College basketball experts offer insights on the UConn men

Nov. 23—The Maui Invitational has served as a launching pad for national championship runs.

In the prestigious event’s history, seven teams that competed in the Maui field in November went on to cut down the title nets in April.

UConn is on that list.

During the 2010-11 season, the Huskies, led by Kemba Walker, gave the college basketball world a hint of the team’s championship potential by winning the Maui event for the second time. The Huskies ended up capturing the program’s third national title.

Whatever the results are in the three games in three days tournament this week, No. 2 UConn will fly back home after Wednesday’s game with a more accurate read on the team’s potential.

The Huskies (4-0) were never tested in their four opening games, winning by an average margin of 37.8 points per game. They’ll face considerably tougher competition in Maui starting at 2:30 p.m. Monday against Memphis (4-0) in their opener. They’ll play either Michigan State or Colorado on Tuesday.

“It gets real really quickly these days…,” former Husky Donny Marshall said. “I 1,000% think they’re ready. I don’t know if our UConn fans are ready because they expect us to go undefeated. But, hey, we’re used to that.”

Marshall and three other college basketball experts — ESPN analysts Jay Bilas and Seth Greenberg and John Fanta of Fox Sports — recently gave their impressions about the Huskies.

Here’s what they said:

Bilas, who’ll be part of the ESPN2 broadcast team for the UConn-Memphis game, called the Huskies a work in progress.

“They’re really good right now but they’re going to be way better in January and February,” Bilas said. “They’re going to Maui and they’re going to have some tough games there that’s going to tell (coach) Danny (Hurley) what they really need to do.

“I think the players get a lot out of that. Right now, just watching their first few games, they need to be better communicators on the floor. There have been times on the offensive end when Alex Karaban has to point to other guys…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-basketball-experts-offer-insights-013700882.html

Author : The Day, New London, Conn.

Publish date : 2024-11-24 01:37:00

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