The mood on the Huskies’ bus ride home was as grim as the situation they now face—a season that once carried championship aspirations now balancing on a knife’s edge. Dan Hurley has been here before. The sting of Maui still lingers, and after yet another collapse, he knows exactly what his team needs: urgency, desperation, and one favor from the UConn faithful.

UConn’s 69-68 OT loss to Seton Hall was a brutal wake-up call, exposing the team’s deep-seated struggles. The numbers were alarming – 37.3% shooting from the field and 16 turnovers- and the defeat at the hands of a 7-18 Pirates team was nothing short of crushing. The game had been a back-and-forth affair, with UConn blowing a seven-point lead with just 1:54 to go in regulation.

The team stumbled into this nightmare just as they had seemingly gained momentum with a recent win against Creighton. But then, the unthinkable happened – memories of Maui came flooding back. As the team trudged back to Connecticut on Saturday night, the bus ride was shrouded in a somber silence. Dan Hurley’s words captured the mood perfectly. “Like a casket on wheels,” he said, and then he could not help but draw parallels. “The mood in the bus was indescribable… It was similar to Maui, only that was an airplane casket.”

UConn’s disastrous trip to Maui in November, where they lost to Memphis, Colorado, and Dayton, had exposed the team’s vulnerabilities. Now, with his team’s backs against the wall, Hurley knows they need a boost from their home crowd.

“We need the XL Center to be in our favor tomorrow, and loud and pick the team up that’s given them a lot the last couple of years,” he said. Indeed, the XL Center has been the stage for many unforgettable UConn moments – from Kemba Walker’s dazzling performance in a 78-70 win over Georgetown, which included a highlight-reel pass to himself off the backboard to the Huskies’ thrilling 72-70 win over Cincinnati in 2018.

As the Huskies prepare to face Villanova, they know that they must come out with a sense of zeal, if they want to maintain their chances of a three-peat. For Liam McNeeley especially, memories of their heartbreaking loss to Memphis in Maui still linger, where a crucial foul call on him on an offensive rebound with 40.3 seconds remaining changed the course of the game. The call led to a technical foul on Dan Hurley, and Memphis’ PJ Carter made all four free throws to put the Tigers ahead for good.

McNeeley, fueled by his past mistakes, is driven to start strong, no matter what. “We have to play with desperation, play angry,” McNeeley said. “We have to take our feelings and emotions out on somebody and that is what we are going to do (against Villanova).”

As per Dan Hurley, the locker room needs a major overhaul

The Huskies have underperformed this season, falling to 17-8 and 4th in the Big East, and Hurley acknowledges that he and his players share responsibility for the disappointing results. “There were many games this year I could have coached better and every player on the roster could have played better,” he said.

However, Hurley is concerned that the team’s lack of urgency and frustration may be a bigger issue. He wants to see more anger and frustration in the locker room, rather than silence. “That is part of kids today. They are better at communication in a direct message or a text message than they are in face-to-face communication,” he said.

Hurley would rather see his players passionately debating and arguing about their performance than remain quiet and disconnected. The coach entered the season hungrier than ever and with a fire to write history. Having 6 new faces on the roster probably hasn’t done much to meet his sentiment. Following their loss to Seton Hall, Alex Karaban had admitted that the team doesn’t share the same intensity as the coaching staff and that hurt them in the clash.

“We were soft the entire game,” he said. But he’s clear about playing to turn things around now and Hurley has been just as loud. He told his players that there’s still plenty of reason for hope, but it has to start with a life-or-death approach to their remaining games.