WASHINGTON, D.C. -– No matter what the scoreboard says with the clock ticking down or how bad of a shooting performance they’re having, this 2025-26 UConn men’s basketball team has proven in its last three road games that it has the resiliency to hang on in closing time.
The Huskies, still looking for that killer instinct, the trait that made their 2023 and ’24 championship teams special, missed six of their last eight free throw attempts on Saturday and let Georgetown get to within three in the final minute, but the game never felt lost. They trailed Providence by 13 in the final three minutes on Jan. 7 and let Seton Hall cut an 18-point difference to one in the final minute on Tuesday, but the thought of losing never crept in.
“I just think that’s a testament to us just being resilient and when adversity hits, just responding in the right way,” said point guard Silas Demary Jr., who again came through down the stretch. “I think we’ve been in a bunch of games the past couple of weeks where we had to fight ’til the end and I think those games kind of helped prepare us outside of practice for when a team makes a run, like they did.
“Just being able to respond, being able to make plays and not drop our heads.”
Saturday’s 64-62 win over the Hoyas wasn’t pretty. UConn only had 11 assists on 21 made field goals, only scored eight points off of 13 Georgetown turnovers and shot just 19.2% from beyond the arc – their worst 3-point percentage since the second round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament against Northwestern (3-for-22, 14%).
But their defense and poise down the stretch, once again, proved the floor for this season.
“We’ve always talked about having an identity of defense and toughness,” said Alex Karaban, who was 2-for-11 from the field on a night where the team shot just 36.2% overall. “If we show up defensively every single night, we’ll be fine. Because the offense is gonna happen however it happens.”
“It’s everybody’s Super Bowl (against us) and so you can’t take any team lightly. You’ve just got to come out and play as hard as possible. Execute as much as you can and just try to figure out different ways to win,” said freshman Braylon Mullins. “There’s nights you don’t shoot well and there’s nights that the defense isn’t well. So you’ve just got to figure it out. All that matters is the winning.”
