UConn men surge past Butler late for a 80-70 win behind Ball’s six 3-pointers

INDIANAPOLIS – The UConn men’s basketball team pulled away late in the second half to beat Butler, 80-70, as Solo Ball returned to form with a season-high six 3-pointers and Braylon Mullins made his homecoming in a full Hinkle Fieldhouse on Wednesday night.

Ball, who scored a career-high 26 points in the first matchup against the Bulldogs in Hartford, sparked a 10-0 run in the last six minutes of regulation as the Huskies turned a two-point lead into 12 down the stretch. The junior finished with 24 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the floor, making 6 of 12 from beyond the arc to help UConn get back on track after its 18-game winning streak was snapped at St. John’s on Friday.

For Mullins, the warm ovation he got from the home crowd – which included a large contingent of family and friends from a half hour away in Greenfield – gave him butterflies during pregame introductions.

“I’m so happy that all of these people came out,” the star freshman said. He finished with 15 points, five rebounds and two blocks after his first few shot attempts were off the mark to start the game. “It was a little jittery, I was a little antsy, moving too fast. Just had to settle myself down, just calm down, play the game how I’ve been playing all year.”

Those misses were all rebounded and put back in as UConn – now 23-2 and 13-1 in league play – dominated the glass early for nine offensive rebounds and 14 second-chance points in the first half.

The Huskies got 16 points, 10 boards, seven assists and three blocks from center Tarris Reed Jr., who impressed his former teammate, Samson Johnson, behind the bench. Point guard Silas Demary Jr. sealed the game late and finished with his third double-double of the season with 11 points, 10 assists and three steals.

UConn improved to 13-0 in its all-time series with Butler, which fell to 13-12 on the year and 4-10 in Big East play.

The Huskies’ interior defense, exposed on Friday night, continued to offer little resistance as Butler saw nine of its first 13 shots fall through the net. The Bulldogs, scoring 13 points off of seven UConn turnovers in the first half, went on an 11-2 run to build their lead to as many as six points before Malachi Smith hit a wide open 3-pointer to stop the bleeding.

“First half was a joke,” coach Dan Hurley said. “It was really an extension of the second half of the St. John’s game, when we gave up 60%. So our last two halves of basketball at that point, we were giving up around 57% from the field… I thought Butler just took it to us.”

Mullins got his second triple to fall and Jayden Ross knocked down another as the shot clock wound down to put UConn back in front.

The Huskies held Butler to 3-for-8 shooting over the last five minutes of the half and were fortunate to take a 41-38 lead into the break after allowing the Bulldogs to shoot 53.8% from the field.

“The message at halftime was just keep going, keep trying to gut out this win,” Reed said. “Just being able to lock in defensively, knowing that we weren’t on top of our game at the defensive end. And as soon as we locked in on that side, it changed the whole game.”

Butler center Drayton Jones finished with 15 points on 6-for-6 from the field, though the Huskies held the Big East’s leading scorer, Finley Bizjack, to just five points for the game. They also kept the league’s leading rebounder, Michael Ajayi, to just five boards.

UConn started to create some separation with a pair of early triples from Ball out of the break, building the lead up to eight. It stayed there as the teams went back-and-forth over the next five minutes, but the difference started to shrink as Jones, Ajayi and the Bulldogs challenged the interior and made it a two-point game with seven minutes remaining.

But the Huskies, not foreign to the situation, answered with a 10-0 run as Ball hit his sixth 3-pointer of the night, Reed and Alex Karaban (six points, 3-for-6) finished inside and Demary capped it off with a triple of his own.

“I felt good, my teammates always are always uplifting me,” Ball said. “I just had it going, people just kept finding me, so credit to my teammates.”

“That’s gonna do a lot for his confidence,” Hurley pointed out.

For Demary, the mission was to keep operations as smooth as possible in the second half after his nine turnovers contributed to the loss at Madison Square Garden. The Huskies only turned the ball over once after the break, when he was on the bench.

“Coach was just on me about being better with the ball, making smarter decisions and just changing my cadences when guys are guarding me, just mixing it up on them and not giving them the same thing every time,” he said. “I just had to respond from last week, that was unacceptable.”

UConn finished the game with 22 assists on 30 made shots, connecting at a 50.8% clip from the field and going 13-for-31 (41.9%) from 3-point range.

“When you go into an environment like this, you kind of just are grateful to be there. Going into Hinkle Fieldhouse, it’s a historic environment, historic gym, it’s a lot of history in this building, a lot of great people who played here,” Ball said. “So it was just embracing the environment and embracing the moment.”