Tuesday night was a night that featured the UConn men’s basketball team hosting the Butler Bulldogs. This was the second match of the season series, and it was just as close as their Jan. 5 matchup, where UConn held on 88-81. By the final whistle, the Huskies were the last team standing, knocking off Butler 71-62.
The first-half game plan featured an assault on the rim. The Huskies kicked off the action with a 6-0 run, and this was based on an early attack down low. Spectators have seen this scoring method before, but not to the extreme that was seen in the first 20 minutes. 24 of the program’s 35 first-half points came in the paint.
One player in particular who had his hands all over Tuesday night’s contest was the 7-foot-2 big man Donovan Clingan. The Bristol native had as good of a start as Husky fans could have asked for, scoring 12 points on 5-6 shooting, including six first-half boards. Considering how Samson Johnson faired for the first 20 minutes, Clingan’s performance was crucial. The Togo native played only five minutes in the first half, with the only stats recorded being a pair of fouls.
While some may not come to this conclusion from the box score alone, the first half belonged to Hassan Diarra. The New Yorker scored nine points on 3-3 shooting, and his performance became crucial when Tristen Newton got shaken up and had to leave the game with around six minutes to go due to twisting his ankle. However, Husky nation breathed a sigh of relief as the El Paso native returned a few minutes later.
Cam Spencer also had a solid first half for Connecticut, scoring 12 points on 5-6 shooting, including 2-3 from downtown. The 6-foot-4 guard finished Tuesday with 20 points. His outing is all the more encouraging for Husky fans, as Spencer is coming off yet another solid performance where he scored 23 on 7-13 shooting.
While it sounds like it was all sunshine and rainbows for UConn at the end of the first half, that wasn’t the case. At the end of 20 minutes, Connecticut was only up eight, and it was largely due to the performance of Butler guard DJ Davis. The senior guard put up 11 points on 3-6 shooting and was the only one keeping the Bulldogs afloat early. He was especially needed, considering how well both sides’ defenses were performing, with more than one possession ending in a poor shot or turnover for both sides. Davis had the best night of any Bulldog, finishing with 21 points on 6-12 shooting. Jahnyl Telfort put up a respectable 17 points on 7-17 shooting, with the two guards being a major reason why Butler was in this one as long as they were.
However, possibly the biggest storyline of the entire game was the fact that Tuesday marked Alex Karaban’s return to the hardwood. The 6-foot-8 forward missed his team’s Feb. 3 showdown against St. John’s with an ankle injury. While his seven-point output is much lower than what he is used to, Tuesday was a great first step back to normality, and head coach Dan Hurley expressed this sediment postgame.
“Alex at 75-80 percent is a gamechanger. He is a problem solver,” Hurley said during the team’s post game press conference. “It’s like having that extra coach on the court. [Karaban] toughed it out today.”
While the end result will please UConn fans, the method of getting there wasn’t always pretty. There were many instances where the offense dried up, and the program went scoreless for minutes on end. This allowed Butler to go on runs and make it a much more interesting game, with the Bulldogs going on as much as an 11-0 run in the second half.
Interestingly enough, while Clingan himself had a good day on the boards, snagging 14 when it was all said and done, Connecticut failed to win the war on the boards, with both sides grabbing 33. This was a major reason why Tuesday night was a single-digit game for nearly all 40 minutes.
However, the single-digit lead quickly ballooned into a double-digit one, thanks to contributions from nearly every key member of the No. 1 team in the nation. Newton hit a big three with around three minutes left to make it a 10-point game. Clingan finished a tough and-1 putback a minute later to maintain a three-possession advantage, and Karaban hit the dagger three with a minute left to put this one out of Butler’s reach.
In the end, it was a significant team win for UConn. Tuesday’s 71-62 marks 11 straight for Connecticut, giving them at least a three-game lead over the Marquette Golden Eagles in the Big East standings. The Huskies will not have much of a break as the action quickly resumes on Saturday at noon against Georgetown.