NEW YORK _ The euphoria that came with beating Syracuse at the Garden proved to be a fleeting phenomenon. A new night presented a very different opponent and challenge, and the UConn men's basketball team wasn't up to it.
The Huskies were overmatched by a big, skilled front line, rendering Dan Hurley's offensive and defensive approaches ineffective, and they went down to Iowa, 91-72, in the championship game of the 2K Empire Classic at Madison Square Garden on Friday night.
"I did not like the job I did getting my team ready for today," Hurley said. "So I failed. It's a bitter taste for me. Bitter."
Hurley, in his first loss as UConn coach, picked up two technical fouls in the second half and was ejected with 1:44 to go, capping the frustrating reversal. The Huskies had 19 turnovers and went 4-for-26 on 3-point attempts.
"We let our offense dictate the way we played," said Jalen Adams, who scored 20 points, but most of it after the game was effectively lost. "We've got to let our defense create our offense. We were making shots, and we sort of fell back and weren't as aggressive as we should have been."
The Hawkeyes (4-0), unheralded in the preseason, possibly played themselves into the national rankings with wins over Oregon and UConn in New York. UConn (3-1) had a chance to do that, but bused home instead with one resume-building victory, not two, and the realization that this process will not be as quick or easy at it appeared 24 hours earlier.
"It was our first adversity in a game, in terms of getting behind," Hurley said. "It wasn't selfishness that kicked in. Once we got down, we started trying to score 7-point baskets, 8-point buckets. We stopped trusting each other. ... We panicked a little bit."
Tournament MVP Luka Garza, 6 feet 11, keyed Iowa's inside-out offensive game, scoring 18 points in the first half, finishing with 22 points and seven rebounds. Tyler Cook had 26 points and eight rebounds.
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery focused his defense on getting back and keeping UConn guards in front of them, and the Huskies were unable to penetrate against the interior wall, rarely found good 3-point looks and couldn't buy a basket from out there, missing their first 13 from behind the line as Iowa built a 25-point lead midway through the second half. Connor McCaffery, the coach's son, came off the bench to score 19, with five assists.
Hurley, frustrated by the mounting fouls called that impaired UConn's aggressiveness, was hit with a technical with 10 minutes to go in the game, and UConn fans were chanting his name as Alterique Gilbert finally ended the perimeter misery with a 3-pointer. The Huskies staged a 14-2 run to pull to 13, but no closer as the game wound to a finish, Hurley getting his second T with 1:44 to go. Hurley said he was saying something to Adams when ref Bo Boroski called the second one.
"I'm not going to put myself inside the minds of that crew tonight," Hurley said. "It was what it was. Bo overheard a conversation I was having with a player on my team and felt that was the appropriate decision. I have a hard job. The players have a hard job. Referees have a hard job. We all have to be accountable for our performance."
UConn, which led only briefly at the beginning, was never in this game. Senior center Eric Cobb, who had a career game against Syracuse, again provided solid production off the bench, scoring 17 points with seven rebounds and two steals, making the all-tournament team, but Iowa, plus-12 in rebounding, had too much up front for Cobb to handle alone. Gilbert added 12 points and Christian Vital 11.
UConn gets back at it against Cornell Tuesday in Hartford, Conn.
