NEW YORK — All Connecticut wanted was some tempo. Huskies first-year head coach Dan Hurley wailed his arms and stomped his feet up and down, urging them to bring more pressure, speed up outlet passes and accelerate the pace up the floor. Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim directed for the opposite, patting his hands downward in calming motion.

The latter didn’t appear to work. At the beginning of its 83-76 loss, Syracuse fell out of touch on several fronts. Snowfall and a few accidents in Midtown Manhattan lengthened Syracuse’s bus ride from a nearby Marriott to 90 minutes. The trip usually takes 20 — a delay that cut into Syracuse’s warm-up time. Freshman Buddy Boeheim’s last name was misspelled on the back of his jersey. Point guard Jalen Carey struggled early against the UConn pressure, committing four turnovers in the game’s opening minutes.

After a near turnover during which Carey dribbled too much, Boeheim called him over from the other side of the court and said: “No,” then made a passing motion with his hands. Carey finished with a game-high 26 points, but the early mistakes set a tone that favored the Huskies.

“They were rattled,” Hurley said. “We wanted to get down quickly and beat the zone. And we lived in the paint, spraying passes from there — no ball rotations. Those don’t work against the zone.”

In the former Big East rivals’ 95th all-time matchup, a sort of chaos — which at times overwhelmed No. 15 Syracuse (2-1) — escalated quickly at Madison Square Garden. Connecticut (3-0) shot better from beyond the arc (57.1 percent) than from the field overall (49.1 percent) in a shooting display that worked perfectly against an interior-focused 2-3 zone.

For the most part, the Huskies controlled the pace, speeding up Syracuse and forcing it out of its comfort zone based on half-court sets. Connecticut returned all but two players from last year’s rotation and moves on to the tournament championship game Friday night against the winner of No. 13 Oregon and Iowa. Syracuse will play that game’s loser on Friday.

ACC play is seven weeks away. If the Orange are to plow through its nonconference slate, they’ll face at least a couple of more demanding defenses. Syracuse’s primary issue came at the point guard early, before Carey settled down. The expectations for Syracuse entering this season were built without knowing senior Frank Howard, a vocal leader on an otherwise quiet team, would miss considerable time. Boeheim said Thursday night that he’ll likely miss another week or two, at least, forcing SU to initiate offense elsewhere.

“We weren’t in any way, shape, or form good on the offensive end,” Boeheim said. “We did a little too much one-on-one stuff and didn’t finish around the basket.”

Howard’s absence showed in the first four games, including both exhibitions, but it came under a much clearer microscope during Thursday’s first half. UConn’s in-your-face approach suffocated the Orange and, by extension, started fast breaks to create more scoring opportunities.

The Orange entered the break down, 38-32. Yet whenever SU seemed poised for a run, UConn dictated the pace by facilitating a fast break. And shooting 3s. “That’s what really hurt us,” Carey said. “We just gotta be able to close out on shooters.”

UConn guard Tarin Smith yelled during a timeout, following a brief Syracuse run: “We gotta keep the pace! They tryin’ to slow us!”

After a transition basket by Smith, Tyus Battle and Oshae Brissett stood still. They exhaled. Twenty-five feet away, Hurley stomped his feet again, calling for UConn to push up its defense from half court to full. The speed wasn’t quick enough.

After a 3-pointer that put UConn up 51-41, Boeheim called timeout and stared at Carey. That was his spot to defend, but he wasn’t there. Four Connecticut shooters knocked down at least two 3s, sending blows to any previous Syracuse production on the other end.

“They were jumping every passing lane,” said Syracuse senior Paschal Chukwu, who finished with six points and three boards. “Every time we tried to run a play, they tried to disrupt it by cutting the lanes.”

Most of the answer lies in Syracuse’s defense. Specifically, along the perimeter. Boeheim said that stemmed from poor interior defense, especially from Chukwu. “Just absolutely destroyed us in there,” Boeheim said, which set up UConn to shoot exceedingly well. The Huskies took full advantage of open space on the outskirts of the 2-3, and SU defenders were slow to anticipate skip passes and kick-outs, leaving some shooters unguarded to unleash from deep.

“We got out-toughed,” Boeheim said. “That’s something they’re going to have to look in the mirror and figure out. By tomorrow.”

By the end of the evening, the Orange filed out of the Garden without a clear offensive identity. An evenly-split arena left one reverberating tone — “Let’s go Huskies!” — at the end, as Syracuse players walked toward the locker room, where they sat post-game, in silence.

Published on November 15, 2018 at 9:14 pm

Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21