NCAA Tournament Gameday: UConn vs. Oklahoma | 9:25 pm, TNT

The bid for the three-peat — and a brand-new season — starts tonight.

So, the regular season didn’t go as expected. This is still UConn, in March. Dan Hurley and his staff are still the guys who made the last 24 months possible. They have the talent to make a run.

You can’t win it all every year.

This season has landed in an unexpected place heading into the tourney, but it’s also an opportunity to recognize how hard it is to get to the mountaintop and stay there. UConn may become an annual Final Four contender someday, but any program has to rebuild after losing seven guys to the NBA over two years.

The chance to three-peat attracted Liam McNeeley, Tarris Reed Jr., and Aidan Mahaney to join UConn this offseason. Alex Karaban stayed for a third season despite NBA interest in part to pursue the three-peat goal. Without that high bar, this roster could look a lot different.

Hassan Diarra mentioned his team’s resilience across this season, and that’s what I’ll remember this team for. They dusted themselves up from Maui, Finneran Pavilion, and Seton Hall — they have what it takes to do it again after a sour end to the Big East Tournament.

Tonight, they begin their second season, and a chance to end on a positive note. Based on what we’ve seen, all we know for sure is that anything can happen.

We cover all of these juicy topics and preview the Oklahoma matchup in this week’s Fast Break Podcast, our weekly rant on all things UConn men’s hoops.

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UConn vs. Oklahoma Preview

TV: 9:25 p.m. on TNT

Location: Lenovo Center — Raleigh, North Carolina

Oddsmakers: UConn -4.5

Tonight, UConn takes on Oklahoma with some serious conference pride on the line. The SEC has been the nation’s top conference, but the Sooners have not really been the tip of that spear. They went 6-12 in league play, though they still finished a respectable 38th in KenPom at the end of the regular season and captured wins over Arizona, Michigan, and Louisville out of conference.

Like UConn, Oklahoma contains multitudes. But the 13th-best SEC team shouldn’t be beating the 3rd-best Big East team. That would be a bad look.

Some of our preview coverage:

Matchup Breakdown

UConn moved up to 35th in KenPom after the first day of the NCAA Tournament and Oklahoma moved down to 40th. Still, the matchup is essentially a toss-up according to the site’s projections.

Oklahoma is a strong shooting team that’s good at getting to the free-throw line but not so strong on defense and rebounding. UConn is a better shooting team with an edge in most offensive categories besides free-throw rate. The Huskies are rated worse overall defensively but boast stronger defensive rebounding and shooting defense.

Keeping Jeremiah Fears (17.0 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 4.1 APG) in check will be the key for the Huskies defensively, even though history has shown that lesser-known contributors like to have big days against UConn. The Sooners have a handful of candidates. Diarra will likely start on the 6-4 Fears but it will take a team effort to slow him down.

With Fears and second-leading scorer Jalon Moore (16.0 PPG, 5.8 RPG), a 6-7 wing who started his career at Georgia Tech, the Sooners boast some impressive size and “firepower,” as Hurley said, on the perimeter.

If the Sooners are going to be without Sam Godwin, who has missed their last three games with an MCL sprain, they could be at a disadvantage in the paint. This could be a good night for Tarris Reed Jr. and/or Samson Johnson.