UConn men's basketball started the season with a breezy win over Gardner-Webb University, 86-46, as Dan Hurley earned his 200th win as Husky head coach.
Braylon Mullins led the way with 20 points, while Nik Khamenia added 14 with six rebounds and three assists. Na'jai Hines posted a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds.
UConn outscored Gardner-Webb 42-10 in the paint, held them to 26% from the field, and had 20 assists on 31 field goals — all to be expected against one of the lowest of the low-major teams in Division 1.
The Huskies jumped out to an 8-0 lead with four different starters scoring.
Threes weren't falling for UConn — starting 1-for-9 — but the defense stayed active and the looks were clean. The Huskies turned defense into offense and took advantage of the size disparity inside as they dominated the glass. It took some playmaking from Khamenia, Mullins, and Colben Landrew to keep building the lead early on.
With Demary Jr. in foul trouble, County turned in a solid shift, running the offense, playing stout point-of-attack defense, and canning a triple. The Runnin' Bulldogs didn't crack double digits until the 6:50 mark of the first half. The lead stretched to 21 as the half wore down, with UConn's perimeter defense making life miserable.
The first half looked more like a preseason game than UConn's actual preseason games, prompting head coach Dan Hurley to remark that the "missed open looks are demoralizing our defense at the end," in his interview on TV. For the most part, everything looked great, but they could have more made shots.
Mullins hit two threes early in the second half as UConn opened up a 10-0 run to keep the throttle going. Stops usually turned to scores, and UConn doubled up the visitors by the U-16 timeout.
UConn held GW without a field goal for five minutes. The Huskies missed a lot of easy opportunities to truly detonate on Gardner-Webb until the very end. Instead of going through the motions though at the end, fans were treated to:
Igor Amosov canning a three
Hines showing some nice footwork and touch around the rim
Demary Jr commanding the offense
John Fanta in midseason form
Three-straight offensive rebounds during one possession when the lid on the basket closed
Not much to take away from this one, which is a good thing. Won't sweat the shooting yet (9/29 from three), but maybe something to monitor going forward.
Hurley, after the game: "I already knew we had a lot of work to do. A lot to clean up, stuff we got away with we won't get away with later."
When pressed on what needed cleaning, Hurley added:
"Just some immature things, an inability to close the half, start the second half casual, missed assignments defensively." He added that he'll be tightening up the rotation.
Message received. Up next, the title game rematch against Michigan. Tip-off is at 8 p.m. from Boston's TD Garden and the game will be televised on TNT.
