How to watch UConn men's basketball vs. Bryant

Dan Hurley was able to take his UConn men’s basketball team’s first loss of the season for what it was.

Despite being without two starters in center Tarris Reed Jr. and Braylon Mullins, the Huskies gave Arizona a run for their money at Gampel Pavilion on Wednesday night and had a chance to steal the game in its final minute. The Wildcats, a championship-caliber team with the best resumé in the nation, might’ve been the Huskies’ most challenging opponent of the nonconference season.

“Sometime around 2 a.m., 3, 4:30 a.m. I’m gonna wake up and think it was just a nightmare. And then finally when I’m up and just kind of starting to move around, feeling half-dead around 7:30, 8 a.m., gonna realize, yeah, we just (bleeping) blew a chance to beat one of the best teams down two studs,” Hurley said. “And in a game where we were down 13 and wobbling, a game where AK (Alex Karaban) didn’t have it, Solo (Ball) didn’t have it, your backup freshman center emerges as a guy that now, when Tarris gets back, you’re gonna have some special things there. It’s like, we’ve got four more of these monsters in the nonconference.”

Now UConn (4-1) hosts Bryant (1-4) on Sunday evening ahead of a pair of likely-ranked matchups against Illinois (MSG) and at Kansas, and could see one, or both, of its missing pieces return.

UConn head coach Dan Hurley and UConn forward Alex Karaban (11) in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in Storrs, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

“We’ve got a game on Sunday that we need to take the court with a very high level of rage and pissed off,” Hurley said. “But our people have got to get our guys healthy and on the court so that we can be the team that we’re all really high on.”

Both Reed and Mullins, who went through warmups on Wednesday, were classified as game-to-game and will likely be what Hurley calls “dreaded game-time decisions” against the Bulldogs.

Regardless, there was no way Hurley just let his team simply move past the way it was dominated in the paint by Arizona’s strong and talented frontcourt. UConn was outrebounded, 43-23, outscored 42-24 in the paint and 16-5 in second-chance points. The coach was upset with his team’s level of fight, and believed that the absence of Reed shouldn’t have led to numbers that lopsided.

“We’ve got to clean up the fouling and some of it is I’ve just got to do a better job coaching these guys and being more technical when the ball gets driven, our wall-ups sucked, we’re not in a stance and our ball-screen defense, at times, was just (bleeping) bad,” Hurley said.

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The Huskies hope to flip those numbers against Bryant, a team in its first year under coach Jamion Christian, who spent several years as a mid-major head coach before spending the last two seasons in the Italian Professional Basketball League. The Bulldogs have played two high-major games and lost to Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. Their lone win to this point came against Dartmouth, when they had 11 steals and shot over 53% from the field.

Ball trusting his shot

Solo Ball has worked all offseason to develop additional areas of his game so when he does go through stretches from beyond the arc like he has to open the season, he can still be an effective scorer for the Huskies. And so far, shooting just 9 of 34 (26.5%) from 3-point range, he has found a way to impact the game in other ways, whether that be driving or settling for a mid-range jumper.

“It’s definitely a little frustrating, but I trust my shot. Pretty much every day I know I work on it, trust my craft. I know the reps I’m putting up are gonna pay off eventually,” said Ball, who shot 41.4% and made 99 3-pointers last season.

Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd made an emphasis on slowing down Ball and Karaban, and it worked. When Mullins eventually enters the picture, cleaner shots will open up along the perimeter.

“The depth of our team is our biggest strength,” Ball said.