The UConn men’s basketball team looked like a juggernaut at PeoplesBank Arena Wednesday night.
In a battle of Big East heavyweights, the sixth-ranked Huskies wiped the floor with No. 15 St. John’s for a 72-40 blowout victory that kept their regular-season championship hopes alive and secured a third-straight perfect, 8-0 season in Hartford.
It was the largest UConn margin of victory in the history of the series.
The tone was set early by senior center Tarris Reed Jr., who had the best game of his career with 20 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks (tied his career-high) and a pair of steals. He held Zuby Ejiofor, the preseason Big East Player of the Year, to just six points and four rebounds. Ejiofor had 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists when St. John’s beat UConn, 81-72, at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 7.
Alex Karaban finished with 14 points and five rebounds, and Solo Ball added 11 points with four assists on a dominant night for the Huskies’ Big Three.
The win ended a three-game losing streak for the Huskies in their growing rivalry with the Red Storm and moved them into a tie atop the Big East standings, each with two losses in league play.
Still, it would take another St. John’s loss (or Providence overtaking Creighton in the standings) for UConn (26-3 overall, 16-2 in the Big East) to have a chance at the No. 1 seed in the Big East Tournament as the Johnnies (22-6, 15-2) hold the tie-breaker.
Bryce Hopkins (eight points, 3-for-15 from the field) started the scoring with a layup inside but UConn responded with a 3-pointer from Karaban and a dunk from Reed that poured gasoline on a crowd that had yet to take a seat. The crowd roared as the Huskies jumped out to a 9-2 lead.
Hopkins and Ian Jackson each landed 3-pointers for St. John’s to claw back, but Reed was at his best, showing a grizzly bear-like aggression toward the basket as he began another Huskies’ run. Braylon Mullins (nine points) nailed a corner 3-pointer to put the Huskies’ up 18-11 and force a timeout from Rick Pitino. The run kept going with a triple from Karaban after an offensive rebound from Jayden Ross, then a dunk from the captain as UConn capitalized on its best defensive stretch of the season and continued to finish opportunities in transition.
The Huskies had a 21-17 advantage on the glass, a 9-1 advantage in second-chance points and outscored the Johnnies 10-0 in transition while forcing five turnovers and only giving the ball away twice in the first half.
UConn’s lead was 13-11 when St. John’s, just 32.1% from the field before the break, went seven minutes without scoring. By the time Ejiofor got to the line and split a pair of free throws, the lead had ballooned to 31-11 with six minutes left in the half.
Joson Sanon was the saving grace for St. John’s, hitting a pair of 3-pointers and scoring 10 points in the last five and a half minutes of the half as UConn went into the break with a 41-26 lead.
The second half started as a battle of the bigs as Reed and Ejofor traded buckets inside before Silas Demary Jr. (seven points, eight rebounds, five assists) saw his first shot fall from mid-range and assisted Mullins on a 3-pointer in front of the Huskies’ bench. The star freshman made a steal in the backcourt and fed the ball forward for a two-handed slam from Ross in transition before Karaban finished inside for a 9-0 run that gave the Huskies their largest lead of the night, 54-31, with less than 14 minutes to play.
After Ejiofor’s second bucket inside with 17 and a half minutes to play, St. John’s missed its next 24 shots from the field and went the rest of the game without a made field goal as UConn’s lead grew to as many as 36 points.
UConn finished the game with a 41-37 advantage on the glass, a 42-12 advantage in the paint and 14-0 in transition as it turned the ball over just five times. St. John’s finished the game shooting just 19.6% from the field.