Now, the Zags returned the favor and headed east to finish this de facto home-and-home series, if you can even call it that. The Huskies and Bulldogs played Saturday in the Hall of Fame Series at Madison Square Garden, in which UConn defeated Gonzaga, 77-71, to win its third straight since returning from a winless Maui trip.
“Thrilled with the win, really gutted it out,” Dan
Hurley said. “Third straight game against a really good team and as good a team that we’ll play all year.”
Perhaps the biggest storyline to come out of The World’s Most Famous Arena on Saturday for UConn was that of Samson Johnson, who took a scary fall early in the first half and suffered a concussion, according to Hurley.
“He’s going to go into the (concussion) protocol,” Hurley said. “It’s a shame, because he started that game in electrifying fashion.”
Johnson caught a lob from Hassan Diarra on the opening possession, and later had a left-handed jam to finish with four points in just six minutes. The Huskies opened up the game on an 11-2 run in less than three minutes and forced a quick Bulldog timeout after gaining great momentum.
In his Garden debut, Liam McNeeley didn’t disappoint. The freshman dropped a career-high 26 points, most of which came at key points in the game to halt Bulldog runs. He also grabbed eight rebounds and dished out four assists.
“Liam McNeeley has been the perfect Cam Spencer replacement,” Hurley alluded.
“He was special out there,” Alex Karaban said. “To have a game like this going into Big East play, that’s all you really need to continue playing well.”
Hurley’s not wrong about the Spencer comparison. McNeeley showed great evolution in his game all throughout, grabbing some big offensive rebounds and putting them back in addition to going 10-for-12 from the charity stripe. His 26 points are the most any Husky has scored in a game this season surpassing Tarris Reed, Jr.’s 22 against Memphis.
Speaking of Reed, in Johnson’s absence, he stepped up and scored 12 points off the bench. He had some timely buckets down low and had a sequence where he blocked back-to-back shot attempts from Braden Huff and then finished an and-1 on the other end.
“With Tarris and how he improved his efficiency,” Hurley said, “I think we made the right decision to take some lumps early.”
Another Husky who is clearly quite comfortable at MSG is Jaylin Stewart. Dating back to last year’s Big East tournament, the sophomore scored at least eight points off the bench in his third straight game played in downtown Manhattan. Against the Bulldogs, he scored 10, including a personal 5-0 splurge in the second half that erupted the Husky faithful in attendance.
“The upside of Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross and Solo Ball gives us the upside to improve throughout the year,” Hurley said.
Stewart also played some solid defense when matched up on players such as Michael Ajayi and Ben Gregg, not making it easy for either of them to get shots up.
“They just have the heart of a champion, man,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. “It’s a handful to guess where it’s going to come from.”
This time around, it was those sophomores. Ball hit some big threes and Ross played excellent defense down the stretch, picking up a scoop-and-score layup after he picked Ryan Nembhard’s pocket and finished on the other end.
Every time it felt like the Bulldogs were going to take a lead or at least tie the game, the Huskies responded. After Khalif Battle and Nembhard hit consecutive threes to tie things at 55, they went on a 10-0 run to quickly get the game back to double figures, after which the majority-UConn crowd was the loudest it was all evening.
The Bulldogs cut the lead down to three late, but a backdoor cut from Karaban pushed the lead back to five with just under a minute remaining and the lead never dropped below that again.
“The fans always show out when we play at MSG,” Karaban said. “This isn’t the first time that UConn Nation really helped us give energy through the gym.”
McNeeley was impressed by the aura that the building brought, and credited some of his tough buckets to Madison Square Garden. The win marks the Huskies’ eighth straight at The Mecca in a span of 361 days, dating back to last season’s Empire Classic.
“I’ve heard a lot about it just from the success of last year’s team,” McNeeley said. “I just wanted to carry that forward and keep that momentum up in this place.”
The win marks the end to a roller coaster of non-conference play for the Huskies. They started 4-0, then went 0-3 in Maui, and followed that up with another 4-0 stretch, including two Top 25 wins and a road win against an SEC school in Texas. Hurley realizes that it could have been a lot worse than 8-3.
“We could have easily been under .500 going into league play with that stretch of games,” Hurley said on his team’s early December schedule.
The Huskies open up Big East play Wednesday at home in Hartford against Xavier, as they look to defend their regular season title from a year ago.
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