UConn men’s basketball handles Providence 74-65 for ninth straight win behind Castle’s career-high

STORRS – It was Stephon Castle’s night in Storrs.

The five-star freshman willed UConn to a 74-65 win over Providence, the team’s ninth in a row, as Donovan Clingan sat the majority of the first half in foul trouble and Alex Karaban made an early trip to the locker room with an apparent ankle injury.

“Steph saved us tonight,” head coach Dan Hurley said. “I’m not sure if there’s a freshman in the country, both ends of the court, on the glass, that’s played as well as he played in this game tonight, in a man’s game.”

As the game turned into a mess of fouls, Castle registered a career-high 20 points (7 of 14 from the field) with five rebounds and an assist before exiting with his fifth. He was credited with just one steal, though his defensive effort on Devin Carter, one of the best players in the Big East, plugged the holes left by the absence of Clingan and Karaban and made way for the Huskies’ comeback.

“I feel like if I could limit the other team’s best player to under their numbers,” Castle said, “then we have a way better chance of winning the game than anything else.”

Carter finished with 20 points, though he shot just 6 of 18 from the field and picked up his scoring with Castle in foul trouble late.

Tristen Newton finished with 16 points, 10 from the free throw line, and 11 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the year and Cam Spencer, despite an off-night shooting, made all eight of his free throws to finish with 15 points and seven rebounds. Karaban re-entered and had 12 and Clingan finished with seven in just 15 minutes.

The score was tied at six when Clingan was called for his second foul 16 minutes in and went to the bench. He never re-entered in the first half.

The Friars, tough on the defensive end, rattled off a 10-2 run to build an eight-point lead over the next five and a half minutes before Newton finished a three-point play to start a comeback. Karaban drove hard for a strong finish at the rim on the Huskies’ next possession to cut the deficit to five but, after an awkward landing, he limped into the locker room with team trainer James Doran.

Without Karaban, UConn turned up its defense and started to claw back. Samson Johnson stole an inbound pass and finished an emphatic dunk in transition and Castle, guarded lightly, carved through the paint and earned two trips to the free throw line. He made 2 of 4 to bring the Huskies within one around the eight-minute mark.

“(Karaban) told me when he walked off, he said, ‘It hurts a lot, I’m gonna need to get taped pretty significantly but I should be back by the next media (timeout),'” Hurley said. “Now, he didn’t come back for the next media but then I heard the crowd cheering and that felt good because I knew that at least somebody was back.”

Karaban returned with under five minutes to go, after Castle rose up to dunk an alley-oop pass from Newton. He blocked a shot and made UConn’s first 3-pointer of the game on the other end, giving the Huskies their first lead in more than 10 minutes as the sold out crowd in Gampel Pavilion erupted. Cam Spencer followed suit with a 3 on the next possession to regain the lead.

UConn, just 2 of 10 from beyond the arc, went into halftime with a 29-28 lead.

Clingan returned for the start of the second half and was called for his third foul just 18 seconds in. Less than two minutes later a late whistle put Clingan back on the bench with four and Dan Hurley, arguing the call, was awarded the first technical foul of the game.

With Providence begging him to shoot all game, Castle decided to let it fly. The freshman made a pair of 3s and finished in traffic for a 3-point play to put the Huskies up four.

“I really don’t try and hunt shots, I just really try to play through the offense,” Castle said. “I see how they’re guarding me and I just try not to settle and don’t allow that to stop me from getting (to the) paint and playing my game.”

There were double technical fouls called on Johnson and Ticket Gaines and then another on the Providence bench, arguing an offensive foul called on Carter. Spencer made both technical free throws and Castle finished another layup to give UConn its largest lead of the game, eight points, with 13 minutes left.

The game turned into a foul fest. And neither team was efficient from the line.

But UConn won the free throw shooting contest, making 21 of its 25 attempts in the second half to Providence’s 11 of 22. The Huskies shot 26 of 36 from the stripe for the game, while the Friars hit just 13 of 26.

“We knew it was going to be a real tough, hard-fought game,” Hurley said. “Obviously we gutted it out, it’s not gonna go into our highlight reel in terms of the prettiest games that we’ll play. But it was a real gutty win… Just dealt with a lot of adversity but figured out a way to get to 9-1 at the halfway point (in the Big East) and get to 19-2, which is pretty good.”

Providence cut UConn’s lead to five at the two minute mark and Clingan stuffed a shot from Josh Oduro in the final minute that would’ve made it a one possession game. Oduro fouled out on the ensuing possession with a team-high 20 points and nine rebounds, and Spencer sealed the game where most of it was played – at the free throw line.

“I think it was just one of those Big East battles that we had to gut out, but obviously not our best performance,” Spencer said. “I don’t think any of us are really happy with the win, I think we’re happy that we pulled it out but we have a lot of work to do before Saturday.”

On Saturday at noon, the Huskies return to Madison Square Garden for Rick Pitino and St. John’s, who they beat in the first matchup, 69-65, at the XL Center without Clingan just before the Holiday break.