STORRS, Conn. — A day after moving up to No. 2 in the AP rankings, the UConn men’s basketball team blew past the East Texas A&M Lions by a score of 81-46.
A crowd of 10,299 was on-hand at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs to watch the Huskies improve to 4-0 on the season. In the final game before the Maui Invitational Tournament, UConn looked fresh from the start.
The Huskies trailed 2-0 but never looked back after, scoring the next 10 points. UConn built its lead to 42-20 at halftime.
The dominance carried into the second half, as UConn scored the first seven points of the frame. The Huskies opened the lead to 76-40 late and ultimately won by 35. It was the first time this season that UConn failed to reach 90 points, but an all-around balanced effort left Huskies fans pleased nonetheless.
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Four UConn players scored double figures. Junior forward Alex Karaban and freshman forward Liam McNeeley both scored 11 points. Solo Ball, a sophomore guard, added 12 points, scoring 10 in the first half. Most importantly, transfer junior guard Aidan Mahaney broke out of his slump, scoring 10 points with two three-pointers. Karaban and Ball also netted two shots from beyond the arc.
Junior transfer center Tarris Reed, Jr. continued to perform well off the bench, scoring nine points, grabbing 10 rebounds and blocking three shots. Starting center Samson Johnson had eight points, five rebounds and blocked three shots as well.
Sophomore forward Jayden Ross only scored six points but slammed home a posterizing dunk on a Lion in the first half that may be considered the play of the year in college basketball so far this season.
East Texas A&M was led by sophomore guard Camerin James, who came off the bench to score 18 points, the most scored by any player on the floor Tuesday. Junior guard Scooter Williams, Jr. and sophomore forward KC Ugwuakazi each added seven points for the Lions.
UConn shot just 7-24 from three-point land on Tuesday, only 29.2%, but did shoot 32-59 from the field, good enough for 54.2%. East Texas A&M shot only 3-17 from deep, 17.6%, and 15-59 from the field, 25.4%.
The Huskies outrebounded the Lions 44 to 35 but committed 19 turnovers, compared to East Texas A&M’s 18.
UConn will have the next six days off, during which time the team will fly to Hawaii to participate in the Maui Invitational Presented by Novavax. There, they will begin play against a Memphis team on Monday that has not lost yet and is led by sophomore guard PJ Haggerty, who is scoring 25.7 points per game.
In the second round of the Maui Invitational, UConn will play either Colorado or Michigan State. The rest of the field consists of Auburn, Dayton, Iowa State and North Carolina, one of whom will be UConn’s third matchup.
UConn is no stranger to the Maui Invitational, having won the tournament in both November 2005 and 2010.
The Huskies, who struggled in their last appearance in the tournament in 2016, will look to rekindle the magic Kemba Walker brought to the event in 2010, when he captivated the nation. Walker scored 30 points per game and led an unranked UConn team to knock off multiple top 10 opponents en route to winning the tournament title. That team would go on to win a national championship several months later.
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Dalton Zbierski is a digital content producer and writer at FOX61 News. He can be reached at dzbierski@FOX61.com.
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