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had a Garden party under the basket.

"Both teams played incredibly hard," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. "A lot of missed shots, missed opportunities. Some bad turnovers both ways. But both teams played as hard as you can play."

Syracuse left the door open in the second half but the Huskies couldn't capitalize. UConn got no closer than seven.

Prolonged offensive droughts and defensive lapses continue to haunt UConn.

"It's not youth," Ollie said. "We have to grow up. It's taking care of the basketball. It's playing hard with energy. One of our spurts, Christian (Vital) just played like he wanted to win the game ... And that's what it's going to have to be like.

"... We can't be in the mindset if I don't score, I don't play defense. We just have to have more consistent with that with all of our players, from one to 13. It can't be about the offensive end, it's got to be about the defensive end. And then we've got to rebound . ... We turned the ball over, the first half, like we weren't prepared against their zone... It was like we've never seen a zone before."

It started poorly for the Huskies.

They committed 13 of their 17 turnovers in the first half against an active and athletic zone. They had four in their first five possessions. They were out-matched on the boards.

The deficit stood at 40-29 at the break.

"We knew what we were getting into," junior Jalen Adams said. "We knew our match-ups and we knew they had large length. I think we just kind of got too excited in the first half and were reckless with the ball. In the second half, we toned it down. But we still had too many costly turnovers."

Adams finished with a teamhigh