AAC Basketball

The University of South Florida Bulls defeated the DePaul Blue Demons 77-65 at McGrath-Phillips Arena in Chicago on Friday night, claiming the 2019 College Basketball Invitational Championship. 

Sophomore guard David Collins led the way for USF with 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists.

✅ 54 points
✅ 17 assists
✅ 14 rebounds
✅ Game 1 winning shot
✅ @CBITourney MVP!#RunWithUs #HornsUp 🤘 pic.twitter.com/aNbqCm0xQg

— USF Men's Basketball (@USFMBB) April 6, 2019

DePaul was without senior guard Eli Cain, who dislocated his elbow and wrist in Game 2, but got back redshirt sophomore guard Devin Gage after he was cleared from a head injury. Gage started the game and tied Collins to lead all scorers with 19 points. 

The Bulls held a 37-20 lead at the 6:22 mark in the first half, but DePaul ripped off a 14-2 run to make it a much more manageable 39-34 at halftime. The Blue Demons kept it close for the majority of the second half, but they were unable to gain a lead before USF pulled away again—this time, for good. 

A third game was needed to decide the tournament's champion after DePaul tied the series with a 100-96 overtime victory in Game 2 on Wednesday. This is USF's first CBI championship.

Picked last in the @American_MBB. Coming home with the hardware! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/IUaOTexEOF

— USF Men's Basketball (@USFMBB) April 6, 2019

On Monday, USF head coach Brian Gregory laid out to the Tampa Bay Times' Joey Knight the long-term plan behind entering the pay-for-play CBI: 

"We talk about building this thing. And you look at the other programs that have played in this tournament and what they've done after. We're trying to follow that same path. ... The facts are, we weren't good enough or experienced enough to go to the NCAA Tournament this year, or the NIT.

"So this was our next-best option for us."

Per Knight, seven of 11 former CBI champions have won at least 20 games the following season, while three of them reached the NCAA Tournament. Most notably, VCU won the 2010 CBI, and in 2010-11, VCU made it to the Final Four. 

While aiming for next year's Final Four is aspirational, USF can be encouraged by the progress the program is making in just two seasons under Gregory. 

After the Bulls clinched the CBI title, Knight relayed that USF winning 14 more games (24-14) than last season (10-22) is the NCAA's largest win improvement in 2018-19. 

Gregory and USF will only lose three seniors, none of whom started on Friday night, making USF a potential March Cinderella in the near future. 

"PHEEEESSAA!!!!!!"

She'd hear the word bellow out of coach Geno Auriemma at a practice, and she'd know she was about to get called out. Again. Another mistake.

And the worst part? She knew he was right.     

She was playing too deferential. Too timid.

Napheesa Collier had a long way to go.

But that didn't mean it didn't kill the now-senior UConn forward to hear it from the team's legendary coach.

Auriemma knew how to press her buttons. How to mine more out of her. He'd dog her about stretching out of her comfort zone around the hoop, developing a mid-range game.

At one practice, he called her selfish when she failed to dive for a loose ball that was rolling out of bounds.

And he'd yell these generalizations.

"Phee, you don't ever get a rebound!"

"Phee, you never stop the ball!"

Collier wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing he got under her skin, though. She burned to prove him wrong.

Gabby Williams, who was a year ahead of Collier at UConn, remembers how rough it was. "I've watched Phee get pushed to the point where she just didn't think it was possible to go any harder," says Williams, who's now on the WNBA's Chicago Sky. "They were asking her to do things that she just didn't think she was capable of doing."

Like the 11-man drill, a continuous 3-on-2 full-court exercise that is one of the toughest in practice. Players are running faster than they can breathe. There is no stopping. Only passing and cutting and scoring.

Williams pulled Collier aside at one point, telling her: "It's gonna be hard. You're gonna be tired no matter what. It's how you approach it, mentally."

"It's not for everyone," Williams says now. "But everyone doesn't have 11 national championships."

And Collier wanted one of her own.

So she didn't break.

The freshman who had so far to go turned herself into one of the top scorers and rebounders in the program's history—and has it two wins away from a 12th national championship.

She also turned herself into a player who will hear her name announced near the top of the WNBA draft on April 10 and has earned praise from some of the sport's top stars.

"I love the fact that she can put the ball on the floor and that she can stretch the floor," two-time WNBA MVP Candace Parker tells B/R. "She plays bigger than she is. That's the type of game coming into the WNBA that will translate, because that's where the WNBA is now. It's positionless.

"Obviously, I'm in no way a Connecticut fan, but I'm a Phee fan because I know how much work she puts in."

To come this far, Collier had to.

"It was about believing in myself..." Collier says. "It was about trusting myself and knowing that I know how to play, I'm here for a reason, and I need to start proving that to myself."

---

As a young girl, Collier used to fall down often. On sidewalks, on basketball courts. She was so tall and stretchy, she'd trip on her toes all of a sudden and stumble to the ground, her long legs tangled underneath her.

"Oh, there's that line monster!" her mother, Sarah, would joke. "The line monster got you again!"

And lines weren't the only thing coming for Collier.

She was constantly the subject of hard fouls from opposing players. She'd leave games with fingernail marks trailing up and down her arms. She'd head-fake and bang her way to the basket, and someone would snatch the scrunchie off her ponytail.

That is, when teams finally let her play. Sarah and Napheesa's father, Gamal, couldn't find a team that would give third-grade Napheesa a chance in Jefferson City, Missouri. "We already have too many girls," coaches would say. "We just don't have any room."

Not one spot? Not even for a girl who already had a natural instinct for where the ball was and where it would be? Nope. But when a team finally did give her a jersey, she proved to be a force. She just flew. Grabbing rebounds, running the floor. "She was blocking shots, getting deflections, just everywhere," says Kay Foster, her former youth coach with the Missouri Lady Warriors. "You can't teach that."

Not that basketball was everything to her. Mom and Dad made sure of that. "We didn't want our kids to think that a sport defined them," Sarah says. So before games, you could find Napheesa curled up in a corner with a mystery novel from her favorite author, Ruth Ware.

But when the game started, she gave everything. "She never needed to talk about it," says Dan Rolfes, her high school coach at Incarnate Word Academy in St. Louis. "She just led by example."

Once, her coach on the Missouri Phenom club team, Reggie Middlebrook, told her that scouts were coming to see her for a two-day showcase in Fayetteville, Arkansas, but that she only needed to play one of the days. He didn't want her to get injured.

"Well, I want to play both days," Collier told him.

Middlebrook allowed it but under one condition: no diving for loose balls. Two minutes into the first game she played in the showcase, an errant pass flew, and Collier dove for it. She had to. "What did we just talk about?!" Middlebrook screamed. Gamal laughed and yelled out from the stands: "She doesn't know how to turn that switch off! You're gonna have to take her out of the game if you don't want her doing that!" Middlebrook subbed her out.

"I've had kids that worked hard," Middlebrook says. "But nobody like Pheesa.'"

Her parents taught her that. Boasting was forbidden. Probably the closest she has come to talking smack was heading into sixth grade, playing against a team of soon-to-be high schoolers. Collier dove for a loose ball with another girl. The girl yelled a few curse words at her, finishing with: "Get off me!"

Little Collier got back up, put her hand on her hip and looked over her shoulder at the girl, giving her a little hip shake: "Make me!"

It was one of the proudest moments of her young life.

Other than that, she stayed even-keeled. She's always been soft-spoken but direct. Calm. It's a demeanor that has often been misunderstood, labeled not assertive enough. Not fierce enough.

"Mom, my teammates don't get me," she'd say as a young girl. "They just don't get me. They don't know I'm funny!"

And she was kind. In high school, she once turned down a wide-open layup to kick the ball out to a teammate at the three-point line because the teammate was on the cusp of the 1,000-point mark. "If someone on the other team fell," says her brother, Kai, "she tried to pick them up."

Gamal started telling Napheesa when she was about 15 that every time she steps on the floor, she makes an impression. People will form opinions about her by the way she plays and the way she carries herself upon first meeting her.

"So, what do you want your story to be?" he said. 

"My story?"

"You write your story, your legacy. So, how do you want it to be?"

Collier wasn't sure. Not yet.

---

Collier was deferring. Overpassing, overthinking. She was a freshman at UConn, exhausted from conditioning, from weights, having never lifted before. She was barely able to hobble up the steep steps around campus after practice.

Every day, she was just trying to survive.

Then there was Breanna Stewart, a senior who never seemed to tire. She was so dominant, so poised, she already looked like a WNBA MVP. So during the first few weeks of practice, Collier fed Stewart the ball on most occasions, instinctively looking to dish before even squaring up and taking a peek at the rim to see if there was an opportunity for herself.

Sometimes she'd forget the plays, concerned with where she needed to be instead of just being. The Huskies offense isn't designed for specific plans. It's an outline that breeds creativity and requires intelligence. Make the right reads and you'll succeed. But Collier came in more structural than spontaneous. In high school, most plays on her team were diagrammed.

"The talent was there," says Marisa Moseley, a former Huskies assistant coach who is now the head coach at Boston University. "There was never a time when she wasn't trying to beat her opponent down the floor and get a bucket."

"She's got that killer instinct in her," says former teammate Azura Stevens, who's now with the WNBA's Dallas Wings.

But Collier's confidence dropped. Sometimes she didn't feel like she belonged. She wanted to be coached, though. Always has. As a second-grader, she came home from soccer practice one day, frustrated: "Mom, Coach kept telling everybody, 'Good job, good job,'" she said. "But nobody was doing a good job!"

Just like Collier knew she was not doing a good job early on at UConn.

And she knew she'd hear about it. She didn't think of transferring. Not when her parents had one rule in their household: that Napheesa and her siblings, Kai and Wanza, weren't allowed to say It's not fair or It's not my fault.

Collier, like any first-year player, was trying to fit in. To earn her place. To be respectful. "She just thought, I'm here to be a teammate—not understanding that, you know, you gotta cut everybody's throat," Gamal says.

Auriemma made sure she learned the lesson, challenging her to play better defense, be more physical, get in better shape.

It was, in Gamal's view, "brutal."

---

After that freshman year, Collier was sure of one thing: "I never wanted to feel like this again."

No more second-guessing. Collier was going to fight for a starting spot. "She played with a ton of heart," says Kia Nurse, her former roommate, who's now with the WNBA’s New York Liberty.

Collier trained twice a day that summer with Alex Bazzell, who also trains Parker and Atlanta Hawks rookie star Trae Young. The first sessions began at 6 a.m. Stepping outside of the paint, she developed a soft touch. Over and over, she labored on her footwork.

Collier would compete against three men's college players in a grueling drill where one would throw the ball off the glass and she would battle the other two for the rebound. Then the two players would smother her and she'd have to beat them to half court. Then it was the third player's turn to guard her one-on-one down on the other end of the floor. She'd have to score 10 times total. Up and down the floor, she'd have to push through exhaustion while finding ways to change her pace and handle the ball under pressure.

She hated it, but she didn't stop. 

"Her level of consistency is something I haven't seen," Bazzell says. "She's never had a bad workout. She never just goes through the motions. I've never seen that from anyone."

Collier came into her sophomore season much improved, but again, the coaching staff challenged her. The Huskies were doing a rebounding drill when Collier failed to box out a male practice player. "That's why you aren't going to play this year. That's why you'll never play," Collier remembers Auriemma saying to her.

OK, OK. I'm going to show you, she thought. The male practice player didn't get another board over her for the rest of practice. Or for the next few practices.

Then, one day, Collier went into Auriemma's office. He told her she was a good player. Coach thinks I'm good? Me?

"But," Auriemma said, "if you do these things, you could be a great player."

He told her she needed to continue to expand her game to mid-range and three-point range and improve her ball-handling.

After that, she began to trust her instincts. And she shined, leading the team in scoring (20.4 points per game) and rebounding (9.1 per game) as a sophomore while shooting a blistering 67.8 percent. She was named a first-team All-American, but for the first time in five seasons, UConn didn't win a national championship. The Huskies lost to Mississippi State in the Final Four.

Collier continued to be asked about her demeanor all the while. Why are you so quiet? Why are you so calm? People didn't see her for what she is: goofy and outgoing, always playing pranks, like hiding behind basketballs and then screaming to scare her UConn teammates. Some spectators said she didn't have emotions, didn't have personality.

They still say those things. Every comment hurts. It's that familiar, painful feeling she felt as a young girl of not being understood.

"That makes me so mad," Collier says. She'd feel pulled to defend herself, to explain that it makes no sense for her to show her opponent she's frustrated by losing her composure, or to celebrate when she makes a key basket, either.

"You don't run around and boast when you pay a bill or make a deadline," Gamal would tell her as a girl. "That's just what you're supposed to do."

It didn't help that her stats dipped a bit last season as a junior (16.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, 58.3 percent shooting), though she remained a vocal leader of the team. She was playing a new position on the perimeter, something she had never done before, and felt unsure of herself.

And the way the season ended definitely didn't help.

---

The thoughts still sometimes flood her mind when she thinks of The Shot—the game-winning jumper Arike Ogunbowale hit over her last March to lift Notre Dame past UConn in the Final Four.

If only I had counted down the shot clock. If only I had gotten closer. Just a little bit closer. If only I wasn't so wary of a drive. Of an easy layup. Of failing to close out.  If only... If only... If only...

In that moment, Collier felt what anyone who has ever loved basketball has felt: the need to have a do-over, to turn back time. But she couldn't.

She could only try to move past it.

And skate. With her entire team.

A week after the loss, the Huskies went to Ron-A-Roll, a roller-skating rink about 20 minutes from campus. She had a choice: She could continue to wallow, to blame herself, to mourn her team falling short for the second straight season, or she could whirl past all of it. At least for a few hours.

Collier laced up the white laces of her tan skates and began to pump her arms, her legs. Faster. Around and around, she zipped across the rink, settling into a groove. A smile broke through. More laps. Then laughs. Everyone kept falling down. Twice. Three times. Five times. Collier was one of the more graceful players, but she too wiped out.

Each time, players picked each other up, laughing harder. They didn't have to think about what critics were saying: UConn's lost it. They're just not the same. Is this an end of an era?

No. Collier wouldn't allow that to happen. Not after all she's been through.

She showed up her senior season back to All-American form, averaging 21.2 points and 10.8 rebounds. You can see why the WNBA is so excited about her. She has become the most consistent player in women's college basketball. She blocks shots and defends players much taller than her 6'2" frame. Her fadeaway is automatic. And she can face up or step out, too.

"She does a little bit of everything and does it every day, every game, every time we're on the floor," says Chris Dailey, UConn's associate head coach.

Still, as if Collier needed the extra motivation, she was not named a finalist for the Naismith Trophy as a senior—and UConn received a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament despite a 31-2 regular season that included a win over Notre Dame, which did receive a No. 1.

"That lit a fire within us. We were so confused and shocked by the No. 2 seed, not really understanding where it came from," Collier says. "I think we do still definitely feel disrespected. So, I mean, watch out, I guess."

She's using the tournament to right all wrongs, averaging 21.8 points and 13.3 rebounds per game and helping the Huskies earn a remarkable 12th straight trip to the Final Four after an 80-73 win over top-seeded Louisville on Sunday.

In the waning seconds of the Louisville win, she broke from her normally reserved on-court demeanor, flashing a smile as she jogged back to UConn's huddle. She couldn't help it. The basketball gods had just given her a friendly roll on two crucial free throws.

Dailey wasn't having it, though, shouting, "The game's not over!"

Collier quickly wiped the smile off her face, but her mother, Sarah, knew the jubilance wasn't all the way gone. "She was still smiling on the inside," Sarah says.

This Collier, the one who knows who she is and what she can do, isn't the one who showed up in Storrs four years ago. 

So when she is asked yet again why she is the way she is, by reporters leading up to the Final Four, she takes a deep breath. "I can't control what people think about me or how they see me," Collier says.

Then she remembers why she's here.

"No matter what people say, I definitely wouldn't change how I play," Collier says. "I didn't come here to get individual awards. I came here to win championships."

That's what she wants her story to be.

            

Mirin Fader is a writer-at-large for B/R Mag. She's written for the Orange County Register, espnW.com, SI.com and Slam. Her work has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, the Football Writers Association of America and the Los Angeles Press Club. Follow her on Twitter: @MirinFader.

The University of Houston and head basketball coach Kelvin Sampson reached an agreement Thursday on a six-year contract extension.  

Houston announced the deal after Joseph Duarte of Houston Chronicle first reported the agreement, noting the contract is believed to be worth $18 million.

The announcement follows rumors about Sampson potentially leaving the Cougars to take over the Arkansas Razorbacks program. Sampson made it clear he's not looking to go anywhere else, per Duarte: 

Coach Kelvin Sampson on finishing his career at Houston: "To me, the University of Houston is a destination job." He adds "I get the feeling from a lot of people that this is a steppingstone job. No, this is a great job. If it wasn't I wouldn't stay here."

— Joseph Duarte (@Joseph_Duarte) April 4, 2019

Sampson also noted that his son, Kellen, will be the head coach in waiting, per Duarte.

The 63-year-old North Carolina native led Houston to a 33-4 record and a Sweet 16 appearance in the 2019 NCAA tournament before a season-ending loss to the Kentucky Wildcats on Friday.

He's guided to Cougars to a 116-52 mark across five years since he left his role as an assistant with the NBA's Houston Rockets to rejoin the college coaching ranks in 2014.

Sampson previously served as head coach of the Montana Tech Orediggers (NAIA), Washington State Cougars, Oklahoma Sooners and Indiana Hoosiers during a career on the sideline that spans four decades. He owns a 541-279 record at the Division I level.

The two-time reigning American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year joked about the Arkansas speculation when asked during March Madness about a possible move before next season.

"I'm not going to talk about my contract situation," he told reporters. "My response to—what school was it? I was just joking. I didn't know if you said Arizona or Arkansas or Alaska or—yeah. Been a lot of those schools over the years. I don't really have a response to it. I don't know what I'm supposed to respond to, you know. There's nothing to respond to."

His extension will force the Hogs to continue their search to replace Mike Anderson, who they fired last month after an 18-16 campaign.

Arkansas' wish list, annotated.

- Sampson: Re-ups with UH
- Buzz: Plucked by A&M
- Beard: Likely staying in Lubbock

I don't view hiring a coach like Muss as settling, but it might appear that way the longer this drags out. https://t.co/q71mJJphNh

— Matt Harris (@MattJHarris85) April 4, 2019

Meanwhile, Sampson's reported $3 million base salary would be tied for 21st among college basketball coaches, according to the USA Today database.

With his contract situation settled, Sampson can now focus on bolstering a 65th-ranked recruiting class to help fill the void left by seniors Corey Davis Jr. and Galen Robinson Jr., two of the team's top four scorers.

The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament is always full of memorable moments, but often overlooked is the agony of defeat.

This was exemplified in the UCF locker room after the team's 77-76 loss to Duke on Sunday. Head coach Johnny Dawkins gave an emotional speech to his team after the game while his players were mostly in tears:

“We end in tears...that’s because we’ve invested so much in each other.

I love you guys. It’s been amazing coaching this group.” -@Coach_Dawkins pic.twitter.com/B58DbNZzWO

— UCF Men’s Hoops 🌴 (@UCF_MBB) March 25, 2019

The Knights had an opportunity to knock off the tournament's No. 1 overall seed, leading by three points in the final minute.

Unfortunately, Zion Williamson got a basket and a foul with 14 seconds left. Although he missed the free throw, RJ Barrett got the rebound and put it back in for the go-ahead score.

When UCF had a chance to win it at the buzzer, the final shot barely rimmed out:

Coming this close to a massive upset before falling short is devastating for the losing team, especially the seniors who played their last collegiate game. Dawkins did everything he could to lift his players' spirits, but the emotion after the game was real.

Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Ray Allen's No. 34 jersey number was retired by UConn on Sunday prior to the Huskies' home game versus South Florida:

No. 34, retired in perpetuity. pic.twitter.com/IKy6d60Rno

— CBS Sports Network (@CBSSportsNet) March 3, 2019

Allen is just the second Husky to have their jersey number retired. Rebecca Lobo's No. 50 was first in a ceremony Saturday.

The 18-year pro is an NBA legend perhaps best known for his three-pointer in the 2013 NBA Finals and his role as Jesus Shuttlesworth in the movie He Got Game.

He is a 10-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA team member who averaged 18.9 points on 45.2 percent shooting. Allen also hit 40 percent of his three-pointers over a career that was spent with the Milwaukee Bucks, Seattle SuperSonics, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat.

The two-time NBA champion won titles with the 2007-08 Celtics and 2012-13 Heat.

Allen played at UConn from 1993-96, posting 19.0 points per game on 48.7 percent shooting and 44.8 percent from three-point range. He was named the Big East Player of the Year for the 1995-96 Huskies, who went 32-3 and won the regular-season and conference tournament championships.

He left school after his junior year and was drafted fifth overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves, who traded him and Andrew Lang to the Milwaukee Bucks for the rights to Stephon Marbury. 

After being hired by the Memphis Tigers despite having no prior collegiate coaching experience, former NBA player Penny Hardaway is working on silencing his critics.

Hardaway said the following Monday, per WREG TV's Mike Ceide:

Coming off the Tigers biggest win of the year, Penny Hardaway sets his sights on his detractors. “It’s a little jealousy from a lot of these coaches around the country. We’re not going to get disrespected.” pic.twitter.com/dOsq9RdTru

— Mike Ceide (@MCeide_WREG3) January 28, 2019

"I'm getting used to this as a coach because it's a little jealousy from a lot of these coaches around the country," Hardaway said. "I do understand that because we are NBA players trying to come back, and we didn't have any experience as college coaches. So we didn't quote, unquote, 'Pay our dues.' So the coaches and their so-called boys that are in the media, they're going to always throw jabs at us."

Hardaway's coaching staff features a number of former NBA players, including Sam Mitchell and Mike Miller. 

Hardaway, who attended Memphis from 1991 to 1993, was hired last March to replace 2003 NCAA Coach of the Year Tubby Smith, who was fired despite leading the Tigers to a 40-26 record in two years on the job. The four-time NBA All-Star isn't ruling out Smith's dismissal as a reason for some of the criticism.

"Maybe they were a friend of [Smith's], or maybe they thought that he was done wrong," Hardaway said, per the Memphis Commercial Appeal's Drew Hill. "But there's more attention on me around the country for a guy that's coming in his first year. And they know how hard that is."

The early results for the 47-year-old Hardaway have been mixed (13-7). However, he has landed the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2019 in 7-foot center James Wiseman.

Per ESPN.com's Jeff Borzello, Hardaway was involved in a war of words with Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes last month following a 102-92 loss to the Volunteers, though he didn't name any opposing coaches specifically this time around.

Hardaway added: "I'm not here to ruffle any feathers. I just want to win. We want to win."

For the 2019 class, 247Sports has Memphis ranked 12th thanks to one 5-star hard commit (Wiseman) and two 4-stars who have signed letters of intent (DJ Jeffries and Malcolm Dandridge).

The University of Connecticut men's basketball team has issued seven self-imposed penalties following the NCAA investigation into alleged violations under former head coach Kevin Ollie.

Per an official announcement from the school (h/t David Borges of the New Haven Register), the penalties range from paying the NCAA a $5,000 fine to a one-week ban on unofficial visits and recruiting communications during the 2018-19 academic year:

#UConn announces self-imposed penalties pic.twitter.com/gmGOGvwehN

— David Borges (@DaveBorges) January 18, 2019

The NCAA announced findings from its investigation last September. Ollie was hit with multiple violations, including an unethical conduct charge. 

Per ESPN.com's Myron Medcalf, Ollie's unethical conduct charge stemmed from allegedly providing false or misleading information regarding phone calls between Ray Allen, Rudy Gay and a recruit. 

Ollie also was charged with allegedly providing unfair recruiting benefits, exceeding limits on practice times, failing to promote an atmosphere of compliance and failing to monitor players' outside workouts. 

Since the school wasn't found guilty of any violations during the investigation, it could avoid any sanctions from the NCAA after self-imposing its own Friday. 

UConn fired Ollie for cause in March, meaning it didn't have to pay the $10 million remaining on his contract. He filed a lawsuit against the school last month, claiming his firing was racially motivated. 

Dan Hurley took over for Ollie as head coach of the Huskies. He's 10-8 in his first season with the program.  

Tulsa earned an 89-83 American Athletic Conference victory over Connecticut on Wednesday, but the game took a backseat when both coaches were ejected. 

Connecticut head coach Dan Hurley and Tulsa head coach Frank Haith were each issued technical fouls and began talking to each other. The official came back over and gave them each a second technical, prompting their ejections.

Jacob Tobey of KJRH shared video of part of the exchange:

My angle of TU's Frank Haith and UCONN's Dan Hurley both getting ejected after a disagreement with referees on a foul call. They started talking to each other and had to be separated. This was Haith's second career ejection @KJRH2HD pic.twitter.com/HnJXCgMbNi

— Jacob Tobey (@JacobRTobey) January 17, 2019

"I don't know why Frank and I got the first technical," Hurley said, per Jeff Goodman of Stadium. "We were nowhere near confrontational with one another. We glared at each other."

Hurley continued, saying, per Goodman, "We were trying to defuse the situation and shake hands, and got the second technical and were ejected. I don't feel this was handled correctly and should be looked at by the league."

As for the actual basketball, Jeriah Horne led the way for the victorious Golden Hurricanes with 27 points and eight rebounds, while Jalen Adams scored 27 in the Huskies' loss.