Martin leads balanced effort as Huskies roll past DePaul
STORRS — For 39 minutes on Wednesday night, UConn was clearly a better team than DePaul.
For one span of 53 seconds, the Huskies looked better than just about any team in the country.
It started innocently enough, just over six minutes into the second half, with a Tyrese Martin layup on a second-chance opportunity in the paint. A De
Paul turnover led to a Josh Carlton inside hoop, and after DePaul’s Kobe Elvis missed a jumper, Jalen Gaffney corralled the rebound and found Martin up the floor for a powerful, two-handed slam.
James Bouknight then came up with a nifty steal near midcourt and beat Martin in the duo’s own personal dunk contest, gliding in uncontested for a windmill dunk that capped a head-spinning stretch of basketball for the Huskies.
“I feel like, after the dunk that I had, he just fed off the energy I had and he came down, did his little SportsCenter dunk,” said Martin. “It was nice.”
Added Bouknight, with a smile: “I felt like I had to top what he did.”
The sequence opened up a 23-point lead and the
Huskies were never again threatened in an 82-61 win over the Blue Demons at Gampel Pavilion.
“Just happy to play a game again and get our first conference win,” coach Dan Hurley said. “Looking forward to getting into a more consistent practice and game routine, hopefully, moving forward.”
It was the program’s first Big East win since March 9, 2013. It was also just the
Huskies’ second game since Dec. 3 and first since an overtime loss to No. 12 Creighton 10 days earlier.
“We didn’t take that loss that bad,” said Hurley. “We were frustrated, but ... we didn’t hang our heads. We know we have a chance to be a good team. We practiced hard, ramped up our intensity, didn’t feel sorry for ourselves.”
UConn improved to 4-1 overall, 1-1 in the Big East. DePaul dropped to 1-2, 0-2.
Hurley has been looking for a second scorer to complement Bouknight, and he found one in Martin on Wednesday. The Rhode Island transfer notched a game-high 22 points to go with 10 rebounds in easily the best performance of his young Husky career.
“It means a lot,” Martin said. “It gives me confidence to keep on going. I can’t get complacent with that performance out there. I know I can do more to help this team. That’s what I’ve got to focus on going forward.”
“We’re just learning on the fly how to use him, and where he can be effective,” added Hurley. “That’s one of the downsides of this COVID thing. You’re learning about your team in Game 2 of conference play.”
Bouknight finished with 20 points and was good (“probably like a C-plus tonight,” per Hurley), but not dominant like his 40point effort in the Creighton loss. He didn’t have to be. Along with Martin, the Huskies got strong efforts from Josh Carlton, who bounced off the bench for a double-double (11 points, 10 boards), R.J. Cole (eight points, season-best six assists) and Brendan Adams (eight points).
“I said last game, I knew our team was gonna step up,” Bouknight noted. “I knew that other players were gonna step up. Putting together games like this where the whole team is playing well, it feels good.”
“You need it,” added Hurley.
Carlton had earned a start against Creighton after a command performance in a Dec. 3 win over USC. He didn’t play well, then got outplayed by freshman Adama Sanogo in practice over the past week, and found himself out of the starting lineup again.
Once again, he responded in a positive way.
“Because Josh is being pushed right now, and having to earn every minute,” said Hurley, “I think he’s got a high level of urgency.”
Meanwhile, Cole bounced back from his own poor outing against Creighton (including a pair of missed free throws with 12 seconds left that could have sealed a win in regulation) to play the role of distributor much better ... and also picked up a pair of charges.
Tyler Polley also contributed, bouncing off the bench in his first game action since Dec. 3 and immediately hitting a jumper and later adding a 3pointer.
It was all enough to spoil Dave Leitao’s return to Gampel for the first time as a coach in 18 years. The DePaul head coach had been an assistant to Jim Calhoun for two different terms.
Both teams got off to slow starts offensively, but heated up midway through the first half, at one point combining to hit 10 of 11 shots. UConn hit seven straight shots during one stretch and closed out the half hitting 9 of its final 10 shots for a 41-27 lead.
Darious Hall led DePaul with 14 points and Nick Ongenda added 13. The Blue Demons’ top two scorers (Romeo Weems and Charlie Moore) were held to a combined 14 points on 7-for-20 shooting.
RIM RATTLINGS
⏩ Former UConn standout Josh Boone was among the few live spectators at Wednesday night’s game. Boone, a member of the Huskies’ 2004 national championship team, played four seasons in the NBA and most recently played professionally in Bahrain. ⏩ DePaul’s entire team — players and staff — took a knee for the national anthem prior to the game. UConn’s team remained standing with interlocked arms, as the Huskies have done all season so far.