Alex Karaban's 19 points lead UConn men to 68-60 win at Georgetown Saturday

Joe Arruda, Hartford Courant on Jan 11, 2025

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Alex Karaban must’ve taken the advice from his head coach.

Three days after missing a pair of critical free throws in the final seconds of a road loss to Villanova, Dan Hurley telling him to play with his back-to-back national championship rings to move past it, Karaban helped the UConn men’s basketball team return to dominant form on Saturday.

Meeting a turned-around Georgetown team (12-4, 3-2 Big East) at Capital One Arena, Karaban’s 19 points fueled the Huskies for a 68-60 victory in Washington, D.C.

Solo Ball, playing close to his hometown of Leesburg, Va., made three 3-pointers in the first half and finished with 15 points as Samson Johnson added nine and five rebounds. UConn led by as many as 23 points with less than nine minutes to go in the second half.

With the win, the Huskies improved to 13-4 on the year and 4-1 in Big East play.

Hurley didn’t see the “nastier” version of his players that he was looking for when the Huskies missed six of their first eight shots and fell behind Georgetown early.

Trailing 13-10 at the under-12 media timeout, the FOX broadcast went inside the UConn huddle to hear Hurley tell his team it was “just taking punches” and “playing soft.”

Aidan Mahaney drew the second foul on Hoyas standout freshman Thomas Sorber and the Huskies punched back with an 18-4 run, started by the second 3-pointer from Ball just before the timeout and completed with a Karaban layup after back-to-back triples from Jayden Ross and Mahaney. UConn took the lead and pushed it to eight.

The Huskies made seven consecutive shots, including four from beyond the arc as Ball and Karaban went back-to-back with less than four minutes to go in the half. But after a smooth midrange jumper from freshman point guard Ahmad Nowell to go up nine, UConn didn’t make another shot from the field, missing five in the last two minutes of the half as Georgetown cut its deficit to 35-31 at the break.

Hassan Diarra, scoreless in a foul-plagued first half, started an 11-1 UConn run after the break as he drove to the basket for a layup, then picked up a bobbled handoff attempt by the Hoyas and scored another in transition. Ball made a mid-range jumper and Karaban nailed an NBA-range 3 to give the Huskies some breathing room as they led by 14.

After taking those early punches, UConn’s defense hunkered down. The Huskies held the Hoyas to just 33.3% shooting from the field with nine turnovers in the second half.

Karaban took the ball from Sorber following a dunk from Johnson and tossed an alley-oop pass for Ross (seven points). Diarra picked the pocket of Jayden Epps on the next possession and found Johnson for another slam – three in under a minute as the Huskies’ lead ballooned. A brief cold period followed, but Karaban answered with consecutive 3-pointers from each wing to grow the advantage to 21 points, 61-39, with nine minutes to go.

Sorber, who missed much of the first half in foul trouble, finished with nine points, 10 rebounds and four assists on just 3-of-9 shooting from the field. His top competitor for Big East Freshman of the Year, Liam McNeeley, missed his third straight game as he recovers from a high ankle sprain.

Georgetown didn’t go down easy, putting together an 8-0 scoring run to cut its deficit to 15 with 5:20 to go, but the Huskies were able to hold off the press well enough to secure the victory.

UConn has a week off before welcoming Creighton to Gampel Pavilion at noon ET on Saturday.

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