STORRS – Two things can be true, UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley said of his team’s 79-55 season-opening win over New Haven on Monday night.
It was both a “painful,” “excruciating” evening where the Huskies didn’t meet their standard, and a promising 24-point win for a team that is just getting started and has shown its potential in preseason games against higher-level opponents, without yet taking the court fully healthy. The Chargers, making their Division I debut with 17 new players, were impressive, too, consistently finishing tough shots and forcing bigs out of the paint with their spacing and patience on offense.
Hurley quickly pointed out New Haven’s three assists on 23 made baskets – a ratio that represents poor one-on-one defensive effort on the perimeter and in the post, his No. 1 area of focus this offseason.
Alex Karaban, who led the way with a 19-point, 10-rebound double-double in his final season-opener, highlighted the same statistic.
“We’re definitely not happy about it,” the senior captain said. “We didn’t play up to the standard, we didn’t play up to the level that we practice at every single day and what we’re coached to do. And it starts with me, I’m the leader of this team… I don’t do everything I need to do at the standard that I need to, and I don’t feel like I’m holding everyone accountable.”
Offensively, UConn had only 11 assists on 27 made baskets and turned the ball over 12 times.
One bright spot was the assertiveness junior Jaylin Stewart played with, particularly on the glass and on the offensive end of the court, after being called on to do more as he replaced Braylon Mullins (ankle) in the starting lineup. Stewart was UConn’s best player for most of the night as he scored an efficient 11 points on 5 of 8 shooting and grabbed eight rebounds.
“There were definitely encouraging things there, there’s a lot for him to build on,” Hurley said. “I just thought that we needed him to guard better. I think some of it was being spooked about fouling, I think some of it is letting right-handed players drive the ball righty middle… But sometimes the buy games, the games are very different. When you play high-major teams, the court is just spaced different… We guarded Michigan State better than we guarded New Haven.”
Solo Ball added 18 points on 4 of 14 shooting and five rebounds, and point guard Silas Demary Jr. contributed 10 points and five boards.
UConn won its 34th-consecutive nonconference home game despite having a talented trio on the end of its bench, as senior center Tarris Reed Jr. (hamstring) and freshman guard Jacob Furphy (ankle) joined Mullins in white polo shirts and khakis.
New Haven was led by the trio of Andre Pasha (17 points, six rebounds), Maison Adeleye (13 points) and Bridgeport native Najimi George (14 points, four rebounds). The Chargers shot 23 of 52 from the field – 53% from inside the arc – and forced 12 UConn turnovers.
The rim wasn’t very friendly to the Huskies in the first half.
After starting 4 of 5 from the field, UConn made just four of its next 18 shots before Dwayne Koroma got a bad bounce on a layup and Ball came flying in, letting his frustration out with a put-back dunk over Adeleye, who was called for a foul. The three-point play put the Huskies up 25-15 with five and a half minutes to go.
Ball saw his first 3-pointer fall from the corner with about a minute left, but New Haven answered with its first on seven first-half attempts. Karaban nailed another from deep on the next possession to give UConn its largest lead of the half, but the big man, Pasha, cut it to 37-24 at the break with a mid-range jumper that gave the Huskies fits all night.
Both teams started the second half making four of their first five shots from the field as Adeleye continued to get past UConn’s perimeter defense and to the basket with ease. The Chargers went on a 7-0 run before Ball was fouled on back-to-back 3-pointers and made six-straight from the stripe.
“A lot of it was not designed plays, it was just him making a play, beating his man, playing one-on-one at the rim,” New Haven coach Ted Hotaling said. “We were typically a pretty high-level shooting team from two-point range in Division II, we’re fortunate that it showed up tonight in Division I. But we knew we were gonna have to make one-on-one plays, they weren’t gonna overhelp and give you catch-and-shoot 3s, they’re really disciplined with not overhelping.”
George made consecutive buckets before Stewart flew in for an acrobatic block on his shot, setting up a 3-pointer for Ball in transition that woke up the crowd.
UConn’s lead grew to as many as 21 points with less than six minutes to play as Karaban scored seven in a row to complement a better defensive stretch. But the Chargers wouldn’t go away easy, cutting the difference back to 15 with two minutes to play before a final surge from Karaban and the Huskies.
“This is opening night, even though this is really our third game, but there is something different about opening night because it’s all (the players) see and it’s a different feel, it’s Game One, it counts,” Hurley said. “These guys smoked some finishes at the rim that they’re gonna make… We’re gonna get so much better from this. Tonight sucked, but I think it’s gonna be an awesome team when we get healthy and we get our (stuff) together.”
The Huskies, ranked No. 4 in the preseason AP Top 25, will host UMass Lowell at PeoplesBank Arena on Friday night and return to Gampel Pavilion for Columbia on Nov. 10 before their first high-major test of the regular season against No. 9 BYU at Boston’s TD Garden on Nov. 15.
