Sports: St. John’s upsets No. 23 UConn men, 74-70
St.John’s wipes out early deficit and upsets No.23 UConn in physical Big East battle
Storrs — Painful losses are not a thing of the past for UConn as it had hoped.
The 23rd-ranked Huskies, who endured their share of excruciating defeats last season before learning how to win tight games, stumbled down the stretch on Monday at Gampel Pavilion.
They never trailed in the first 35 minutes, but their offensive struggles and defensive breakdowns eventually proved to be their downfall against scrappy and determined St. John's. They also went just 15-for-23 from the foul line, including 10 for 16 in the second half.
The 74-70 defeat prevented UConn (7-2, 4-2 Big East) from extending its four-game winning streak and sent the Huskies to their first setback since falling in overtime to Creighton on Dec. 20. They are 1-2 in games decided by four points or less.
"Brutal loss," coach Dan Hurley said. "Credit St. John's. Those guys are just so relentlessly competitive. They were tougher than us, especially down the stretch. We obviously shot ourselves in the foot quite a bit."
Redshirt junior R.J. Cole scored a team-high 18 points, but had only six in the second half while junior Tyrese Martin contributed 14 points, six rebounds and a career-best six steals and freshman Adama Sanogo had a career-high 12 points for the Huskies, who played their third straight Big East game without sophomore James Bouknight, who had elbow surgery last week.
"That's a problem," Hurley said about playing without Bouknight. "That's going to be a problem. We can overcome that problem but we
give up 74 points. We've got to play elite defense. And we got beat to so many loose balls and offensive rebounds. We're not winning a game like today that's played in the 70s with some of the limitations that we have offensively."
UConn's normally sound defense allowed St. John's (8-7, 3-6) to shoot 49 percent from the field.
"We were brutal defensively guarding the ball," Hurley said.
Still, the Huskies led by as many as 14 in the first half and fought off several comeback attempts before buckling down the stretch.
In the final five minutes, they made only one field goal, missed four fouls shots and couldn't stop the quicker St. John's players from driving to the basket.
Redshirt senior Rasheem Dunn's two free throws put the Red Storm on top for good, 66-64, with 3:33 remaining. It was only their second lead of the game.
Big East leading scorer Julian Champagnie, who was held to 12 points but scored five of his team's last six points, converted a driving basket to push the lead to 71-67 at the 1:21 mark.
The Huskies still had a chance. Martin buried a 3-pointer from the corner to cut the gap one and then the Huskies forced a turnover to get the ball back.
Coming out of a timeout, Martin drew a foul driving to the basket. A 60 percent free throw shooter, he misfired on both attempts with 18 seconds remaining and the Huskies down 71-70.
After Dunn made one of two free throws for a two-point edge, UConn raced down the court and senior Tyler Polley badly missed a 3-point attempt.
Champagnie iced the win by sinking two free throws with five seconds remaining. Freshman Posh Alexander led the Red Storm with 18 points and harassed UConn's guards into mistakes. The Huskies finished with 14 turnovers.
"Their defense was very relentless," Cole said. "They picked you up the whole game, 94 feet . ... You had to be on our toes."
The Huskies are still searching for reliable offensive options without Bouknight. Polley, who averaged 15.5 points in the previous two games, only scored seven.
Their bench was outscored by their St. John's counterparts, 2710. And they got little consistent production out of their starters with the exception of Sanogo, whose 12 points came in just 17 minutes (he also had four rebounds).
Sanogo had his best game. He gave the Huskies a lift early in the second half, scoring six points.
"It feels good to show my team that I'm here for them," Sanogo said. "But we lost, so I feel like it doesn't matter."
Hurley kept Sanogo on the bench when St. John's switched to a smaller lineup and overtook UConn.
"When they went so small the last 10 minutes, we just couldn't play Adama," Hurley said. "He's probably the only good thing that happened today."
The Huskies are off until Saturday when they visit Creighton. Their home game against Xavier on Wednesday was postponed due to COVID-19 problems within the Xavier program. No makeup date has been set. It is the eighth game this season the Huskies have had either postponed or canceled.