MILWAUKEE – The UConn men’s basketball team saw its chance at a share of a record 12th Big East championship go by the wayside in Fiserv Forum on Saturday as it dropped its regular-season finale at Marquette, 68-62.
Silas Demary Jr. had a chance to tie the game with a layup in the final seconds and was met with contact at the rim but no foul was called on Marquette center Ben Gold. Coach Dan Hurley received a double-technical foul immediately after the play for making contact with an official and was ejected from the game with one second on the clock.
Marquette put the game away with four-straight free throws.
The Huskies had 16 turnovers – the eighth time this season that they’ve given the ball away at least 15 times – and they couldn’t make up for it as they made just 30.4% of their shots from the field and a mere 14.3% (3-for-24) from 3-point range.
Already locked in as the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Big East Tournament, UConn fell to 27-4 and 17-3 in league play. After spending most of the season in the league’s basement, Marquette could be seeded as high as No. 7 in the conference tournament at 12-19 on the year and 7-13 in the league.
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Marquette had no answer for Tarris Reed Jr. early as he scored 10 of his 16 points in the first half. He finished with 10 rebounds as UConn posted a 40-25 advantage on the glass.
The Huskies opened up a 9-5 lead but got sloppy with eight turnovers in the first half, including six during a six-minute drought without a made field goal. The Golden Eagles, shooting 54.5% from the field, capitalized with a 10-2 scoring run and took their first lead on a tough three-point play from conference freshman of the year candidate Nigel James (19 points, seven assists).
Demary (17 points, eight rebounds) got to the rim to end the string of six consecutive misses from the field. He had 10 points, three rebounds and four assists as the Huskies’ lead grew to as many as eight points in the first half. But Adrien Stevens scored seven straight points for the Golden Eagles in the last three minutes of the half and James hit a mid-range jumper just before the buzzer, which cut UConn’s lead to 35-33 at the break.
After shooting just 5-for-24 from beyond the arc at Gampel Pavilion against Marquette in early January, the Huskies’ 3-point struggles continued on Saturday as they made just two of their first 20 attempts from deep. Marquette didn’t have the same trouble as Royce Parham started a personal 8-0 run with back-to-back triples, and James later connected from the corner to make it an eight-point UConn deficit with 10 minutes to play.
The Golden Eagles, who came into the game as the second-worst 3-point shooting team in the Big East, went 8-for-21 from beyond the arc on Saturday. Chase Ross hit a pair as the Marquette lead grew to as many as 12 points before Braylon Mullins, who missed his first eight attempts, finally saw one fall from deep at the five-minute mark.
UConn hung around as Demary and Solo Ball made six straight free throws in the last four minutes and Jayden Ross put back an Alex Karaban air-ball to make it a four-point game with 1:22 to play. Reed, a 55% free throw shooter on the season, went 2-for-2 from the line and cut the deficit to two with 43.7 seconds left.
UConn’s final possession began with 13 seconds left as Demary drove at Gold for a chance to tie the game.
