UConn, the team expected to win this tournament, suffered its second straight loss to an unranked team in the first game of the second day of the Maui Invitational on Tuesday, losing 73-72 to Colorado. Andrej Jakimovski made the game-winning shot with 8 seconds remaining.
“Coach trusted me to make the last play,” Jakimovski said, “and he called a good play for me and I knew I had to go down there and finish, and that’s basically it. It’s a great team win, great bounce-back after a bad game yesterday. We showed character, and we defended.”
UConn is probably one of the best offensive teams that I’ve played in my college career. It’s a great team win, and way to finish it.
For the second straight day, UConn coach Dan Hurley criticized the officiating.
“Yesterday, the biggest play of the game was an over-the-back that was called against us,” Hurley said. “And then today, it was more egregious because (Trevor) Baskin pulled Liam’s (McNeeley) arm down, I saw the replay of it. It’s ironic. But our defense has been just so dreadful, just so dreadful.”
Colorado made 9 of 16 3-pointers (56.2%) one day after making 4 of 19 (21.1%) in a 72-56 loss to Michigan State.
I just arrived at the Lahaina Civic Center, where Dayton plays Iowa State at 3:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m. in Ohio). Memphis leads Michigan State 34-31 at halftime in the first semifinal. No. 4 Auburn plays No. 12 North Carolina in the second semifinal tonight after the Dayton game.
8:22 a.m. (Maui time) — Jay Morrison, my former colleague with the Dayton Daily News and a longtime Cincinnati Bengals beat writer now with BengalsTalk.comn, sent me a photo he took of his TV screen Monday night showing a sleeping child in the front row of the Lahaina Civic Center during Dayton’s game against North Carolina.
Anyone here in Maui could understand how someone could fall asleep, even in the noisy arena, because it’s hard to adjust to the time difference here. By the time the Dayton Flyers and Tar Heels tipped off, it was close to midnight back in Ohio. The game tipped off at about 6:45 p.m. in Maui.
The biggest fans stayed awake until the bitter end — and it was a truly bitter end for Dayton.
“We are Dayton fans,” wrote Dan Sulivan, the founder of the Talking Out Lowd podcast, on X after the game. “We are born in pain. We live in pain. We are pain. We did not choose this life, the life chose us.”
The Flyers lost 92-90 to No. 12 North Carolina, blowing a 21-point lead. You have to go back to 2000 to find a non-overtime game in which Dayton scored 90 points and lost.
Dayton has lost a bigger lead in recent years, 23 points, two years ago against Brigham Young in the Battle 4 Atlantis, but it owned that lead early in the game. This time, it had its biggest lead two minutes into the second half. The Flyers played about as well as they could have hoped to play in many categories but could not get defensive stops in the second half.
Dayton looked like a top-25 team in the first half. North Carolina looked like the No. 12 team, if not much better, in the second half.
Coach Anthony Grant was in no mood to talk about moral victories after the game. I asked if there was a silver lining in getting solid contributions from all 10 players who played. Jaiun Simon, for example, provided his most important contributions ever in a Dayton uniform, scoring on a drive to the basket in the first half and grabbing an offensive rebound in the second half that led to a 3-pointer.
This is the answer Grant provided when I asked about the team effort that almost led to an upset:
“It’s a hard loss,” Grant said. “We felt like we had chances to win the game. So we’ve got to be able to be resilient and put our focus on the next game. That’s what I’m trying to do right now.
“We can’t really relive what happened tonight. Didn’t go our way. Our guys fought. We gave it everything we had. Give Carolina credit. They were able to win the game. So now we’ve got to get prepared for another tough, really challenging game tomorrow.”
Dayton (5-1) will play Iowa State (3-1) at 8:30 p.m. today, or 3:30 p.m. if you’re in Maui. The Cyclones had their own rough day Monday, blowing an 18-point lead in an 83-81 loss to No. 5 Auburn.
Three of the first-round games were thrillers. Only Michigan State’s 72-56 victory against Colorado did not fit in that category. That was the one game I skipped. I took a break after watching No. 2 Memphis beat Connecticut 99-97 in overtime and spent some time at the beach and at the pool. I needed my energy for a late night.
Dayton fans didn’t get much sleep, probably tossing and turning and replaying the game in their minds. Some will take solace in a close victory that showed what this Dayton team could be. I joked with Morrison that I always enjoy when my team loses close games. That’s why I’m having such a great time watching the Bengals this season.
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