When the UConn men’s basketball team left the Big East in 2013, Villanova instantly became the class of the conference. While the Huskies were off in the American Athletic Conference, the Wildcats completely ran the Big East, winning two national championships, five conference tournaments and seven regular season championships.
Not long after Connecticut returned home, they kicked Villanova right out of the driver’s seat. Since the teams met in the 2022 Big East tournament, legendary coach Jay Wright retired, the Huskies won two national championships and four straight contests against the Wildcats. Nova spent the past two seasons floating around .500, just 35-33.
No. 9 UConn traveled to Villanova’s campus arena, Finneran Pavilion, for the first time since the 2021 COVID-19 season, trying to make it five straight wins versus their in-conference rivals. Their goal had a chance at coming to fruition with mere seconds left, but star player Alex Karaban missed two free throws that would have tied the game and then taken the lead.
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It was far from an affair the Huskies deserved to win, but it’s tough to swallow coming so close and falling short. Especially when your 81% free throw shooter needs just two free throws to come out on top.
“He’s the biggest winner in all of college basketball,” coach Dan Hurley said. “When you’ve had the fairytale back-to-back national championships, sometimes it’s life. Sometimes you’ve gotta eat s**t. Sometimes you’re going to have bad moments. I loved the way he attacked the game. I love the way he wasn’t passive. I love the kid to death. What I told him to do is when he feels sad tonight, do what I did after Maui. Pull your box of back-to-back rings out and get ready for Georgetown.”
The first half was rough and the game teetered into blowout territory early in the second, though the Huskies clawed back into the game relatively quickly. Their gas was just about all used up getting back into it though, as they failed to do much once they grabbed the lead.
“Our defense, we got driven by [Wooga] Poplar, ripped baseline, beat off the dribble a little too much,” Hurley said. “But that’s one of the best offensive teams in the country…Our defense isn’t good enough now for us not to go down and have runs against us.”
Villanova shot a decent clip from beyond the arc (40%), but Poplar’s 3/6 towards his 18 points was a difference maker. Ultimately the Huskies could have come out of the gates stronger, having their chances at putting the game in better shape early.
Jaylin Stewart posted an impressive first half, making his first start of the new year in place of injured freshman Liam McNeeley. He scored a lot early on–10 in the first half–keeping the Huskies tight with their hosts early. Though he didn’t do much after, those points he did score were important. The sophomore has scored in bunches in key moments this season and will need to keep doing so.
Karaban’s missed free throws were the cherry on top of his mediocre performance, needing 10 shots to score 10 points. What was great was Hassan Diarra’s energy throughout the second half. The guard powered the start of the Huskies’ comeback from 12 down, but his weak first half helped put them in such a position. He finished with 11 points and 9 assists, ultimately NOT the reason why Connecticut fell.
“We need that from him,” Hurley noted of Diarra’s second half. “I thought in the first half he was not as engaged, not as assertive, not the general, the leader. And then you saw the impact he had in the second half. When he’s not assertive, trying to put pressure on the paint and create, we become this team that’s running around the 3-point line.”
Solo Ball had higher volume than is typical, but still put through a decent outing. He hit 4 of his 10 threes towards a team-high 16 points, all coming in the second half. All of his shots felt timely, pushing the Huskies in position to win at the end. Like Diarra though, his tough first half contributed to the team’s defeat, with a general lack of aggression.
The center duo of Samson Johnson and Tarris Reed Jr. had their moments but struggled as a whole. Johnson battled foul trouble and Reed Jr. had limited offensive impact, one of the pair’s worst outings of the season.
Johnson might have scored the night’s first basket with a jam, but it was Stewart who nearly monopolized the Huskies’ early buckets. Time and again, the sophomore found the bottom of the net, with 10 points before the under-12 timeout.
Even as Stewart cooled down, the game remained close. It was a defensive showdown with the Wildcats enjoying a steady dose of buckets from a variety of scorers while forcing multiple UConn shot clock violations.
Poplar opened up Villanova’s largest lead of the game at 5 with a moment to go in the first frame as “The Finn” exploded. The damage didn’t get much worse though, with the Wildcats going to the break up 7.
Diarra had a heroic effort to start the second half, doing everything he could to keep the Huskies from slipping out of striking distance. He hit a pair of layups and grabbed an offensive board that led to a Ball triple. Yet Villanova still didn’t let up.
The Wildcats’ offense was relentless, ballooning their lead out to 12, courtesy of Eric Dixon’s old-fashioned three point play. Dixon, the sixth year senior and nation’s leading scorer, finished the outing with 23 points on 20 shots. A pair of threes from Karaban and Diarra cut the deficit to just four and Ball got it to one with a trey of his own. The shot from beyond the arc capped off a 13-2 run over just a three minute span.
Ball drilled another from deep to take the lead a few minutes later, cementing the second double-digit comeback in as many games. The Huskies’ lead was gone nearly as soon as it came, with Poplar and Dixon connecting on triples while Connecticut went 2:30 without a scoring.
Karaban and Stewart cut the hole to a single point with a mini 5-0 run and the Huskies got the ball with the chance to win it. They whiffed on the first two of their opportunities, getting the ball back both times, but Karaban was fouled with 3 seconds left. He missed both free throws, effectively losing the Huskies the game.
With McNeeley sidelined, this is the second straight game that UConn went down big. They need to figure out what the holes are and how to patch them up, since the Big East schedule is unrelenting. Aside from perhaps Seton Hall, there won’t be any easy games. Life without McNeeley might be tough, but if they can piece together how to function without him, it’ll do wonders for their ceiling when he returns.
Their chance to get back into the win column comes further down the Eastern Seaboard in Washington, D.C.. They’ll play Georgetown on Saturday at 2 p.m.. The last time the Huskies visited the nation’s capital, they met President Joe Biden to celebrate their sixth championship.
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