‘We’re gonna make sure UConn knows who we are:’ Everything to know ahead of Huskies’ second-round matchup with Saint Mary’s

ALBANY – The Saint Mary’s men’s basketball team traveled 2,919 miles across the country with its cheerleaders, band and a group of fans for the Gaels’ first and second round NCAA Tournament matchups.

The small, private Catholic school of less than 4,000 students in Moraga, California, calls University Credit Union Pavilion, smallest in the West Coast Conference (capacity 3,500), its basketball home. Saint Mary’s won its first round game over VCU Friday, the first time in the program’s history that it won an NCAA Tournament game in consecutive seasons, and drew a second round matchup with UConn, a public school nearly nine times its size and only 134 miles away from Albany’s MVP Arena.

UConn fans are expected to make the short trip and fill in most of the 15,500 seats, but Saint Mary’s isn’t worried about the road feel.

“We’re going to make sure UConn knows who we are,” said Logan Johnson, a fifth-year guard for the Gaels. “Playing at BYU (a WCC opponent for St. Mary’s) helps you out in these situations – playing in front of 21,000 people that hate you – so we’re not worried about it. It’s a road game, and we’re happy with our fanbase that travels with us and they’re gonna be loud in there.”

UConn head coach Dan Hurley isn’t buying into any idea that the “home” court advantage will affect the Gaels .

“I think obviously the crowd tomorrow will help us play better, but I don’t think it’s negatively going to affect them at all because they’re such veteran players and they’ve been in many big spots before,” the fifth-year coach at UConn said after winning his 250th career game Friday evening over Iona.

Head coach Randy Bennett and Saint Mary’s came out to the east coast twice during the 2006-07 season, meeting the Huskies in Hartford about two weeks after losing an overtime game at Seton Hall. UConn won that game, 89-73, thanks to 19 points and five rebounds from Jerome Dyson – Todd Golden, the current head coach at Florida who UConn beat earlier this year, scored five points as the Gaels’ starting point guard.

“How that came about, I think we were looking to get a guarantee game, so we traveled out there,” Bennett said Saturday. “Coach Calhoun was there then. I remember they were good. I remember I made a decision I wasn’t going back out there again.”

Bennett has led the program to 20-plus wins every season since that 2006-07 campaign (when they finished 17-15), with the exception of the shortened 2020-21 season. It is the 13th NCAA Tournament appearance in Saint Mary’s history and the ninth in 22 seasons under Bennett.

Bennett’s teams have a reputation for playing a slowed-down, methodical offense, presenting a new look for the Huskies to study ahead of Sunday’s matchup.

“They’re so well-coached, and with the exception of (freshman guard Aidan) Mahaney, they’ve all been in the program (for years) so it’s gonna be hard to affect them,” Hurley said. “Obviously you could extend your defense and do some things to try to speed them up and get them outside their comfort zone. If your ball-screen defense isn’t 1,000% on point, Mahaney and Johnson will just eat you alive. Obviously (Mitchell) Saxen is a hell of a low post player. He’s physical, he’s tough, he’s skilled – it’s just a veteran group.”

Game-changing chewing gum:Jordan Hawkins was 0-for-6 when he went into the UConn locker room at halftime of the win over Iona Friday night. The struggling sophomore remained relaxed, confident in himself and his teammates.

“He was calm, he asked for a piece of gum, started eating the gum and just went out there and started killing it,” Karaban said, unsure of whether Hawkins was chewing gum on the court in the first half. Hawkins made a four-point play on UConn’s first possession of the second half and finished with 13 points.

Hurley-on-Hurley Elite 8 matchup off the table: When the bracket was revealed, ears perked up as UConn was placed in the same region as Arizona State, coached by Bobby Hurley. It was a long shot for the teams to meet in the tournament, first Bobby had to get past Nevada in the First Four and both coaches would’ve had to win at least three tournament games. UConn made one step forward, but Bobby’s Sun Devils were beaten, 72-70, by a TCU floater at the buzzer later Friday night.

“I think about my dad a lot, both with me and my brother, just trying to represent him as coaches with the way that we run our programs, the culture, the fact that we don’t cheat, we don’t lie, we coach our players hard, we’re not trying to win a popularity contest with the media or trying to have some fake public front,” Dan Hurley said Saturday. “We just try to be coaches, like old school coaches, in every sense of the word, relative to the players we’re responsible for.

“Bob losing, he’s obviously crushed. His team had an incredible run to end the year and they played great (Friday). I talked to him this morning, it’s crushing when you lose.”

First of many? After the final buzzer sounded and UConn beat Iona in Friday’s NCAA Tournament first round, the teams lined up for the regular handshake lines. Rick Pitino, the legendary head coach of the Gaels, stopped UConn forward Alex Karaban, shook his hand and said, “Go win it all.”

Pitino exited the court and found Dan Hurley in the hallway where he repeated his message: “Win it all. Take it home. You’ve got the team to do it,” he said, according to Jeff Goodman, a basketball analyst at Stadium. And, about an hour and a half later, FOX Sports’ John Fanta reported that sources told the network Big East foe St. John’s intends to finalize a deal that would make Pitino its next head coach.

“I would grow up watching Louisville basketball,” Karaban, who’s from Mass. but is a basketball junkie, said after what could’ve been his first of many games against Pitino. “It was kind of a surreal feeling just to shake hands with another Hall of Fame coach. It was awesome just to play against him.”

What to know

Site: MVP Arena, Albany

Time: 6:10 p.m.

Series: UConn leads, 1-0

Only meeting: Dec. 17, 2006 – UConn 89, Saint Mary’s 73 in Hartford

TV: TNT, Spero Dedes, Debbie Antonelli and AJ Ross

Radio: UConn Sports Network on 97.9 ESPN, Mike Crispino and Wayne Norman