UConn's coach, Dan Hurley, expressed his desire to coach Nahiem Alleyne again and praised his impact. St. John's led UConn at halftime, but UConn won the game 69-65. Hurley emphasized the team's resilience and the need for improvement. He also discussed the importance of players like Samson Johnson and Steph Castle. Despite missing star player Donovan Clingan, UConn secured the victory. St. John's suffered a frustrating loss, with coach Rick Pitino acknowledging UConn's strength. The game was described as a great display of Big East basketball.
Now on @njdotcom Rick Pitino says there is no dominant team in college basketball, calls UConn ‘decent’ https://t.co/CJUPQAnZ4I @UConnMBB @StJohnsBBall
St John’s up five spots in NET to 50 — fifth in Big East. Now 3-4 in Quad 1/2 games. #sjubb
Hurley on Alleyne: “He’s a soldier, a great two-way player, and we wouldn’t have won the championship without him last year. I just wanted to tell him I love him, and if we lost, I would have told him the same shit.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley on Nahiem Alleyne: “For me, selfishly, I wanted to coach him again. It would have been awesome to bring him back and have a chance to go back-to-back with him…he would’ve been a critical part of what we’re doing. I just love the kid, man.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “(Donovan) affects the game like few players in the country affect the game. He just changes the game. Good kid, great spirit, but boot, bad. Travel suit, bad. Uniform is — fuck, sorry — a lot better.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley on Clingan: “He’s a great guy and a big personality, but we need his ass on the court. He can’t be eating a big-ass Christmas dinner. He’s gotta get his weight down over the holidays, the next couple weeks, so he doesn’t have problems with his feet moving forward.” #UConn
Hurley: “(Newton) doesn’t have bozos managing his career and feeding him a bunch of shit, telling him, ‘hey, go somewhere else, you could be a starter, a first-round pick,’ whereas you have other players that have helicopter parents that are delusional about the kid.” #UConn
Hurley on Newton: “Those are the type of people that we really just value the heck out of and build a relationship with. It’s just a testament to the kid and him trusting and loving #UConn, loving the locker room he’s in and the coaching staff.”
Hurley: “I thought Tristen grew as a leader tonight. His first half was not great and he didn’t play the cleanest game, but he gutted out a winning performance and he dragged some guys along.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley on Youssouf Singare: “He’s gotta give us minutes now, and I thought he was solid in there.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “I just think that Samson’s game is gonna take off, and then when the big fella comes back, I think we’ll be stronger than we’ve been all year at that position. And we’re strong now.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley on Clingan: “He’s gonna come back at full strength, and this team will be better for it because of the growth of other players. It’s not gonna look as pretty, we gotta find ways to win until we get that real game-changing type of player back.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “Donovan is one of the most impactful players in the country. I mean, just look at the analytics. Obviously, with his injury, he tweaked his foot in a weird way. The other injury was pretty much healed up…he’s gonna get a nice long rest here.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “The crowd responds to the personalities of players, and they certainly respond to a guy like Cam.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “There’s a lot that we’ve gotta improve on, but again, these games in this league, they become cage fights.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley on Castle: “His second half was huge and he was a hair away from getting another steal that would’ve really sealed it for us, but I think now he’s got a template that he can build from.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley on Steph Castle: “He found something late there. He can’t put too much pressure on himself to be this electrifying guard who’s doing all this stuff off the dribble and playing like he’s Dame Lillard out there. That guy just needs to fly around defensively.” #UConn
Hurley on Samson: “I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of a guy stepping in for such a critical piece. If he didn’t play like that, we had no chance, because he played against one of the best big guys in the country and won the matchup.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “We’ll have some time to rest and work on some things, and get back to looking like a much sharper team.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “We showed a championship response to how we played the other day, and just thinking back, I think this group’s had a heck of a run since December 1st. We’ve asked a lot of our team since then.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “We proved that we could win the beauty pageant when the game is not allowed to be as physical, which these games are. It’s gonna be that way for the next 18 games, and I thought we showed a tremendous resolve and resilience with how we responded today.” #UConn #BleedBlue
Hurley: “I think what I’m most happy about is we saved Christmas for ourselves and our great fans, and the state of Connecticut, because a loss here tonight would be a lot of doom and gloom for a lot of people.” #UConn #BleedBlue
St. John’s lets upset chance slip away in frustrating loss to No. 5 UConn https://t.co/miATa5AlkG https://t.co/eIZkcgIUIZ
Gonna tweet some postgame quotes from this UConn/St. John’s game. Shoutout to @UConnMBB for going live with the Hurley presser, and to @KevinConnelly24 for passing along the Johnnies’ audio. Keep it here. #sjubb #UConn
St. John's lets upset chance slip away in frustrating loss to No. 5 UConn https://t.co/XMk05Pxp0j via @nypost #sjubb
UConn beats St. John’s! https://t.co/SnffDJ4RiO
St John’s falls to UConn, 69-65. Major blown opportunity. #sjubb
FINAL: UConn 69, St. John's 65 UConn finds a way, without star center Donovan Clingan. Rick Pitino has St. John's competing in a way they haven't in a long time. GREAT game. That *felt* like Big East basketball 😤😤
BREAKING: Dan Hurley has won a close game. #UConn #BleedBlue
St John’s leads UConn, 32-26, at the half. And they didn’t necessarily play a great half. #sjubb
St John’s trails UConn, 17-16. Too much settling. #sjubb
Greetings from Hartford where Rick Pitino and @StJohnsBBall will try to hand @UConnMBB their 2nd straight loss to open Big East play Dan Hurley is looking for a Phog Allen type atmosphere from his fans https://t.co/OtJkIJQi7B
St. John's catches No. 5 UConn coming off 'embarrassing' upset https://t.co/Pp5bjoLPwZ https://t.co/Fphhhl6MUi
Now on @njdotcom St. John’s guard ahead of reunion with UConn: ‘I’m here to kill them and get a ‘dub’ https://t.co/ntcOcOXVqf @UConnMBB @StJohnsBBall