STORRS – Alex Karaban wasn’t going to let Seton Hall spoil his day.
In an emotional final game at Gampel Pavilion, after he became the first active player placed in the Huskies of Honor, Karaban came through as he’s done so many times before. The Pirates, making their best effort at an upset, went up seven with less than eight minutes to play before UConn’s captain made a pair of 3-point shots to evaporate the deficit. He made a pair of critical free throws to take a three-point lead with 20 seconds left and found Solo Ball to seal the 71-67 win from the free throw line – where the Huskies almost lost it.
The program’s all-time winningest player, Karaban played all 40 minutes and scored a game-high 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting as UConn, now 27-3 on the year and 17-2 in the Big East, kept its hopes of a league regular-season championship alive.
“Whatever it took to win,” Karaban said. “The shots were falling. I think everything happens for a reason and I just got rewarded for my four years to where the shots wanted to fall in the last game. And I loved it.”
“It’s all about Alex Karaban, his greatness,” coach Dan Hurley said.
Karaban finished his career with 60 wins and just six losses at home.
He found Ball for the critical free throws down the stretch on a night where the team shot just 20-for-29 from the stripe. The junior shooter made three of four to put the game out of reach and finished with 14 points. Freshman Braylon Mullins added 11 points, including a 3-pointer that served as the encore to Karaban’s pair in the second half and gave the Huskies the lead with six minutes to play. And Tarris Reed Jr., also in his final home game as a Husky, recorded his eighth double-double of the season with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Point guard Silas Demary Jr. directed the Huskies to 17 assists on 21 made field goals with nine of his own, and finished plus-six despite not making a shot on two attempts from the field.
“This team has just had an extraordinary will to win,” Hurley said. “I mean, we had to find a way late versus a team that came into this game coming off of a bye week, in a must-win to get into the NCAA Tournament type of mentality. And to be down in the game late, and to have to come back and win it… This identity of this team is 27-3.”
Seton Hall, the Big East’s worst 3-point shooting team at just 29% on the season, nearly pulled off the upset on the back of its outside shooting. The Pirates made eight of their first 12 attempts from beyond the arc and led by as many as eight points in the final 10 minutes of regulation.
On the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, Seton Hall dropped to 19-10 on the year and 9-9 in the Big East, good for fourth place in the league standings.
“They were so determined and so tough and just so hard to play against. But we showed the heart of a championship-level team,” Hurley said.
UConn started the game just 3-for-12 from the field and fell into a four-minute scoring drought as the Pirates, aggressive and handsy on the defensive end, took a 14-11 lead around the 10-minute mark. It was Jayden Ross, usually a defensive sub, who got the offense going with a 3-pointer late in the shot clock and a two-handed slam on the next possession.
Then Karaban got going, finishing a layup inside before knocking down his first 3-pointer of the afternoon, which moved him past Christian Vital to No. 10 on the program’s all-time scoring list. The captain had 15 points in the first half on 6-for-8 shooting as the Huskies went into halftime trailing, 33-32.
Seton Hall, a top 10 defense nationally and the best in the Big East, forced eight turnovers before the break and limited the rest of the Huskies to just 5-for-17 (29%) from the field and 1-for-7 from beyond the arc. The Pirates shot 50% (12-for-24) over the first 20 minutes and made three of their five 3-point attempts after making just one on 16 attempts in the first matchup on Jan. 13, and going 0-for-18 in their last game against Georgetown.
The second half started just as ugly for the Huskies as Mullins went to the bench with his third foul just 13 seconds in. But Ball lifted the lid off the rim with a pair of much-needed 3-pointers after the deficit grew to six and Demary made a steal and found Ross for a layup in transition that put the Huskies back in front.
UConn’s offense fell into another drought, going more than four minutes without a field goal until freshman center Eric Reibe powered through the paint for a layup through contact. But the 3s kept falling for the Pirates. Mike Williams and AJ Staton-McCray (20 points, 4-for-8 from 3) made a pair back-to-back and extended Seton Hall’s lead to eight points, 54-46, with nine and a half minutes to play.
But Karaban came to the rescue, scoring his first points of the second half on a triple and hitting another with six and a half minutes left. Mullins came with an encore to complete the comeback.
“You can almost guarantee AK is gonna make a momentum play,” Ball said. “Whenever we get a transition stop I almost start celebrating before possessions are over because I know he’s gonna get a shot and it’s going to go in… Just to see the last three years from my perspective, I mean, the dude’s on the court every single day, he’s working his butt off and he’s just an incredibly motivational player for anyone that’s around him. Just to have that approach every single day, just working hard and working on your game as much as you can. I respect this guy to the end.”
