12-0. That is the fifth-ranked UConn men’s basketball team’s record against the Butler Bulldogs, dating back to the 2011 national championship game.
Opening conference play, the Huskies (11-1, 1-0 Big East) secured a 79-60 victory over the Bulldogs (8-3, 1-1 Big East) on Tuesday night at the PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, Conn.
Coming into the Big East opener against Butler, the Huskies had not fared well in conference openers since the first season of the Big East during the 1979-80 season. In the past 46 conference openers, UConn holds a 20-26 record. Despite winning a record 11 Big East regular-season titles, the Huskies are 19-20 in Big East openers. Before tonight, UConn’s thrilling win over Xavier last season was the team’s first win in a Big East opener since defeating St. John’s at the XL Center on Dec. 31, 2011. Now, the Huskies have won their last two conference openers.
An electrifying alley-oop dunk from Tarris Reed Jr. kicked off the game, but the Bulldogs scored the next 9 points and claimed an 11-4 lead at the under-16 timeout. After the 7-point deficit, UConn proceeded to outscore Butler 33-12 over the final 15:01 of the first half.
“Championship teams don’t do that; that doesn’t happen to them,” Dan Hurley said on the 9-0 run by Butler. “I liked our response, but again, that’s not being a killer. You’ve got to be a killer in sports, and in basketball, you can’t start a game like that.”
Solo Ball had his best first-half performance of the season, scoring 17 points in the first half on 6-of-9 shooting. It matched the most points scored in a single half with a nuclear 17-point effort in the second half against Marquette last season. That game led to a career-high 25 points, which was eclipsed after scoring 9 points in the second half to finish with 26 points overall on 8-of-14 shooting. Hurley called him “elite” and said that he thinks Ball “will have a lot of games” like his performance against Butler.
“I kind of just went into the game, just not trying to focus on scoring,” Ball said. “I was really just trying to focus on my defense today. When I took my mind off scoring, and I just focused on that, I didn’t have to worry about how many points I’m putting on the board.”
No player had a bigger impact on the game than Jayden Ross, however. The Bristow, Va. native had his best performance of the season with 13 points (one short of a career-high 14 points) and 8 rebounds, including a handful of highlight reel dunks and passes.
“We see it every day,” Ball said of Ross’s performance. “I’ve seen it for the past seven years…He just has so many different parts to his game that he’s good at. He’s extremely versatile, and it makes it so easy to play with him on the court. Every game, you look at the stat sheet; he’s always one of the highest plus-minuses. It just shows his impact on the court when he’s there.”
Silas Demary Jr. may not have had a stellar shooting night, but his presence was known throughout the game. The former Georgia Bulldog finished with a career-high 11 assists and made it known that his lack of scoring lately has not gotten to him.
“I think sometimes people get caught up in just scoring, but for me, I kind of just get lost in the game and just have fun,” Demary said. “When the time presents itself to score, I’ll be able to do it. But when guys like Solo are hot, we’re just gonna feed the hot hand. I’m gonna keep defending and keep getting assists and keep getting steals.”
Just a few nights removed from shooting 47% from the floor in a double-overtime thrilling win over Providence, Butler’s offense looked like a shell of that performance on Tuesday night. The Bulldogs shot 29.5% from the floor, including a 0-for-11 start to the second half.
“We’ve got a group that’s got a chance to be a top-5 defensive group,” Hurley said. “That’s why we didn’t have opportunities to do big things last year. We’ve gotten it fixed, and we’ve got to keep it fixed.”
The Huskies closed out the home schedule for the calendar year with a 14-3 record and now look to two away games to close 2025. Next up for Connecticut will be a road trip to Chicago to take on DePaul on Sunday afternoon.