The UConn men’s basketball team looked like a juggernaut at PeoplesBank Arena Wednesday night.
In a battle of Big East heavyweights, the sixth-ranked Huskies wiped the floor with No. 15 St. John’s for a 72-40 blowout victory that kept their regular-season championship hopes alive and secured a third-straight perfect, 8-0 season in Hartford.
It was the largest UConn margin of victory in the history of the series, which St. John’s leads, 40-35 all-time. It was also the fewest points ever scored by a Rick Pitino-coached team.
“There’s not a whole lot for me to complain about,” coach Dan Hurley said. “I think (there was) just a lot of soul-searching by the group during that stretch that started at MSG where our defense kind of tanked. I think you saw today its capabilities when we’re dialed in.”
The tone was set early by senior center Tarris Reed Jr., who had the best game of his career with 20 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks (tied his career-high) and a pair of steals. He held Zuby Ejiofor, the preseason Big East Player of the Year, to just six points and four rebounds. Ejiofor had 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists when St. John’s beat UConn, 81-72, at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 7.
“Today’s performance was as good as a center’s played for us in a game,” Hurley said. “The thing with Tarris is like, he can repeat that. And if he repeats that, we’re not gonna lose many more games the rest of the way. And it’s repeatable what he was doing. He wasn’t hitting like fadeaway, dream shake shots, he was just a guy with a presence at the rim as a deterrent and his ball-screen defense, and his rebounding, his post position and his passing out of traps. If he does that, this team’s gonna have a great rest of the way.”
Alex Karaban, who completed his career a remarkable 31-1 in Hartford, finished with 14 points and five rebounds, and Solo Ball added 11 points with four assists on a dominant night for the Huskies’ Big Three.
UConn held St. John’s to just 11 made shots on 56 attempts from the field (19.6%). The Johnnies, who carried a 13-game winning streak into the game, were just 2-for-28 (7.1%) in the second half.
The win ended a three-game losing streak for the Huskies in their growing rivalry with the Red Storm and moved them into a tie atop the Big East standings, each with two losses in league play.
Still, it would take another St. John’s loss (or Providence overtaking Creighton in the standings) for UConn (26-3 overall, 16-2 in the Big East) to have a chance at the No. 1 seed in the Big East Tournament as the Johnnies (22-6, 15-2) hold the tie-breaker.
“Ever since we lost to Creighton, Coach emphasized that these are like playoff games for us,” Karaban said. “The urgency was there for ‘Nova, the urgency was there for St. John’s and the urgency’s got to continue for Seton Hall on Saturday. We know what’s at stake, we know what we’re competing for.”
Bryce Hopkins (eight points, 3-for-15 from the field) started the scoring with a layup inside – the first two of only 12 points in the paint for the Johnnies to UConn’s 42. Karaban responded with a 3-pointer and Reed attacked the rim for his first of four dunks on the evening, which poured gasoline on a crowd that had yet to take a seat.
The Huskies got out to an early 9-2 lead before Hopkins and Ian Jackson each landed 3-pointers for St. John’s to start clawing back, but Reed was at his best, showing grizzly bear-like aggression as he began another Huskies’ run. Braylon Mullins (nine points) nailed a corner 3-pointer to put the Huskies’ up 18-11 and force a timeout from Pitino. The run kept going with a triple from Karaban after an offensive rebound from Jayden Ross, then a dunk from the captain as UConn capitalized on its best defensive stretch of the season and continued to finish opportunities in transition.
UConn’s lead was 13-11 when St. John’s, just 32.1% from the field before the break, went seven minutes without scoring. By the time Ejiofor got to the line and split a pair of free throws, the lead had ballooned to 31-11 with six minutes left in the half.
Joson Sanon scored 10 points in the last five and a half minutes as UConn took a 41-26 lead into the break.
“It’s all on me,” Pitino told reporters outside the Johnnies’ locker room. “I’m very disappointed in our performance, offensively especially, sharing the ball, moving the ball. So it’s all on me. We’re still playing for a league championship, it doesn’t matter whether you lose by one or 40. The league championship’s still at stake. Obviously we’ve got to make our corrections and move on.”
Reed and Ejiofor traded buckets inside before Silas Demary Jr. (seven points, eight rebounds, five assists) scored his first points on a mid-range jumper and assisted Mullins on a 3-pointer in front of the Huskies’ bench. The freshman made a steal in the backcourt at the other end and passed up for a two-handed slam in transition from Ross.
After Ejiofor’s second bucket inside with 17 and a half minutes to play, St. John’s missed its next 24 shots from the field and went the rest of the game without a made field goal as UConn’s lead grew to as many as 36 points.
UConn finished the game with a 41-37 advantage on the glass, a 42-12 advantage in the paint and 14-0 margin in transition. The team had only five turnovers – which tied a season-low – cleaning up the mistakes that led to the Feb. 7 loss at MSG.
When Reed exited the game with three minutes left, he received a standing ovation and let out a roar as he took in the crowd.
“It was just so much energy, emotion, the hard days, the days I wanted to quit, the days coach was yelling at me, the days where I played good and I’m still getting yelled at and chewed out,” he told the Courant. “Just such energy. I had to let it out.”
