An improving Alleyne a boost for Huskies, a ‘problem’ for opponents

HARTFORD — Whether or not Tuesday night was Nahiem Alleyne's best game with the UConn men's basketball team is debatable.

Whether his half-court shot that banked in at the halftime buzzer was luck or skill is also up for question.

What may be inarguable, however, is that Alleyne delivered the quote of the year following the Huskies' 87-72 manhandling of No. 10 Marquette.

Scanning the box score while discussing teammate Tristen Newton's school-record second tripledouble of the season, Alleyne noticed Newton's dozen assists and compared it to the work of the UConn women's team's pass-happy point guard.

“Twelve dimes?,” the junior guard said in wonderment. “He was like Nika Muhl out there.”

The UConn men's blowout of Marquette was as thorough as some of the UConn women's team's greatest hits. And while there was a lot of credit to spread around, most notably Newton, it was the performance of Alleyne that had Dan Hurley as excited as anything.

“You give us a guy like Nahiem that gets back to his old form,” the UConn coach said, “that's going to be a problem for the other guy.”

Alleyne knocked down a trio of 3-pointers, including that half-court heave, and finished with 13 points, the most he's scored since transferring from Virginia Tech to UConn last summer.

It was the fourth time Alleyne has scored in double figures this season but the first since he scored 11 against lowly LIU on Dec. 10. Alleyne had nine points and played some tough defense a week later in the Huskies' Big East opener at Butler, but since then hasn't contributed a whole lot.

In the dozen games prior to Tuesday night, Alleyne had scored exactly 27 points — 2.2 per game. He went scoreless in three of those games and never scored more than six.

A 38.7 3-point shooter in his

Alleyne