WASHINGTON, D.C. – No clutch shots were needed on Saturday as the top-ranked UConn men’s basketball team flexed its muscles in a dominant 89-64 road win over Georgetown.
Alex Karaban, who made a pair of late 3s to lift the Huskies ahead of the Hoyas last year in D.C., led the team with 25 points on 10 of 14 shooting from the field and 4 of 7 from deep in his second game back from the ankle sprain he suffered against Providence.
“We just have so many goals for ourselves this season and the No. 1 goal right now is the regular-season (Big East) championship and we’re in a great position right now. We don’t want to let up, we want to have control of that championship,” Karaban said. “We just wanted to go out there and be the aggressors. Every time you go on the road you want to be the aggressive team and we felt like we did a great job of that.”
UConn improves to 22-2 on the year and 12-1 in Big East play with its 12th consecutive win. The 25-point margin of victory marks UConn’s largest win over Georgetown in the history of the series, which dates back to 1958.
Stephon Castle turned the page from an underwhelming five-point performance in UConn’s last outing against Butler with a number of explosive plays – some that counted and a few that didn’t. The clear frontrunner in the Big East’s Freshman of the Year race finished with 17 points on 8 of 11 shooting to finish as one of four Huskies in double-figure scoring.
“What helped us coming into this game was that Georgetown gave us a hard game at home, we ended up winning by double figures but it was seven, it was eight, it was nine,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “The one thing that did give us comfort was that Georgetown’s played better on the road than they have at home. And part of that is the challenge of Ed (Cooley) getting the atmosphere. You win at home because you’ve got a great atmosphere; the atmosphere makes it tough on the opponent to play well.”
Cam Spencer, a native of close-by Davidsonville, Maryland, finished with 10 points, six rebounds and seven assists with a number of friends and family members present. Tristen Newton played through an injury to his right hand and compiled six points with six rebounds and nine assists.
“He played hurt but he also played what we’re all about, he played ‘we,'” Hurley said
Saturday was the Hoyas’ third consecutive home loss by at least 20 points.
The announced crowd of 13,040 pretty clearly favored UConn. There was a large section behind the Huskies’ bench and others spread throughout the 20,000-seat NBA arena, mixed amongst Hoyas fans who didn’t get much to cheer for. It was also probably the only place UConn will travel to this year and not hear any boo-birds during player introductions.
DIME from DC 😮💨🔥 pic.twitter.com/eBwkFyfoN6
— UConn Men's Basketball (@UConnMBB) February 10, 2024
Donovan Clingan, who was injured when UConn beat Georgetown in January, didn’t have the best scoring performance (four points) but set a career-high with six assists. The 7-foot-2 sophomore also had five rebounds and four blocks.
Clingan showed off his passing ability early on with three assists in the first four minutes, two on backdoor cuts from Karaban that resulted in easy finishes at the rim and another that led to a 3-pointer from Spencer. Consistently getting open lanes to the basket, Karaban scored 12 of UConn’s first 19 points while Georgetown missed eight of its first 11 shots from the field, two of which were blocked by Clingan.
“They were switching one through four, on-ball, off-ball, one through five even with Donovan just because they don’t want to chase us with the (offense) that we run,” Hurley said. “We’ve now faced switching enough times that we’re getting better at playing against the switch – and then Donovan’s a weapon at the key as people are cutting and moving, he’s such a good passer… So we’re coming up with solutions against the switch, that’s helped a lot.”
Karaban made his second 3-pointer of the game and Castle threw down a dunk to put the Huskies ahead, 30-12, with nine minutes to go in the first half.
Samson Johnson put on a dunking exhibition, throwing one down off an inbound alley-oop pass and another after Castle made his first 3-pointer of the game to extend UConn’s lead to 20. The first-half lead grew to as many as 26 points as the Huskies shot 19 of 30 from the field (63.3%) and 4 of 10 from 3-point range.
SLAMSON‼️ 🤯 pic.twitter.com/GqVDS2dMLG
— UConn Men's Basketball (@UConnMBB) February 10, 2024
Johnson had 10 points in the game on five dunks.
Tying its highest-scoring first half of the season (Stonehill Nov. 11) UConn went into the break with a 52-28 lead over the Hoyas, who shot just 11 of 31 (35.5%) from the field and 4 of 11, including a few airballs, from 3.
Dontrez Styles provided more than half of the Hoyas’ offense with 17 points at the break. He finished with 23 points and six rebounds, helping the Hoyas keep even in the second half.
Hurley called a timeout after seeing three of his players jog back on defense with about six minutes left in the second half, up by 25 points, and laid into the team for not playing to its standard.
“We had a bunch of moments of weakness there in the second half. If you don’t keep a foot on gas here in these games, maybe not today, but we’re getting to that point in the season where on a made basket, if you don’t sprint back and get loaded up to the ball, your season ends,” Hurley said. “Those are habits and behaviors that have to be entrenched whether you’re up 27 with six minutes to go or whether you’re in a one-point game.”
Fairfield transfer Supreme Cook, who dominated the Huskies on the offensive glass when they played in Hartford, scored 12 points and had eight rebounds for the game. He made two consecutive trips to the foul line in the final six minutes, but 3-pointers from Spencer, Solo Ball and Karaban built the Huskies lead up to 27 points, 78-51, anyway.
“We’re just trying to stay composed, we know that we have a chance to do something big this year,” Castle said, “and we don’t want to ruin that by doing the human nature stuff that Coach talks about when we think that we’re better than the (other) team and don’t come ready to play. We’re just trying to eliminate that as much as we can.”
UConn visits last-place DePaul on Wednesday at 9 p.m. before beginning the toughest part of its schedule to close the year, starting with reigning Big East dual-champs Marquette at the XL Center Feb. 17.
