NEWARK, N.J. – The scene was all-too familiar.
With 48 seconds to play at the Prudential Center on Tuesday night, the UConn men’s basketball team saw its lead, once as large as 18 points, trimmed to just one. The Seton Hall crowd was loud and its press was defiant, but this time the Huskies escaped.
UConn’s poised point guard Silas Demary Jr. sealed the game from the free throw line, where it was almost lost, and snapped the program’s four-game losing streak in Newark with a 69-64 win over the 25th-ranked Pirates.
“They may be the hardest-playing team in the country, and I thought for 25 minutes we played as hard as them,” said coach Dan Hurley. “But we couldn’t sustain it and they were able to climb back in it. But you knew they would, (Shaheen Holloway) is too good of a coach and that’s an excellent team. That’s a team that’s gonna be right there for the Big East regular season (title), Big East Tournament and that’s gonna be a tough team to beat in the NCAA Tournament.”
Tarris Reed Jr., despite his 5-for-13 effort from the stripe, matched his season-high 21 points with nine rebounds and three blocks to lead the Huskies. Alex Karaban, determined to get this box checked off his list, added 13 points and five rebounds while Braylon Mullins added 11 points, three steals and a pair of blocks. Both Demary and Solo Ball added eight points.
“I definitely didn’t want to lose here again, definitely a lot of anger walking into this arena just with all the past memories,” Karaban said. “But I knew I’ve got a new squad with me, I knew that it’s a new challenge, a new Seton Hall team that we were playing. And if they define my legacy on wins at Seton Hall, then so be it. But at the end of the day, I’m just proud we got a Big East win and it’s definitely a nice feeling to win here.”
UConn, up to No. 3 in the latest AP rankings, improved to 17-1 on the year and 7-0 in Big East play for the first time since the 1998-99 first national championship season.
Seton Hall, picked to finish last in the Big East Preseason Coaches Poll, dropped to 14-3 and 4-2 in the league.
It was the 13th-consecutive victory for the Huskies, though they didn’t make a shot from the field in the final 5:42.
The beginning of the game was much like the ending. There were eight lead changes in the first 14 minutes and no difference larger than three points until UConn, which missed 12 of its first 16 shots from the field, went up four with Reed, who scored 12 of the team’s first 22 points, assisting Mullins at the rim. After a Jaylin Stewart block on the other end, Demary assisted Mullins on a contested 3-pointer and Malachi Smith, who’s had some recent struggles, hustled for an offensive rebound in the corner and nailed a long mid-range jumper to put the Huskies up nine with four minutes left in the first half.
It was a 14-0 UConn run over 4:12 that opened the game up as the Huskies’ lead grew to as many as 13 points before the break. Ball put the final punctuation on the half with a right-handed slam in transition, making it a 35-22 lead at halftime.
The matchup of top-10 defenses, UConn No. 5 and Seton Hall No. 9, was the story of the second half.
UConn turned the ball over 17 times, 10 after the break, as the Pirates’ full-court pressure and physicality again made it a significant challenge just to get the ball in bounds, let alone run an offensive set.
“That’s a top-10 defense in the country,” Hurley said. “We came in here, we shot 51% from the field. Obviously we had some trouble versus their pressure, because their pressure is hard to deal with over the course of a 40-minute game. So you just try to stay positive because you knew it was gonna be a battle. But we did a good job of building a big enough cushion by the level that we played at that we were able to take care of the ball well enough, make free throws and just get out of here with a really good road win.”
The lead grew to as many as 18 points when Ball started the second half with a 3-pointer. Seton Hall, after Holloway received a technical with 15 minutes left, showed the will to win that’s gotten it this far and chipped away at the deficit, cutting it to six as the building came alive with eight minutes to play.
UConn responded with a bucket from Mullins and a trip to the free throw line for Demary to push it back to 10, but Trey Parker wasn’t phased by the Huskies’ interior defense and made a series of tough second-chance layups under the basket. And Adam “Bud” Clark, whose mid-range shot caused problems all night, made another off an offensive rebound to make it a two-point game with 2:18 to play.
Seton Hall, after starting the game 0-for-13 from beyond the arc, saw its first 3-pointer fall from the hands of Mike Williams III with 48 seconds left, cutting UConn’s lead to one. With the Huskies just 3-for-17, the teams combined to shoot just 4-for-33 from beyond the arc.
“I’m thinking, like, we’ve just got to try to get it in first, not turn the ball over. But I think the biggest thing is just being calm when the pressure comes. I think being able to handle pressure and find the open guy and not panic was the biggest thing we could’ve done there,” said Demary, who made two from the stripe to push it to three with 29 seconds left.
Mullins flew in to block another 3-point attempt from Williams and Parker, who came up with his fourth offensive rebound of the game, missed the second-chance layup attempt. Demary grabbed the rebound, drew the foul and sealed the game at the free throw line with 11 seconds on the clock.
“It was never, ‘Here we go again,’ it was just staying together,” Karaban said. “It was similar to (the BYU game) in a way where they came back and just staying together no matter what. Battling through the adversity and just making sure that we stayed together within our bubble. And that’s what we did. We found a way to win. We’ve got to learn, we’ve got to clean some stuff up, but I’m proud of us for sticking together.”
