The UConn men’s basketball team went undefeated in nonconference play before going on to win the 2023 national championship. It went 11-1 in the nonconference the following season and then dominated its way through the NCAA Tournament once again.
But, coach Dan Hurley said, this year’s nonconference performance, 10-1 so far, would be the “most impressive” of all if the Huskies can finish it off with a win over Texas on Friday.
“We put together a monster of a schedule,” Hurley said, after beating reigning national champion Florida at MSG Tuesday night for UConn’s fourth ranked victory in five opportunities. “We’ve dealt with some injuries and different things along the way, but to be at 9-1 with everything that the team’s been through versus the quality that we’ve had to play against with this schedule, just impressed with what we’ve been able to do.”
Tuesday was only the second time the Huskies had all 15 players available, though Tarris Reed Jr. only played 24 minutes in his return from an ankle injury and Braylon Mullins fouled out after just 11 minutes of action.
Dom Amore: UConn men rock The Garden again, rolling through dangerous nonconference schedule
Without Reed and Mullins, who’ve missed five and six of the first 10 games, respectively, Hurley had no choice but to throw freshman center Eric Reibe into the fire against some of the best frontcourts in the country and test the team’s depth with Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross stepping into critical roles on the wing. The team passed almost every test, with rebounding issues leading to the lone loss at home to now-No. 1 Arizona and continuing to be an area of focus.
Texas, coached by old Big East foe Sean Miller, is 7-3 with the eighth-best rebounding margin in the country, though it has only one win over a team ranked in the top-200 in the KenPom rankings. The Longhorns have already lost to one Hurley (Dan’s brother Bobby) in a Maui Invitational thriller against Arizona State, and followed a big win over NC State two days later with a loss to Virginia when they returned to the continental U.S.
Dailyn Swain, a 6-foot-8 forward who played his first two years for Miller at Xavier and scored two points three times in four games against the Huskies, has been playing at another level since joining the Longhorns for his junior season. He is second on the team in scoring at 15.7 points per game and leads the group with 6.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game while shooting career-bests 56.6% from the field and 29.2% from beyond the arc.
Lithuanian center Matas Vokietaitis, a 7-footer, is Texas’ leading scorer with 15.9 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.
It will be the third year in a row that UConn and Texas have met in the nonconference. The Huskies won the last two matchups, at Madison Square Garden and last year on the road at the Moody Center, in decisive fashion.
UConn has seen mixed results against Miller, who went 3-4 against Hurley over the last three years at Xavier and has always expressed tremendous respect for his coaching foe. By far the Huskies’ most dominant win over the Musketeers came in Hartford in 2024; a 99-56 final that left Miller wondering if he’d “ever be able to win a basketball game again.” Of course, Miller’s Xavier team took UConn to overtime in their first matchup last season and then won the second meeting at home.
Both teams will have plenty of motivation Friday night.
“For us, the Texas game is a huge game,” Hurley said. “This group deserves just the best home crowd we’ve had in a while for that game because this team has really, really worked for its fan base.”
What to know
Site: PeoplesBank Arena, Hartford
Time: 8 p.m.
Records: No. 5 UConn: 9-1, Texas: 7-3
Series: UConn leads, 8-3
Last meeting: Dec. 8, 2024 – UConn 76, Texas 65 at the Moody Center in Austin
TV: FOX – Jason Benetti, Bill Raftery
Radio: UConn Sports Network on FOX Sports Radio 97-9 – Mike Crispino, Wayne Norman
Pregame reading:
- Dom Amore: UConn men rock The Garden again, rolling through dangerous nonconference schedule
- Improved defense is raising the floor for this UConn men’s basketball season
- UConn men’s basketball outlasts reigning champ Florida, 77-73, in Jimmy V Classic nailbiter