MILWAUKEE’S BEST
How trust, and some motherly advice, helped Karaban find his shot, get victory at Marquette
“The guy plays good to great every other time in every other aspect. There’s a reason he played (38 minutes) and leads us in minutes every game. You knew a night like this would come for him.” — Dan Hurley, Uconn coach, on Alex Karaban
MILWAUKEE — All Uconn forward Alex Karaban wanted to do after his shooting woes continued on Sunday against Seton Hall was get back in the gym, and get some more shots up. But his mom, Olga, advised against it.
“My mom told me not to, just to rest,” he said Wednesday. He took his mother’s advice, and it paid off.
The redshirt sophomore, who’d been playing well despite the shooting struggles, ended his fourgame, 4-for-22 skid from 3-point range and made five triples on his way to 23 points in Wednesday’s 74-67 win at Marquette. It was his eighth game this year with 20-plus points, his eighth time leading the regular-season champion Huskies
in scoring.
“She wants me to rest as much as possible, she knows how hard our practices are so she’s just telling me to rest. But I’ll listen to her maybe, like half the time,” he said. “I care so much about this team. If I’m going through a shooting slump I care to fix that immediately.”
Karaban credited the Uconn staff and his teammates for continuing to trust his shot, telling him to keep shooting whenever he’s open. They’d seen him make enough in practice and in shootaround before the games.
“I think it’s a mix of both, the work I put in, just knowing that, but it’s more so the coaches, teammates just telling me what to do and just having that trust in me,” he said. “I work, I work a lot. I try to recreate the shots I miss and that’s just something I’ve always had pride in myself for.”
Against Villanova, when Tristen Newton needed one more assist to secure the fourth triple-double of his career, Karaban asked for the ball, promising he would make it. He was 0-for-7 from the field up to that point, 0-for-6 from 3, but when Newton needed it, he made the shot.
“I wouldn’t say he’s having rough games, he’s just not shooting the ball like we’re used to,” Newton
said after that one, quick to point out that Karaban had the highest plus-minus on the team despite what was a scoreless effort through the first 39-plus minutes.
“He’s a tremendous shooter, he’s a national champion, his impact goes far beyond whether he’s making shots or not,” head coach Dan Hurley said Wednesday. “The guy plays good to great every other time in every other aspect. There’s a reason he played (38 minutes) and leads us in minutes every game. You knew a night like this would come for him.”
Karaban missed his first 3-point shot on Wednesday and Marquette jumped out to a 12-5 lead but, after a 3-pointer from Cam Spencer and a layup from Hassan Diarra, Karaban couldn’t seem to miss. He made three in a row to put the Huskies ahead, a lead they never gave up.
After Marquette trimmed the lead to seven midway through the second half, Spencer stepped back for a mid-range jumper and found Karaban on the next possession for his fifth 3-pointer of the game, which put Uconn back up 12. Karaban finished with five rebounds, three assists, a block and two steals.
“Alex, I know he hasn’t — in his head — hasn’t played the way he’s wanted to, but he’s been playing great,” said Donovan Clingan, who had another strong all-around performance with nine points, 12 rebounds and four blocks. “Him seeing the ball go in a lot today, and the way he played was outstanding for us and carried momentum throughout the game. He was a dog today.”
Spencer approaching rarefied air:
Cam Spencer, with his 17 points on 6 of 10 shooting from the field, 5-for-7 from three, upped his field goal percentage to 50% on the year. It would be his career-high, surpassing the 49.1% he shot through 23 games as a freshman at Loyola Maryland.
But, more significantly, he is on pace to join the 50/40/90 club, a rare group of players who’ve shot at least 50% from the field, 40% from 3 (46%) and 90% (91.7%) from the free throw line for a single season. If he continues this pace, according to former ESPN stats and information researcher
Jared Berson, he would be the first player in NCAA history to have a 50/40/90 season and a 3-to-1 assist to turnover ratio (3.1).
Huskies win first ranked road game in 10 years:
Saturday’s win over eighthranked Marquette was Uconn’s first win over a ranked opponent on the road since Jan. 16, 2014 at Memphis, which was ranked No. 17 at the time. Uconn was 0-for-21 in such matchups in the 10 years since, 0-for-5 over the last two seasons.
“I don’t give a (bleep), that’s stupid,” Hurley said when the stat was brought up post-game. “I mean, we sucked for years, we went through some cold winters. And then, back when I took over this job, there was no portal so you had to rebuild something slowly. Listen, from here on out basically, we’ve got one more road game, but all of the big stuff is about to happen on neutrals.”
One win away from Big East regular-season record:
Uconn is set to wrap up the regular season in Providence Saturday night, where, with a victory, the Huskies could break the Big East regular-season record for wins. This year’s Uconn team, at 17-2 in conference play, joined Marquette (17-3, 2022-23), Syracuse (17-1, 2011-12) and Uconn (17-1, 1995-96) in a four-way tie for the most wins in league history.