskies were down 4. But Will Richard and Thomas Haugh would make 3 of 4 free throws to give the Gators a hard-fought victory.
There is a common saying – to be the best, you have to beat the best. The Gators managed to beat the two-time defending national champions. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but in March, sometimes, it is important to simply survive and advance.