UConn routs Creighton for long-awaited dominant win

Braylon Mullins (24) led UConn with 16 points as Huskies shot 54 percent from field in rout of Creighton Saturday. (Photo by Dylan Widger/Imagn Images) 

OMAHA, Neb. — Dan Hurley admitted earlier in the week that it was a mistake to compare this UConn team to either of the two he led to national championships in the two seasons before last.

The coach again reiterated his roster is nowhere near that level, but the response he received Saturday was reminiscent of the squads that were the last teams standing in the NCAA Tournament.

A 14-3 run to end the first half sent UConn to the locker room with an 11-point lead over Creighton, and the second-ranked Huskies added to it out of the intermission, cruising to an 85-58 win over the Bluejays, their 17th in a row.

“We’ve been looking for a performance like this for a while here, where we were able to get some separation and play a full game,” a relieved Hurley declared. “We’ve been searching for a full 40 (minutes) and a relentlessness, a ruthlessness, and then just better quality. We made shots today. It looks a lot different when you’re making shots.”

Making shots was an understatement Saturday night. UConn (21-1, 11-0 Big East) shot 54 percent from the floor against a Creighton team still smarting from a 24-point loss at Marquette on Tuesday, and connected on 16 of its 31 three-point attempts to close the month of January on an emphatic note.

“We knew when we came into the game that the ball pressure wasn’t going to be the biggest point of emphasis for us on offense,” Braylon Mullins said after his 16 points led all Huskies in the victory. “We were coming off screens and we were just getting whatever was available, and we shot the hell out of it.”

“If you play elite-level offense, you shoot 54 percent from the field, make 16 threes, you’re plus-13 on the glass, you hold a really good offensive team to 40 percent from the field, and the three-point line defense we played, that’s bulletproof basketball,” Hurley proclaimed.

The beginning of the first half was anything but bulletproof for UConn, as Creighton scored the first points of the evening before Mullins, making his return after missing Tuesday’s game against Providence to rehab a concussion, splashed home the first of the Huskies’ 16 threes. Mullins and Solo Ball accounted for all of UConn’s first 12 points, all from deep, as the Bluejays stayed within earshot for the first 16 minutes of the contest. But a jumper by Silas Demary, Jr. with 4:17 remaining in the opening stanza put the visitors ahead for good, and ignited the aforementioned 14-3 spurt that built much-needed momentum for the final 20 minutes.

“It’s just us keeping our foot on the gas,” said Demary, who ended his night with 15 points, six rebounds and five assists. “I think Coach has been preaching just having that killer instinct, and I think today, we were just able to build on that. We were saying at halftime, those first four minutes (of the second half) are the most important of the half. I think that gets us going. We had to come out and start with a stop, and I think that’s what we did. We just kept building on that and did what we needed to do to kind of expand that lead, and do what we did in the second half.”

Creighton would briefly pull within single digits out of the intermission, but a Mullins three 30 seconds removed from the interlude brought the UConn advantage back into double digits to stay. The Huskies ballooned that cushion as high as 30 points on a night where Bluejays head coach Greg McDermott had no other recourse but to tip his hat in concession.

“It’s just one of those nights where they were all making shots,” McDermott lamented. “I didn’t have Jayden Ross flying off pin-downs, shooting threes and knocking them down on my bingo card tonight, and he was able to do that. There’s a reason they’re ranked No. 2 in the country. They’re a heck of a basketball team.”

UConn was able to further its best start to league play since its first championship season of 1998-99, and will look to sustain its hot streak when it opens February at home on Tuesday against Xavier. And while the job is not finished, the main objective is to bottle more results like Saturday’s up to cultivate the final piece of the puzzle.

“Obviously, the record, winning that many in a row and winning 21 is cool,” Demary reflected. “But I think we’ve gotta continue to just play a full 40, try to play as mistake-free as we can and just play together. I think we did a good job (of that), and I think we’re gonna start being able to do that consistently.”

Tigers rebound from letdown at Cornell with win at Columbia

By Andrew Hefner (@Ahef_NJ)

NEW YORK — Princeton finally snapped a streak it had been looking to lose for far too long on Saturday night.

After a 23-point loss at Cornell Friday, the Tigers bounced back 24 hours later with an 80-68 victory at Columbia. The win marked Princeton’s first road win since February 2025, which, ironically enough, also came at Levien Gymnasium against the Lions.

“So happy, especially after last night,” head coach Mitch Henderson said after Princeton broke a four-way tie for third place in the Ivy League standings. “It wasn’t pretty. With Dalen (Davis) getting hurt, Jack Stanton on one leg getting 21, that’s a hell of a night.” 

Columbia, one of those four teams sitting at 3-3 entering the contest, took down Penn on Friday and was looking to complete the weekend Ivy sweep. The Lions began the game with three players over 6-foot-8, a mismatch that hurt Princeton off the glass early. CJ Happy started off scoring with a big three for the visiting side, but three straight Columbia buckets quickly flipped the script. 

“They’re outrebounding everybody, including us,” Henderson remarked. “But I thought we were tough in the right moments, we figured it out. It was a very, very physical game.” 

The big plays off the boards kept Columbia in control for much of the first half, eventually extending a nine-point lead as Princeton just could not collect the ball in the paint. Five Tiger turnovers did not ease the pain much, but rough Columbia shooting kept Princeton very much in the game. The Lions went on to shoot 7-for-28 from beyond the arc.

“We’ve been in that spot this season a lot,” Henderson admitted. “We saw, I think, very clearly, that we weren’t moving the way we wanted to move offensively.”

Princeton was able to readjust, however, and took advantage of Columbia’s poor form, going on an 8-0 run late in the first courtesy of a Dalen Davis layup sandwiched by two Jack Stanton triples. Stanton, one of Princeton’s best all-around players, had not cracked double-digit scoring in four games, but three huge shots from beyond the arc in the first left him awfully close.

“I didn’t have to do a whole lot,” explained Stanton. “I just had to sit there and wait until I was open. My teammates got me involved, so props to (Jackson) Hicke and Dalen. All those guys did the hard work for me, and I was able to just execute.”

The sophomore guard went on to double his three-point count in the second, helping Princeton lock down the win with 21 points, while cracking 20 points for just the second time in his career and setting a career high with six three-pointers.

“Yeah, he’s doing great,” said Henderson of how he felt about Stanton’s performance, “Like, God, on one leg too, and we had him guarding (Kenny) Noland for most of the night. Just a terrific night.”

Princeton erased the nine-point deficit with ease, but was not aided by a concerning injury off a made layup to junior Davis on the same leg that left him sidelined for much of the non-conference slate earlier this season. 

“He's sprained his ankle, so we’ll see,” Henderson revealed. “It’s the same one and it’s been an issue for us and him, but we’ve got a week here to get ourselves on the right track.”

Even without Davis for the remainder of the game, the shots kept falling all around the floor for the Tigers as Malik Abdullahi started his night 5-for-5 from the field and eventually finished with 15 points and a game-high seven rebounds, and Jackson Hicke put up 18 points of his own. Princeton ended the evening with a season high 57.1 percent field-goal mark and 53.3 percent from three. 

Kenny Noland did not make the second half easy for the Tigers, though, as the senior guard racked up ten points in the first eight minutes of the final frame to keep the Lions even. Eventually, an overwhelming run down the stretch from the visitors left Columbia stunned, and down by as much as 14 in the final minutes of the game. 

“I think, mentally, we’re in a great spot now,” said Stanton, “Obviously a tough one last night at Cornell, but to get the split on a tough road trip like this, it was big-time for us.”

The well-traveled Princeton faithful were loud through much of the night over a nearly sold-out Columbia crowd and exited into the frigid New York City night with a big Ivy League win under their belts. 

Princeton will now head to The Palestra to face Penn next week, leading the all-time series for the first time ever, and will be looking to complete the season sweep over its cross-river rival. The Tigers also move up the Ivy rankings with the win, now in a two-way tie for third, vying for one of the all-important four spots at Ivy Madness come early March. 

“I thought Columbia was terrific. Hand it to them,” said Henderson, “But then we had this awesome run right there that really was like a defining point for our season.”