STORRS, Conn. — The first thing the UConn men’s basketball team needed to doin the season opener against Central Connecticut was win. The next item on the to-do list was to win easily, without drama. And third, make coach Dan Hurley reach to full extension to find things to be unhappy about.
Check boxes one and two, don’t take box three for given. Game 1, Hurley will find something.
Still UConn beat it’s overmatched, in-state opponent 99-48 before 10,148 at a sold-out Gampel Pavilion on Tuesday night, doing most, if not all of the things Hurley called for during the offseason and in the week leading up to the game.
UConn came out playing with intensity, feeding off the fans. It kept the pressure up on defense and continued to attack on offense until there was no longer a point. They got the ball inside to Adama Sanogo, who was 9-for-11 for 20 points, and hit enough threes to keep defenders from smothering him in the post.
It played like an exhibition game, but at least nominally it counted in the standings, as will the Huskies’ second outing, against Coppin State at the XL Center on Saturday.
R.J. Cole scored 15, hitting his three 3-point shots, and Tyrese Martin added 15 for the Huskies. Perhaps the most exciting development was Akok Akok, who finally looked as active as before his Achilles surgery, with nine points, hitting a 3-pointer, seven rebounds and two blocks.
Central’s Joe Ostrowsky scored 12, but the Blue Devils turned it over 28 times.
With a full house, the first at Gampel since before the pandemic, UConn came out “with force,” as Hurley had called for, and didn’t show the typical tendency to play down to the level of competition in a game like this.
Andre Jackson joined the four returning starters in the lineup and the Huskies hit the first eight shots of the game, opening a 22-5 lead and giving Hurley plenty of time for experimenting, auditioning. He played all his healthy scholarship players in the first half - freshman Jordan Hawkins, with his ankle injury, was not dressed. And nearly all made a contribution at one end of the floor, or both.
Though they didn’t take a lot of perimeter shots UConn was still able to feed the post where Sanogo hit all four of his shots. Cole (10 points) and Martin (nine) were most productive as the Huskies went 19-for-28 in the half. On defense, UConn was disruptive, prompting 16 turnovers.
So the second half was more or less a not-so-secret scrimmage. But the Huskies avoided another of the pitfalls common in a game such as this: they didn’t take their foot off the gas. Sanogo hit four shots in the paint as the Huskies stretched their lead to 62-25.
