The UConn men’s basketball team found itself down 14 points at the XL Center again.
But, like the DePaul game on Jan. 29, the Huskies came back on Tuesday night to take down Villanova, 66-59.
“Hey listen, when we get down 14 in here, we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em,” coach Dan Hurley quipped to open the postgame press conference.
After Villanova’s lead swelled to its largest point, UConn outscored the Wildcats, 27-6.
Liam McNeeley and Tarris Reed Jr. combined to score the Huskies’ last 17 points and secure the much-needed victory, avoiding back-to-back losses to unranked teams and a spot on the NCAA Tournament bubble. McNeeley finished with a team-best 20 points, making all seven of his free throws to put the game away. Reed was constantly in position to score as he poured in 10 of his 13 points in the second half and finished one rebound shy of his seventh double-double of the season.
The win moved UConn to 18-8 on the season overall and 10-5 in the Big East, where it remains fourth in the standings with five games to go.
“The season was hanging in the balance for us today,” Hurley said. “If we lost this game, going to play St. John’s in the Garden over the weekend, this is definitely going to galvanize us. With having some high-end wins, and then having some really bad low floor moments, this team’s gotta find a way to finish strong, go into the Big East Tournament with great momentum. UConn starts playing really well in March, so can we get on a roll here late and get some of that March magic that we tend to have here?”
Saturday’s heartbreaking loss at Seton Hall, a game the Huskies blew twice, seemed to carry over at the start on Tuesday. The XL Center crowd began to get restless as the team made just one of its first 10 shots from the field and fell behind, 16-6, at the under-12 media timeout.
During that break in action, two-time national championship point guard Tristen Newton was welcomed back to Connecticut and earned a standing ovation at center court. After he returned to his seat behind the Huskies’ bench, next to his 2023-24 backcourt mate Cam Spencer, McNeeley drove hard to the rim for a layup that ended the Villanova run.
Hassan Diarra, still hobbled but back in the starting lineup after two games, began an 8-0 UConn run shortly after with his own drive to the rim. Solo Ball (13 points, 6 assists) got the team’s first 3-pointer to fall and McNeeley finished strong again, cutting the deficit to two.
Villanova shot 5-for-10 to UConn’s 1-for-9 from beyond the arc before halftime and the Huskies went into their locker room down eight, 34-26.
“It wasn’t like a chaotic locker room. We were on the guys about what our response needed to be, we needed to clean up some of the mistakes,” Hurley said. “We weren’t so much like, ‘Hey, wake up, you guys are blowing it,’ as much as, ‘Hey, tactically we’ve got to make these adjustments and if we keep guarding…”
UConn brought pressure at times in the second half as it held Villanova to just 32% shooting from the field and 3-for-12 from beyond the arc. Reed was the main defender on Eric Dixon, the nation’s leading scorer, and held him to just five points in the second half. Dixon finished with 17 points on 3-for-13 shooting from the field.
“Our defense today was really good, I think the best it’s been all season against some really good players out there,” said Diarra, who finished with eight points, two assists and a career-high three blocks. “We need to just bottle that up and take it to the next couple games.”
After a pair of 3s from Ball and an and-one finish from McNeeley got UConn within five, Wooga Poplar (19 points, 6 rebounds) went on a personal 9-2 run and pushed the Wildcats’ lead to 14 with 11:58 to go, their largest of the night.
“We were down 14 with 12 minutes left and, I mean, it’s do or die. We’re in a do-or-die situation and you have to be desperate at every moment,” McNeeley said. “And I think we were desperate in those 12 minutes.”
UConn dusted off its press defense and shut down the Wildcats, forcing five turnovers over the final 10 minutes of the game.
Jaylin Stewart, who earned himself a spot “in the doghouse” after a mistake he made early in the game, went up strong for an offensive rebound and finished a second-chance layup. Diarra stole the ensuing inbound and was fouled, making both from the free throw line before McNeeley became the only Husky other than Ball to make a 3-pointer, cutting the deficit to just three with five minutes to go.
Reed cut to the basket with the shot clock about to expire and juggled the entry pass from Ball, getting his layup off just before the buzzer to tie the game at 58. McNeeley gave the Huskies their first lead since the score was 2-0 with a pair of free throws and Ball found Reed again for a two-handed slam to go up four with 1:11 left.
“When we went down by 12, we could’ve caved in and lost by 22, but we didn’t,” Diarra said. “We came together and we fought. We also had Cam and Tristen in the building, so that championship DNA was in the air. We had to win.”
There was no blowing this one. Reed got to the rim again and McNeeley’s perfect night from the stripe continued.
“Now you can add this one to the down 14 against DePaul, win at Marquette, heartbreaker versus St. John’s in a game where you’re minus-15 turnovers and it’s a one possession game with 30 seconds to go, win at Creighton, lose that over the weekend and now get down 14 points against this team and win,” Hurley said. “I can’t imagine what our fans – I mean, I know what my nerves are like, my Oura ring was ready to explode.”
UConn will travel to “Storrs South” for a matchup against No. 10 St. John’s, which has some breathing room for first place in the league. The Johnnies are 22-4 overall and 13-2 in Big East play.
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