STORRS – What already figured to be one of the toughest challenges of the season for the UConn men’s basketball team became even tougher before Wednesday’s opening tip.
It was announced that the Huskies would be down not one, but two starters, after center Tarris Reed Jr. tweaked his ankle in Saturday’s win over BYU and rejoined five-star freshman Braylon Mullins, also dealing with an ankle, on the bench in street clothes.
But the Huskies never folded, pushing the championship-caliber Wildcats to the final minute before their advantage in the frontcourt came out on top in the end for a 71-67 Arizona win.
UConn (4-1) fell to 8-7 in top-five matchups all-time and is 1-1 in such games at Gampel Pavilion, which was decked out in white and on its feet for almost the entirety of the second half as the Huskies went down 13 and fought back to take a one-point lead with two minutes to play.
Reed’s absence was especially represented in the 43-23 rebounding advantage the Wildcats had, the 16-5 advantage in second-chance points and the 42-24 difference in points in the paint.
“Really tough loss, because we could’ve stole it. I mean, literally stole it. We were outrebounded by 20 and, versus a high-level opponent, you’re not gonna have too many nights where you can steal one versus a top-five team when you get outrebounded by 20,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “You probably walk away from it saying we’ve just got to get whole and healthy, and I think we have a good feel for the quality of the group that we have.”
Still, it took a late up-and-under layup from veteran guard Jaden Bradley, who got eight of his game-high 21 points from the foul line, with 15 seconds left to lead the Wildcats to victory.
Hurley called a timeout after going down three with that shot and wanted to get a quick two points to extend the game. The Huskies inbounded the ball to point guard Silas Demary Jr., who drove in and dished off to Reed’s backup, Eric Reibe, down low. Reibe was fouled as he put up a layup and the ball hung on the rim for a second before falling the wrong way. Rather than a chance to tie the game with a three-point play, the freshman missed both of his free throws (where the team shot 9-for-18) and Arizona’s Tobe Awaka ended the game from the opposite stripe.
“We were hoping that we could chip Alex (Karaban) and Silas could get downhill quicker for the two, or maybe get AK on the pop (for three). But the design was not to dump it off late to Eric and then those guys almost bail us out for the three-point play, but certainly would’ve taken it from (Coach Tommy Lloyd),” Hurley said.
Koa Peat, one of Arizona’s five-star freshmen and a projected lottery pick, was a menacing defensive presence with his NBA-ready body and posted a 16-point, 12-rebound double-double.
Reibe got to know the Wildcats’ other five-star freshman, Brayden Burries, in the first two minutes of the game when he went up and was undercut while finishing an alley-oop layup from Demary. Burries was assessed a flagrant one foul on the play and Reibe, facing a tough task, went on to finish with a team-high 15 points, four rebounds and two blocked shots.
The Huskies had four players finish in double figures as Solo Ball scored 14 (5-for-14, 1-for-8 from 3), Demary had 13 (6-for-10) and Jaylin Stewart 10 (4-for-8). Malachi Smith dished eight assists and Karaban had a quiet scoring night with eight points on 2-for-5 shooting.
“What Danny and his staff have done with their offense has really kind of revolutionized the game, but I don’t think anybody else has been able to kind of mimic it yet. It’s just a massive amount of movement, it’s actions layered on actions and there’s actually a rhyme and a reason and an organization to it,” Lloyd said. “It’s like a Rubik’s Cube, I haven’t figured it out. But the one thing I did figure out is No. 1 (Ball) and No. 11 (Karaban) are really important in that. So we had to do a great job of staying on their bodies. That’s why we decided to go to a non-switching plan.”
UConn’s largest deficit in the first half was six points, 14-8, before Ball saw his first 3-pointer fall and then started to take advantage of the midrange area the Wildcats left open. Stewart went on a similar scoring flurry and dropped a 3-pointer in from the corner to tie the game at 29 with four minutes left in the half.
“(Stewart) saved us in the first half because we had all kinds of foul trouble,” Hurley said. “I was shocked we were down two at halftime just with all of the people on the bench with two fouls.”
Both teams got into the bonus and the end of the half was settled at the foul line. The stripe has quietly been a problem area for the Huskies to this point and it hurt them on Wednesday as they shot just 9-for-18 (3-for-10 between backup centers Reibe and Dwayne Koroma).
Arizona started the second half on an 18-7 run and built its lead to as many as 13 points before Demary and Ball made the most of their opportunities in the mid range and Jayden Ross saw a massive 3-pointer fall from the corner.
Reibe had a stretch with less than five minutes to play where he made a layup, grabbed a defensive rebound to set up a transition 3-pointer from Karaban and, one possession later, the big man nailed his second 3-pointer of the game to tie it at 60 with four minutes left.
But Arizona’s 7-foot-2 center Motiejus Krivas grabbed an offensive rebound and finished a second-chance lay-in to put the Wildcats back in front, 65-64, with just over a minute to play.
“Tarris is one of the best rebounders in the country, there’s a lot of things that would not have went on in the game – paint defense, defensive rebounding, offensive rebounding (if he were healthy),” Hurley said. “But I’ll say this: I don’t think I could be prouder of Big Eric. Eric’s gonna be an awesome player and obviously the development moment for him tonight is gonna do so much for his confidence… and then when Tarris gets back, we’re going to have that two-tandem center that’s going to potentially be as good as we had in the championship years.”
Both Reed and Mullins are considered game-to-game.
UConn will return to PeoplesBank Arena for a buy game against Bryant on Sunday night before its next matchup against a likely ranked team in Illinois at Madison Square Garden on Black Friday.
