UConn men beat DePaul, 75-68, clinch the third seed in Big East Tournament
On a day that honored seniors, it was sophomore Adama Sanogo who stole the show.
In the last game of the regular season the UConn men’s basketball team defeated DePaul 75-68 at Gampel Pavilion on Saturday night. Sanogo led the way with 26 points and 11 rebounds. In addition, Tyrese Martin played a great all-around game with 19 points and 16 rebounds.
With the Huskies’ win and Creighton’s 65-60 loss to Seton Hall earlier in the day, the Huskies clinched the third seed in the Big East Tournament. The tournament begins on Wednesday with the first round and UConn will plays its opening game, a quarterfinal, on Thursday at 9:30 p.m.
DePaul’s Javon Freeman-Liberty cut an 18-point UConn lead to just five after he made a tough layup and got fouled in the process and made the free throw with 1:35 left. With 23 seconds left, the Blue Demon’s David Jones missed the 3 and ultimately gave the Huskies the ball. Tyler Polley was fouled on the next possession and sank both free throws to put UConn up 75-68.
Sanogo showcased his offensive prowess all game long. He put on a clinic in the post with various moves that DePaul defenders struggled to defend. He had 20 points on 9-for-11 shooting and seven rebounds in the first half.
UConn coach Dan Hurley praised Sanogo’s ability to bounce back from poor games.
“An angry Adama is hard to deal with,” he said. “His track record coming off a subpar game is pretty good. He responds very very well to not being at his best.”
Hurley had said Akok Akok would play some minutes in this game and the forward made the most of it. He made his presence felt around the rim as he had three blocks in six minutes.
“It was good for him to get some minutes for him under his belt,” Hurley said. “I thought he did some good things in there. He has to be ready to give us minutes when we need him after missing a lot of time.”
Coming in Freeman-Liberty was averaging 30 points in his previous three games. Saturday he had 22 points and shot 8-for-18.
The No. 18 Huskies (22-8, 13-6 Big East) finished third in the conference behind Providence and Villanova. DePaul (15-15, 6-14) finishes ninth in the conference.
Before the game, seniors R.J. Cole, Martin, Matt Garry, Isaiah Whaley and Polley were honored with ceremonies for Senior Day. Whaley and Polley had graduated last year but took advantage of the chance to return for one more season, which was granted due to COVID.
Martin wasn’t too focused on Senior Day.
“I really didn’t have much emotion today, he said. “As a senior, it’s probably my last game in front of the home crowd and home court, things like that. I’ll get the senior emotions and all that when the last game is played of my college career. Today, it was really no emotions. It was just my last game here at UConn.”
The Huskies’ defense limited the Blue Demons to shooting 12-for-34 (35.4%) from the field in the first half. DePaul shot 4-for-8 from 3, which kept this game from becoming a blowout as UConn went into the half with a 40-29 lead.
After shooting 0-for-4 in the first half, Cole got his first two points of the game on a jumper at the 18:52 mark in the second half. Then, at 13:58, Martin hit a second-chance 3 to put the Huskies up 51-37. With 9:28 left in the game, DePaul took a timeout as they trailed 60-45. DePaul cut the lead to nine points after Freeman-Liberty hit a second-chance 3 with 3:01 left.
Hurley feels good about his team group heading into the tournament.
“We are a better team and more experienced team, more battle-tested team than we were last year going into New York,”
Shreyas Laddha can be reached at sladdha@courant.com or at shre98 on Twitter.
