Adama Sanogo took comfort in knowing he had Donovan Clingan behind him, ready to step in and maintain the level of play when his number was called off the bench for the UConn men’s basketball team last season. During the five games Clingan, now in Sanogo’s role, missed this year, Samson Johnson didn’t have that safety net.
The 6-foot-10 junior had only started one game in his career but was the next man up, called on to keep the ship afloat. The five-game stretch wasn’t perfect – Johnson was efficient on the offensive end when he was in the game but struggled to give the Huskies their typical edge on the glass. He had four fouls in all but one game and UConn had to “hold down the fort,” coach Dan Hurley said, with a small lineup that was able to help claim the No. 1 ranking before Clingan returned.
When he did, the reigning champs showed why they might again be the best team in the country with a stifling defensive effort leading the way in a 62-48 win over 18th-ranked Creighton.
“I think you saw (Johnson) be better already just knowing that he’s got Donovan kind of with him there,” Hurley said Friday. “He’s not playing as tentatively, he’s not playing (like) ‘I can’t foul, I can’t foul’ and ending up fouling more. I just think having Donovan back is really good for everybody, but quietly it may be the best for Samson almost out of everybody. I think he can just kind of get back to flying around and doing the ‘Slamson’ things.”
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As the top-ranked Huskies carry their six-game winning streak into Philadelphia for a matchup with long-time rival Villanova, where Eric Dixon (6-8, 255 pounds) plays the five in a positionless offense, Johnson’s mobility on the defensive end will be valuable. Dixon leads the Wildcats in scoring at 15.3 points per game, shooting 35.8% from beyond the arc, and is second on the team with 6.4 rebounds.
Clingan, on a 15-minute restriction when he returned off the bench Wednesday, felt “really light, really great” after the game. He will have the restriction extended on Saturday, though Johnson will likely be in the starting lineup for the seventh-straight game.
“Eric Dixon is clearly a first-team all-Big East player and there’s so many good players it’s even hard to have first and second teams in this league. He’s one of the best players in the league, he’s a unique offensive player – a third of his shot attempts are coming from 3,” Hurley said. “He’s the focal point of what they do, so you’ve got to do different things defensively against him when Donovan’s in the game, when Samson’s in the game, and it better be a team defensive script because you can’t guard him one-on-one.”
Villanova dropped three games in the nonconference to local mid-majors Drexel, Saint Joseph’s and Penn, but beat Texas Tech, North Carolina and Memphis on consecutive days in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Second-year head coach Kyle Neptune’s team currently sits second in the Big East standings with a 4-2 record in conference play, which includes an overtime win at Creighton (Dixon had career-high 32 points) and a one-point decision at home against Xavier. The Wildcats enter Saturday’s game after a 13-point loss at Marquette on Monday in which sophomore guard Mark Armstrong broke out for a career-best 24 points.
“As the season goes on and these guys get more comfortable together, they’re going to be an incredibly tough out in our league in terms of playing at the top of it and going to be a problem for anyone in the NCAA Tournament,” Hurley said. “(Neptune) has done a great job in an absolute pressure-cooker job that a lot of men couldn’t handle.”
Lockdown defensive effort against Creighton leads to UConn men’s basketball’s ‘most impressive’ win of the season
Battle of balance
UConn has four players averaging in double-digit scoring with Stephon Castle knocking on the doorstep at 9.7 points per game. Villanova, with only Dixon and fifth-year guard Justin Moore averaging 10-plus, has seven players averaging seven points or more.
“(We’re) similar to Villanova, they’ve got great balance as well, they have a plethora of talent,” Hurley said. “We knew that we would have four guys between 13 and 16, or 14 and 15 (points per game), with Tristen (Newton), Cam (Spencer), Donovan and Alex (Karaban), and then we knew Steph would be around double-figure scoring. So we knew that we were going to have a very unique offensive team.”
UConn has the best scoring offense in the Big East (81.89 points per game) with the best field goal percentage (49.8%) and the second-best 3-point shooting percentage behind Butler (35.5%). The Huskies’ scoring margin, plus-17.33, is almost five points more than any team in the league.
“That’s why I think all the things we talked in the preseason were leadership and depth and toughness, because we knew that we would be a really good offensive team this year,” Hurley said. “Because there’s not too many teams in the country that have four guys who could go for 20-plus, plus Steph who’s been living in that 10, 12, 14 range too.”
What to know
Site: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia
Time: 8 p.m.
Records: No. 1 UConn: 16-2 (6-1 Big East), Villanova: 11-6 (4-2 Big East)
Series history: Villanova leads, 39-34
Last meeting: March 4, 2023 – UConn 71, Villanova 59 at the Wells Fargo Center
TV: FS1 – Alex Faust, Jim Spanarkel
Radio: UConn Sports Network on FOX Sports Radio 97.9 – Mike Crispino, Wayne Norman
Pregame reading: