NEWARK, N.J. — For Dan Hurley’s Connecticut Huskies, 2025-26 has become all about exorcising the demons from a season ago.
No matter how those exorcisms happen.
On Tuesday night, the hardest purging yet.
Last year’s Huskies famously didn’t get that unobtainable three-peat in 2025, but their chase for a third national title in four seasons is very much on thanks to their latest win, this one a vindicating 69-64 victory vs. Seton Hall on Tuesday. With the win, the Huskies are 17-1 overall and 7-0 to start league play for the first time since 1998-99 — the season of UConn’s first NCAA championship.
Now it’s chasing a seventh.
The path through the Big East looks significantly easier this season vs. last. Still, one the team’s toughest tests came vs. the Pirates. No. 3 UConn was up by 18 points in the second half and seemingly on its way to a cruise-control road win against 25th-ranked Seton Hall. Instead, the Huskies succumbed to the Pirates’ full-court press in the final 10 minutes and wound up narrowly escaping, winning despite 17 turnovers.
“These guys STICK to you,” Hurley said. “They’re very quick.”
UConn’s victory was ultimately aided by the fact that Seton Hall, which ranks near the bottom of 3-point accuracy among all Power Five teams (31.4%), was a season-worst 1-of-16 from beyond the arc. Connecticut was barely better, managing a mere 3-of-17 showing from deep. Seton Hall’s only 3-pointer came in the final minute, when Pirates junior guard Mike Williams III hit a trey to cut the lead to two with 48 seconds remaining. Well-timed, but too little too late.
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The Huskies’ victory marked the first time in 58 months — since March 3, 2021 — that Connecticut beat SHU on the road. And it did it in escape-route fashion in the final minute. UConn point guard Silas Demary Jr. sank two foul shots with less than 30 seconds remaining to put the Huskies up 67-64. The Rock was thumping.
Then Williams III tried another 3, only to have it blocked by Husky freshman guard Braylon Mullins. A scramble ensued. Who wound up with the ball underneath?
Demary.
He hit two more freebies to give the game its final score. A UConn team beating opponents by 16.6 points on average had to settle for a five-point edge, nearly blowing an 18-point lead along the way. That kind of twist can send Hurley into a fit against many teams and on many nights. But not this one.
That’s because the Pirates are a viable potential NCAA tourney squad, at least in Hurley’s view.
“That’s a team that’s going to compete at the top of the league,” said Hurley, “I wouldn’t want to see Seton Hall’s name drawn next to mine in the NCAA Tournament this year, I can tell you that.”
The Hall’s rise has been one of the surprises of the season. SHU was picked last in the Big East in the preseason, yet no team at the Power Five level has jumped more in KenPom’s ratings from October until now than the Pirates (50 spots: from 93rd on opening day to 43rd after Tuesday’s loss).
Sweet revenge and a win to separate in-league
Tuesday night was about survival, Hurley said, and of course ending the road streak against his alma mater. UConn had lost its last four trips down to the Prudential Center — yes, including both NCAA title seasons under Hurley earlier this decade — and so this victory is surely a balm on his soul.
Though he swears it wasn’t something weighing on him until this past weekend.
“You’re obviously not thinking about it in the preseason. You’re not thinking about it in the summer. You’re not thinking about it in October,” Hurley told CBS Sports in the UConn locker room afterward. “But then when you get to two days out and the media reminds you that you’ve lost four in a row here, and that chip gets implanted somewhere in the brain, you try not to think about that.”
Says who? With the comfort of heading home with a win, UConn senior forward Alex Karaban readily admitted he was thinking about it.
“A lot of anger just walking into this arena,” he said. That anger was channeled appropriately in the first half, when UConn went into the break with a 35-22 lead. Karaban finished with 13 points and avoided an O-fer at Seton Hall for his lauded college career.
“It was never ‘here we go again,'” he said. “It was staying together. It was similar to BYU in a way.”
Connecticut’s win vs. BYU in November was another game that was won because of Demary’s poise late. On the whole on this night, the most valuable player on the floor was Tarris Reed Jr., who had 21 points and nine boards.
“That’s real against those guys,” Hurley said of Reed’s showing against Shaheen Holloway’s team. “I just have so much respect for how hard his teams play. His team may be the hardest-playing team in the country.”
Huskies can win in myriad ways
In a down year for the Big East (where questions linger about if the league can play itself to even four NCAA bids), Tuesday was a chance for Seton Hall to vault its national profile. This was the school’s first ranked-on-ranked home game since Jan. 1, 2022. The comeback was impressive — UConn somehow only took one field goal attempt in the final five minutes, a feat that almost definitely will not be repeated the rest of the season — but the Huskies made just enough plays to get it done.
A Seton Hall win would’ve been better for the Big East. UConn’s on a tier to itself in the conference, though. It’s winning in a lot of ways, including dramatics as of late. Last Wednesday, UConn overcame a 13-point gap with less than nine minutes remaining to slip out with an OT win at middling Providence. There have also been emphatic defeats over Illinois, Kansas and Florida.
The defense is closing in on efficiency numbers that are in earshot of the Hurley’s two title teams.
“We’ve shown some special qualities,” Hurley told CBS Sports. “With our injuries and the schedule, and we’ve won well, but haven’t played as well (lately). Especially at the offensive end and on the backboard, in terms of the turnovers, and some rebounding issues that I think are fixable with this team.”
Hurley said if the turnovers and rebounding get worked out, UConn is as strong as any team in the country with as good of a chance at the title as anyone. And he’s right. The Huskies are 5-0 on the road. That’s a better road record than anyone else in high-major basketball, and only second to Miami-Ohio’s 8-0 mark. (The RedHawks are a college hoops-best 18-0 after their 100-61 win vs. Central Michigan win Tuesday.)
The Huskies have won 13 in a row since their shorthanded loss at home to No. 1 Arizona in November. It looks like this team’s worst-case scenario in the Big East will be an 18-2 run of the regular season. Villanova and St. John’s both are playing well, but beyond that, challengers will be hard to come by.
When UConn lost in overtime at Seton Hall a year ago — vs. a SHU team that would finish with just seven wins — Hurley called the ride back that night a “coffin on wheels.”
I asked him late Tuesday: What’s the term for this year’s trip back to campus?
“Grateful,” he said.
UConn has five Quad 1 wins, tied for second-most with six other teams. But those teams (Arizona, Nebraska, Vanderbilt, Iowa State, BYU) have a lot more opportunities in Q1 because their leagues are so much better and deeper than the Big East.
“There’s not a lot of chances for us in the league this year to get Quad 1-type games, to get Quad 1 wins, to get to beat teams that are going to be in the field,” Hurley said. “I mean, that’s a team (Seton Hall) that’s going to be in the field, that’s an excellent team. It was actually fun to play a game that we could gain from. I think the group was probably a little bit looser, because it was a game that we could gain from, as opposed to a game that you lose, now becomes a résumé hit.”
Seton Hall’s improvement is huge for the Big East but also beneficial to UConn in this spot. The Huskies are the league’s only title national title contender. The start of 2026 has been a bit bumpy, but all signs point to a return to supremacy when it matters most. The next two months will be about asserting dominance, taking back the Big East and positioning themselves for another run into April.
Until then, Hurley will surely conjure up a few more demons to hunt.
