UConn men’s basketball shows off versatility during week of upsets: Takeaways from another hard-fought road win

Alex Karaban caught a hard elbow to the forehead from Xavier big Abou Ousmane in the second half of UConn’s 80-75 win Wednesday night. No foul was called, Ousmane finished his pursuit to the basket and drew contact as Karaban recovered from the blow defensively.

Karaban, bloodied and sporting a significant cut above his right eye, exited the game with 10:34 on the clock. Ousmane made his first shot from the free throw line and missed the second, but grabbed his own rebound and the Musketeers found Lithuanian forward Gytis Nemeiksa for a 3-pointer that cut UConn’s lead to five.

“I got an explanation and it was that they’re not sure why he was bleeding, I don’t know, it was like a phantom… Maybe it was like wrestling back in the day where they cut themselves with a razor, Dusty Rhodes or (something),” UConn head coach Dan Hurley said after the game.

UConn men’s basketball holds off late push for second-straight road win, 80-75 at Xavier

Karaban had his way with the Xavier defense while playing the five. He also hit three 3-pointers during UConn’s 6 of 8 start from beyond the arc that Xavier head coach Sean Miller said was “like a video game,” and remained out for seven minutes of game time. By the time he returned, Hassan Diarra, Cam Spencer and Stephon Castle had taken advantage of scoring opportunities created in transition and pushed UConn’s lead to 12.

“To deal with some of the, you know, (Samson) Johnson in foul trouble, no (Donovan) Clingan coming in, Karaban out with whatever happened to his eye,” Hurley said, “I just loved the way we fought.”

In a week full of upsets as every top five team other than the fourth-ranked Huskies fell to an unranked opponent – and No. 11 Marquette dropped its second straight Big East game, at home against Butler – UConn was able to grind out a pair of wins on the road and improve to 4-0 without its 7-foot-2 preseason All-American center.

Depth to come from frontcourt management

Hurley used 15 different lineup variations Wednesday night for at least one offensive possession, per cbbanalytics.com. With Karaban and Johnson each missing significant time, UConn’s third-most common lineup (10 possessions) featured 6-7 freshman forward Jaylin Stewart at the five.

Stewart held his own defensively on a night where Xavier hunted shots in the paint and, in the second half, he battled for positioning to deny a layup attempt from Dayvion McKnight, which led to a big transition 3-pointer for Diarra. The Huskies went eight-deep on Wednesday night and Stewart continues to show how he could be a valuable ninth piece once Clingan returns.

Diarra does it again

In the second half, with Karaban receiving treatment on his eye and Johnson out with foul trouble, Diarra was the difference. After a quiet eight minutes in the first half, the 6-2 senior came in after Xavier took its first lead of the game and almost immediately sparked a 10-0 run. Without missing a shot from the field, Diarra hit a pair of 3-pointers and scored a team-high 11 second half points.

All of the offseason work Diarra put in to fix his jump shot has shown itself in UConn’s last three game as UConn searches for veterans to step up. In about 20 minutes per game off the bench, he’s averaged 11.3 points while only missing three shots from the field (11 of 14) and hitting on 6 of 8 from deep.

Shooting potential could be separating factor

It looked like UConn was on its way to a rout when Karaban, Spencer and Tristen Newton combined to make six of their first eight 3-point shots in the first eight minutes of the game. Perhaps with Clingan available to challenge the Musketeers in the paint it would’ve been one.

The Huskies finished the game shooting 45.8% from beyond the arc, 11 of 24 – close to the rate Hurley and the coaching staff expected to get this year. But so far, the team’s 34.8% clip on the season ranks fifth in the Big East.

“Coming into the year I think we expected to have more nights like we shot the ball today,” Hurley said. “It’s kind of been surprising how poorly we’ve shot it from 3 to this point in the season. But I think some of that’s starting to round into form… Karaban, Spencer and Newton, we expect those guys to be like 40% 3-point shooters or higher.”

Spencer leads the Big East at 45.1% and Karaban (38.2%) has come on after Christmas, which Hurley projected he would, and made 10 of 16 (62.5%) from beyond the arc through the last three games. Newton made 3 of 7 Wednesday night after a rough 1 of 8 at Butler; the Huskies expect him to improve from the 31.7% he’s shot so far.

‘Another level to college basketball’

Xavier guard Quincy Olivari, a fifth-year transfer from Rice who scored a game-high 24 points against the Huskies Wednesday night, told reporters after the game that he had a chance to work last year’s Final Four in Houston and got to see UConn’s operation up close.

“It’s another level to college basketball. It’s another level to national champions,” he said. “I got to see up close just what that looks like, see what their practices are like, see what their huddles are like. Just how they go about their business, and it’s another level. It’s a well-coached team, a hall of fame coach, and they bring back a lot of experience from that run. It’s another level, that’s all I can really say.”

Olivari, originally from Atlanta, leads the Big East in scoring at 18.3 points per game and is the conference’s second-best 3-point shooter (41%) behind only Spencer.