HARTFORD – Dan Hurley turned around and gestured for an ovation from the crowd at PeoplesBank Arena less than four minutes into the UConn men’s basketball team’s 110-47 blowout of UMass Lowell on Friday night.
Tarris Reed Jr., the Huskies’ center making his season debut, was coming out after his first stretch of action. Recovered from a hamstring injury, the senior scored four points and grabbed five rebounds in his first three and a half minutes, and when he took his seat, UConn (2-0) already had a double-digit lead without surrendering a point.
“The standard, the bar was raised even higher than last year, so there’s no time to be comfortable, no time to coast, always have to go out there and be dominant. I can always be out there and do more,” Reed said. “The Kodiak is back, baby.”
Reed was everything he was hyped up to be during the offseason and more as he dominated his way to 14 points and eight rebounds in only nine first-half minutes, leading the Huskies into the locker room with a 47-point advantage – the largest halftime lead in program history.
It was quite the response to an underwhelming opener on Monday, when last year’s defensive struggles resurfaced in a 24-point win over New Haven.
“I just thought it was an appropriate level of playing mad, playing angry, being embarrassed with the first game performance and taking it out on an opponent at the defensive end of the court, which is where it all begins and ends,” Hurley said. “It just felt good. We didn’t really have a game like that last year, I mean we won some games by a considerable margin, but there was a level of dominance where this team has now told on itself relative to what it’s capable of on the defensive end, especially as we get healthier.”
The difference grew to as many as 66 points in the second half as Reed led seven double-figure scorers with 20 points (9-for-12), 12 rebounds and four blocks in just 17 minutes of action.
Point guard Silas Demary Jr. finished with 16 points, seven assists and four steals as Solo Ball and Malachi Smith added 14 points a piece. Alex Karaban scored 10 of his 13 points in the first half, Jaylin Stewart finished with 10 points and six assists, and freshman center Eric Reibe got up to 11 points, five rebounds and two blocks.
The Huskies remained without a pair of highly-touted freshmen as Braylon Mullins and Jacob Furphy each sat at the end of the bench nursing ankle injuries.
“This is one of the deepest teams I’ve ever had,” Hurley said. “It’s just we have to guard the way we guarded today. We were really good on offense because we were in transition, we weren’t just trapped in the half court running stuff, it was a blend of playing off our defense and then executing in the half court. But the strength of this team, we need players to play to the max, we don’t need players to pace themselves.”
The Huskies held UMass Lowell without a made field goal for almost 14 minutes of game time. They forced 21 turnovers and scored 35 points in transition.
While just about everything was falling for the Huskies, who shot 68.6% from the field in the first half and 60.9% for the game, nothing went the way of a UMass Lowell team with an almost entirely new rotation.
UConn’s lead was 28-2 when Reed reentered the game after the under-12 media timeout and he immediately got back to work, dominating down low for three layups as Stewart knocked down the Huskies’ fifth 3-pointer in seven attempts.
“You could see the impact on the defense (with Reed on the court), the impact on the offense, and he was on a minutes restriction here, so we’ll be able to bump that up… I’d imagine we’ll extend that out another five to eight minutes because he felt great,” Hurley said. “He makes a big difference on both ends, on the backboard. He’s one of the best big guys in the country.”
The Huskies’ advantage was 48-5 when UMass Lowell finally made its first shot from the field (1-for-18), a layup off the glass from guard Austin Green with 6:20 to go in the first half. Stewart nailed another 3 and Jayden Ross (eight points, five rebounds, two steals) slammed a dunk in transition off of a Demary steal.
The only scare came when Karaban flushed a two-handed dunk in transition and came down hard on his face, but he walked off with a smile and eventually returned.
“I just ran over and asked him, ‘Where do you think you are right now? Are you in Hartford? Or are you in Maui?’” Hurley said. “Because remember, he hit his head in Maui last year and the fact that that was going through my mind when I went over there just speaks to my mind. He’s fine.”
UConn had some slip-ups in the second half, but there was very little for even Hurley to be upset about with the lead holding over 50 points and his third-string point guard, Alec Millender, consistently diving on the floor for loose balls.
The Huskies were aggressive on the defensive end as they forced 21 turnovers and held UMass Lowell to just four assists and 21.3% (10-for-47) shooting from the field – tied for the fourth-lowest opponent field goal percentage in program history. Hurley’s squad finished with 26 assists on 42 made baskets, shot 60.9% from the field and 39.1% from beyond the arc, and posed a 46-22 advantage on the glass.
There is one more buy game on the schedule before the team’s first true test as the Huskies welcome Columbia to Gampel Pavilion on Monday night ahead of their Nov. 15 matchup with No. 8 BYU in Boston’s TD Garden.
