Revenge. That was on the mind of Alex Karaban as he helped lead the No. 5 UConn men’s basketball team (7-1) take down No. 21 Kansas (6-3), 61-56, in the team’s first road test of the year.
The first road test of the year could not have started at a more challenging venue than Allen Fieldhouse. In front of a raucous crowd of 15,300, Connecticut was sure to be tested in the toughest way.
“This is still the hardest place I’ve ever played in my college career,” Alex Karaban said.
Despite playing limited minutes in a 74-61 win over Illinois, Tarris Reed Jr. did not play, leading to a tough assignment for Eric Reibe against Flory Bidunga. He picked up the assignment well, despite it being his first road game. Reibe finished with 12 points and eight rebounds on 6-of-8 shooting.
“If you would’ve said to me before the game that Eric would play Flory basically even in the game, that’s big-time stuff by a freshman center in this place,” Dan Hurley said.
Reed’s absence, with a game-to-game status, made it difficult to win the rebounding game, and that was present for the first half, with Kansas outrebounding UConn 22-13. The second half was a drastic change, with UConn holding a 25-10 edge to win the overall rebounding battle, 38-32.
“I think you can see the growth with the team today,” Hurley said, attributing the Huskies’ rebounding efforts to the lessons learned after Arizona destroyed the Huskies on the glass a few weeks ago.
Solo Ball got hot to start the game and kept the Huskies in it. He scored the team’s first seven points and quickly got out to a 9-point performance in less than seven minutes into the game and led the team with 12 points at the midway point.
While he only had five points in the second half, Ball was one of the team leaders in scoring, with 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting.
The other player tied for the game lead in scoring was Braylon Mullins, who had his breakout game in his second-career collegiate contest. The freshman phenom had 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting and knocked down the game-sealing free throws for the Huskies.
“He sparked us,” Hurley said. “He put us in a position to win this game. Obviously, this was the first step for him, and I think he’s obviously gonna make our team a lot better moving forward.”
Alex Karaban single-handedly led a 7-0 run in the second half, while Kansas failed to score for over four minutes, allowing the Huskies to retake the lead at the 10:47 mark. As one of the few players remaining from the 2023-24 team that nearly stunned the Jayhawks two years ago, it was important for him to step up.
“As much as I love this team, I kept saying in my head ‘Do this for the ‘24 team, too,’” Karaban said.
The two-time NCAA champion scored nine of his 11 points in the second half, going 4-of-8 from the floor in the final 20 minutes. That was a dramatic improvement from a 2-point, 1-of-4 effort in the first half.
“He showed the resilience, the mental toughness just to grind out a way to score some field goals late,” Hurley said. “That’s what champions do, and he’s the biggest champion in college basketball.”
The other key factor to UConn’s first win over Kansas in program history? Defense. Kansas shot 41.9% from the field in the first half, knocking down four 3-pointers in a game where the Huskies’ 3-point defense looked vulnerable. In the second half, the Jayhawks shot 5-of-20 (25%) and only made one 3-pointer. That was a massive difference-maker.
The Huskies are now 1-0 in their new throwback away uniforms. Per my research in the UConn men’s basketball records, UConn is now 9-7 in ranked matchups against Big 12 foes; 5-9 in ranked matchups against non-conference opponents on the road; 3-5 against Big 12 foes on the road.
And now this UConn team did something that a dominant 2023-24 team could not do: win at Kansas.
“These guys should get tired of hearing about the ‘24 team and be like ‘Yo, this ‘26 team did something that the ‘24 team never did, and we want to accomplish things that the ‘24 team couldn’t,” Hurley said.
The Huskies return to their own mecca, Harry A. Gampel Pavilion, on Friday against East Texas A&M.