HARTFORD – After the UConn men came back to beat Butler 88-81 on the road Jan. 5, head coach Dan Hurley said he was thrilled. He said the Bulldogs were an NCAA-caliber team and one of the toughest to guard of any team UConn had played to that point.
Butler lost two of its next three after, but has found momentum again and is riding a four-game winning streak into Tuesday’s matchup.
Hurley’s quotes still apply.
“We were thrilled to win that game,” he said after the team wrapped up practice in Hartford Monday. “We didn’t think that they’d be an easy team to beat at all offensively, they’re tremendous. Really, really hard to guard. Like I said after we won that game: NCAA-caliber team, these are less stressful, much more fun games to get ready to go play when you’re playing a team that’s won at Marquette, won at Creighton, on a roll, really good team.
“Those are probably the games that give you less anxiety even though they’re easier to lose, because you know you’re playing a big game versus a really good team that’s had a great year.”
Butler has the highest scoring offense in the Big East (81.6 points per game) but it ranks ninth in points allowed (73.8). The Bulldogs put both on display in Omaha Saturday, beating Creighton 99-98 after a thrilling final minute. The Jan. 11 win at Marquette, which was Butler’s next game after losing to UConn, was a 69-62 final as the Bulldogs came back from a seven-point halftime deficit.
Picked to finish 10th in the Big East preseason poll, Butler is in fifth place and holds road wins over two of the top three teams in the league. UConn looks to spoil the trifecta.
Alex Karaban, who sat out Saturday at Madison Square Garden after spraining his ankle against Providence, practiced the last two days and was “almost a full participant” on Monday, according to Hurley.
“Alex is kind of where we hoped he’d be,” Hurley said. “We’ll see how the ankle responds to today’s practice and hopefully he’s okay but it’ll be more of like a morning or shootaround decision.”
Karaban scored a team-high 20 points against Butler in January with four 3-pointers. Jahmyl Telfort, the four-man on the other side, scored 16 points with half coming from the free throw line. The senior transfer from Northeastern has averaged 21.7 points over his last three games, including a 22-point, 11-rebound double-double on Jan. 27 when he played all 45 minutes in the double overtime win over Villanova. He followed that up with a 26-point effort against Creighton.
DJ Davis, another senior transfer (UC Irvine), led the Bulldogs with 22 points against UConn and has averaged 21 points over his last four games. And Pierre Brooks, the Michigan State transfer who’s leading the Bulldogs in scoring at 16.5 points per game, had 19 points against the Huskies with three 3-pointers and three steals.
UConn, looking for its 11th consecutive win, has been more connected on defense since that point and has another shot-blocking presence at the rim with Donovan Clingan back and healthy. The Huskies have held all of their last six opponents under 70 points.
“The metrics tell us that we’ve been the best defense in the country for the last handful-plus games here,” Hurley said. “…We need to be at our very best tomorrow, I don’t think that we’ve had a game this year where we’ve been hitting on all cylinders, maybe the Xavier game to a degree but that wasn’t a perfect game, we didn’t have everyone contributing at their very best.”
That Xavier game was a 43-point win, the second largest margin of victory over a Big East opponent in UConn’s program history – 10 different players had an assist and 10 different players made a 3-pointer as the Huskies tied the program record with 17.
Keeping the big guys on the floor
The last two games for centers Clingan and Samson Johnson have not been pretty – and mostly because they’ve each spent just as much, if not more, time off the court in foul trouble as they have on it.
“You just want these guys to maybe avoid the fouls that don’t involve the rim protection,” Hurley said.
Clingan, who has played well when he’s on the court since his return, quickly got into foul trouble in each of the last two games and hasn’t played more than 16 minutes since his minute restriction from the injury was lifted.
“I’m definitely a little frustrated with just how I haven’t been able to keep myself out of foul trouble the past two games, but it’s really just going back to the film, watching and seeing what I can do differently in those situations,” Clingan said. “And learn to just stay on my feet in the paint rather than taking the shot fakes and just walling up at the rim. I’m always trying to be ultra-aggressive trying to block shots… I just gotta wall up and try to affect the shot, alter the shot rather than trying to block it and then getting a foul.”
What to know
Site: XL Center, Hartford
Time: 8:30 p.m.
Records: No. 1 UConn: 20-2 (10-1 Big East), Butler: (15-7, 6-5 Big East)
Series history: UConn leads, 8-0
Last meeting: Jan. 5, 2024 – UConn 88, Butler 81 at Hinkle Fieldhouse
TV: FS1 – Jason Benetti and Bill Raftery
Radio: UConn Sports Network on 97.9 WUCS – Mike Crispino, Wayne Norman
Pregame reading:
- Category 10: UConn men’s win streak hits double-digits with 77-64 victory over St. John’s at Madison Square Garden
- Dom Amore: Once the bluster quieted down, UConn’s superiority was as apparent as ever
- Versatility, championship DNA continue to propel UConn men’s basketball as it stays on repeat path
- UConn men ranked No. 1 in fourth straight AP poll as Castle, Newton add to Big East award collection