STORRS- No. 6 UConn men’s basketball trailed for 20 minutes but their leaders brought them back in a gritty Senior Day triumph over Seton Hall on Saturday afternoon. The Huskies mounted a 10-0 second-half run to take the lead, though it was a tight finish, 71-67, at Gampel Pavilion.
It was an emotional Senior Day with five Huskies honored. After the ceremony, Alex Karaban was inducted into the Huskies of Honor, marking him the first men’s basketball player in program history to go on the wall while actively playing.
The Huskies trailed by as much as eight in the second half, but surged back behind Karaban and his game-high 23 points, which tied his season high. Three others finished in double figures, including fellow senior Tarris Reed Jr. with a 10-point, 11-rebound double-double.
UConn (27-3, 17-2) turned the ball over 15 times, but still made enough winning plays down the stretch.
Seton Hall (19-9, 9-8) came into the day fighting for its NCAA Tournament life. Shaheen Holloway has one of the toughest defensive teams in the country, and it showed on this day.
The game started in UConn’s favor, as Braylon Mullins knocked down some free throws and a midrange jumper before the Huskies forced a shot clock violation on the other end.
The Huskies struggled a bit in the first half. They had a stretch where they went 1-9 from the field and were scoreless for nearly four minutes, in which the Pirates built a 14-11 lead.
Jayden Ross came off the bench and snapped the skid, knocking down a contested three before flushing down a dunk on consecutive possessions to put the Huskies back in front.
After this, Karaban began to take over on the offensive end. He scored eight straight points for the Huskies to follow up Ross’ five, knocking down a pair of threes. His second of the treys officially put him into the Top 10 on the UConn all-time scoring list, just another accolade to an already special afternoon.
Karaban’s biggest basket of the half came in the final minute, where he hit one of his signature trailing transition threes that erupted Gampel and put UConn in front 32-31, forcing a Seton Hall timeout with 31 seconds left in the half.
The Pirates appeared poised to play spoiler. The visitors took a 33-32 lead into the break by forcing eight turnovers and pressuring the ball.
Seton Hall came out strong out of the locker room, too. After getting Mullins to bite and drawing his third foul, they knocked down a three to push the lead to four and later pushed it to six.
From there, Solo Ball started to heat up. The junior buried back-to-back huge threes from the left wing to keep the Huskies afloat when they were struggling.
Ross had a transition finger roll to go ahead, 43-42, but that would be the last time UConn would lead for a while as the Pirates hit a couple of threes surrounding a Silas Demary Jr. free throw to go up by multiple possessions.
After an Eric Reibe bucket, Hall splashed two more threes to make them 8-12 on the afternoon, after shooting 0-18 from deep in their last game against Georgetown.
The lead got to as high as 56-48 before Karaban buried another timely triple to force a Holloway timeout and get the crowd re-engaged with 7:24 to play.
Karaban hit another three after the stoppage, putting him up to 21 points before Mullins rattled one in seconds later to put the Huskies in front 58-56 with a 12-0 run.
Later, with the score tied at 63 and 1:38 to go, Reed split a pair at the line to put the Huskies back in front. The Pirates would take the lead back on some AJ Staton-McCray free throws, who finished with 20 for the Hall.
On the next trip, Ball was fouled in the paint with one second remaining on the shot clock and promptly hit both to make it 66-65. UConn got a stop on the other end, and Karaban hit two at the line to make it 68-65 with 18.3 to play, timeout Seton Hall.
Demary ended up making the play of the day on the defensive end, going in as if he was going to intentionally foul Budd Clark. Clark anticipated a call and threw up a prayer to try to get three shots, but he airballed and turned it over. Ball made some free throws to ice it from there, and the Huskies came away with a 71-67 victory.
After the game, Reed addressed the crowd and introduced an emotional Karaban, who thanked the fans for everything over the past four years.
The Pirates, who shot 1-16 in the first matchup in Newark, hit 9-of-18 on Saturday and started 8-12. The red-hot shooting was the main reason Seton Hall was able to stay in the game for the whole 40 minutes and have a chance to win.
Next up, UConn has its second bye in the Big East schedule before closing out the season on the road in Milwaukee next weekend against Marquette. Tip-off is set for 12:30 p.m. from Fiserv Forum and will be televised on FOX.
Led by Shaka Smart, the Golden Eagles have been one of the worst teams in the Big East all year long. Outside of potential freshman of the year Nigel James Jr., Marquette hasn’t had many bright spots in what’s its first losing season in a non-COVID year since 2014-15. They’re ranked 96th in KenPom overall efficiency (115th Offense, 87th Defense).
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