Dan Hurley’s wish list for his UConn men’s basketball team this holiday season is more concise than it was last year and, after Sunday’s 72-54 win at DePaul, it is very well-defined.
The Huskies reinforced their depth as they came back from an abysmal start without leading scorer Solo Ball, and proved yet again that they have the ability to throw the body blows necessary to wear teams into submission with their defense. DePaul (8-5) couldn’t keep up the physicality and effort that caused so much disruption in the first half, when they forced nine UConn turnovers and capitalized for 16 points to go into the break down three.
Defense and point guard play were atop the wish list at this point last season, but the Huskies proved to have fixed those areas, too. They held DePaul to just 31% shooting in the second half and without a made field goal over the final 3:53, forcing 13 turnovers – a mark they’ve hit six times this season. UConn remains fourth in the nation by KenPom’s defensive efficiency metric, while the offense (No. 23) still hasn’t quite reached its full potential.
And Silas Demary Jr., threatening his second triple-double of the season, showed he can do just about everything when he was asked to take on more of a scoring role without Ball. Demary finished with 13 points, seven rebounds, eight assists, two blocks and a steal – though his constant pressure on the ball to win extra possessions wasn’t always reflected on the stat sheet.
Some notes and takeaways from Sunday’s 72-54 win in Chicago:
First area of focus: limit giveaways
For the first half of Sunday’s game, it seemed that DePaul coach Chris Holtmann might’ve cracked the code on how to beat the Huskies. The Blue Demons’ defensive pressure was relentless and started far from the basket to affect passes inside, where they trapped from the baseline to rush the bigs into mistakes, and UConn was clearly out of sorts without Ball, who has served as a steadying presence early in games this season.
UConn, unable to get into a flow, turned the ball over nine times, one below its season average, in the first half alone. Ball security, while not quite to that extent, has been a recurring issue this season.
“We were really bad with the ball again,” Hurley told reporters in Chicago, “but they just made it tough on us. Chris (Holtmann) had a great game plan, a great scheme and he’s got a bunch of guys that play hard, a bunch of dogs.”
Dom Amore: Sure, his UConn men are 11-1 but, as usual, Dan Hurley’s still not nearly satisfied
Karaban reinforces reputation
Alex Karaban was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field in the first half while the rest of his teammates were a combined 8-for-26 (30.7%). The Huskies’ captain, who said he loves the rims at Wintrust Arena, needed to step up into more of a scoring role with Ball out and, as he’s known to do, did what was needed to keep the team in the game and ultimately pull away for the win.
Karaban finished the game 7-for-9 from the field, matching his season-high with 21 points in addition to six rebounds, two assists and a block.
Ball shouldn’t miss much time
Ball’s injury occurred in the first half of Tuesday’s win over Butler when he was sent flying after getting in the way of a drive to the rim and tried to brace his fall. He wore what Hurley called a “bowling” brace on his hand on Sunday as he missed the first game of his career due to injury. His streak of 47 consecutive starts was snapped.
UConn has been without its full lineup on multiple occasions this season as Braylon Mullins and Tarris Reed Jr. have both missed time, but, aside from the close loss to No. 1 Arizona, the Huskies have been able to find ways to win.
“All the injuries this year have forced us to kind of put players in different, uncomfortable positions. The team has had to deal with adversity that way and figure out different ways to win. (Ball) being out changes a lot of things… ‘shooting gravity,’ whatever these people say… We run a lot of things for him, Braylon (Mullins) doesn’t quite know how to get his shots the same way Solo does in a lot of things that we do,” Hurley said. “But now we’ve got a bunch of time to kind of get Braylon up to speed to be able to use the actions to get the opportunities that Solo gets. But he was kind of questionable from the game the other day and just couldn’t get healthy enough to be able to go today.”
Pickle juice, electrolyte mixture the root of Demary’s moment
On pace for a triple-double early on, Demary suddenly put his hand to his mouth and sprinted off the court as fast as he could in order to avoid vomiting on the court. He ran into the tunnel closest to where he was, trying to find a trash can, and Hurley went chasing after him to get him to the Huskies’ locker room on the other side of the arena.
Hurley posted an update to social media after the game saying he talked with Demary on the plane and determined the root cause of the apparent illness to have been a mixture of pickle juice and an electrolyte drink that he consumed at halftime. Pickle juice is commonly used in sports to help prevent cramping.
I just spoke to Silas on the plane…He’s feeling great now…the problem on the court was that he mixed an electrolyte drink with pickle juice at Halftime. That was obviously a mistake.
— Dan Hurley (@dhurley15) December 22, 2025
Demary eventually returned and continued to load the stat sheet.
“I just try to find ways to impact the game in any type of way,” he said. “The guys played steady while I was out and when I came back in we just went to another level. I think that just speaks a testament to our depth, like Malachi (Smith) came in and we were still steady, we were still doing what we needed to do… That’s just a testament to Coach pushing us every day and guys just being ready.”