BOSTON — The last coach whose team had a tough battle against Connecticut has been keeping a close eye on the defending national champions.
Rick Pitino has played against them three times and has prepared, but the St. John’s coach doesn’t see areas he can exploit.
The top-seeded Huskies may just be unbeatable.
“I don’t see any weaknesses,” Pitino told the Post in a phone interview on the eve of the Elite Eight. “They have to have an off shooting night, but you have to have a great shooting night to beat them.”
UW ranks No. 1 in the nation in offensive efficiency and No. 6 on the other side of the floor.
They rank eighth in rebound margin of plus-eight per game.
They tied a program record with 34 wins and have won their past nine tournament games by an average margin of 22.8 points.
It can outplay you or lock you up defensively.
All of the starting five are averaging double digits, led by the dynamic backcourt duo of Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer.
“It’s going to take a special performance. They can play in so many different ways,” Pitino said. “Spencer is the head of the snake because he’s always on the move, he’s always making passes that lead to great shots, he’s always getting those key offensive rebounds. But then you get Newton, [Stephon] castle and [Donovan] who is klingan [projected] First-round draft selections, and they’re all great in their own right.
“Then they introduce a backup center [Samson Johnson] who is as good [backup] He’s playing great at center field, just like in college baseball.then you have [Alex] Karavan and the rest of the players are taken off the bench. They are a deadly basketball team. ”
A Big East assistant coach, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two areas opponents need to be careful about in order to shoot against the Huskies are getting opponents off the 3-point line and protecting the defensive glass. I feel that.
In their three losses on the road against Creighton, Kansas and Seton Hall, they shot 27.6 percent from 3-point range and were just plus-4 on the glass.
Both are well below their season averages.
“If we protect the 3-point line and protect the defensive glass, we don’t allow them to move the ball from side to side,” the coach said. “They do a lot with false moves. You can’t allow them to move the floor.”
The team that could pose the biggest threat to Connecticut’s goal of winning back-to-back championships for the first time since Florida in 2006-07 is the team most familiar with the dominant Huskies.
“If you ask me which team has the best chance of beating them, I would say Marquette and Creighton have the best chance,” Pitino said Friday night, with Big East opponents on the court in a Sweet 16 game. He spoke before standing up. “They know themselves very well. The Illinois basketball team is also really strong. Certainly Houston is great. There are a lot of teams that can beat them, but it takes a lot of players to really understand Connecticut. We need someone who is.
“There are a lot of ways for Connecticut to beat you. And if you’re Creighton or Marquette, you know all the weaknesses and strengths that Big East teams have. They know Connecticut State.”
Connecticut, which faces No. 3 Illinois in the Elite Eight on Saturday night at TD Garden, is generally not that tough to deal with, especially unless they’ve played against each other before.
The Big East assistant coach agreed with Pitino that the league’s two teams have the best chance of beating UW, but Marquette and Creighton are both in the mix in Friday night’s Sweet 16 game. Probably not, because we lost.
So why are Huskies so difficult to deal with?
“It’s because of how fast they move,” the Big East coach said. “They’re always moving fast, very fast. You don’t really see it on film. You think you’ve guarded one cut, then you take a little break and the next guy comes right behind him and you can’t see it on film. go somewhere else. And they share the ball. They’re very selfish.”
