WASHINGTON, D.C. -\u2013 No matter what the scoreboard says with the clock ticking down or how bad of a shooting performance they\u2019re having, this 2025-26 UConn men\u2019s basketball team has proven in its last three road games that it has the resiliency to hang on in closing time.<\/p>\n
The Huskies, still looking for that killer instinct, the trait that made their 2023 and \u201924 championship teams special, missed six of their last eight free throw attempts on Saturday and let Georgetown get to within three in the final minute, but the game never felt lost. They trailed Providence by 13 in the final three minutes on Jan. 7 and let Seton Hall cut an 18-point difference to one in the final minute on Tuesday, but the thought of losing never crept in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think that\u2019s a testament to us just being resilient and when adversity hits, just responding in the right way,\u201d said point guard Silas Demary Jr., who again came through down the stretch. \u201cI think we\u2019ve been in a bunch of games the past couple of weeks where we had to fight \u2019til the end and I think those games kind of helped prepare us outside of practice for when a team makes a run, like they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust being able to respond, being able to make plays and not drop our heads.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s 64-62 win over the Hoyas wasn\u2019t pretty. UConn only had 11 assists on 21 made field goals, only scored eight points off of 13 Georgetown turnovers and shot just 19.2% from beyond the arc \u2013 their worst 3-point percentage since the second round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament against Northwestern (3-for-22, 14%).<\/p>\n
But their defense and poise down the stretch, once again, proved the floor for this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always talked about having an identity of defense and toughness,\u201d said Alex Karaban, who was 2-for-11 from the field on a night where the team shot just 36.2% overall. \u201cIf we show up defensively every single night, we\u2019ll be fine. Because the offense is gonna happen however it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s everybody\u2019s Super Bowl (against us) and so you can\u2019t take any team lightly. You\u2019ve just got to come out and play as hard as possible. Execute as much as you can and just try to figure out different ways to win,\u201d said freshman Braylon Mullins. \u201cThere\u2019s nights you don\u2019t shoot well and there\u2019s nights that the defense isn\u2019t well. So you\u2019ve just got to figure it out. All that matters is the winning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, D.C. -\u2013 No matter what the scoreboard says with the clock ticking down or how bad of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[2377,7,4157,217,926,925,2495,63034,2680,2679,68003,231,772,1544,4158,2681],"class_list":{"0":"post-544706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-alex-karaban","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-big-east-mens-basketball","11":"tag-college-basketball","12":"tag-connecticut-news","13":"tag-ct-news","14":"tag-dan-hurley","15":"tag-georgetown-mens-basketball","16":"tag-hartford-courant","17":"tag-local-news","18":"tag-max-image-preview","19":"tag-ncaa","20":"tag-ncaa-basketball","21":"tag-ncaab","22":"tag-silas-demary-jr","23":"tag-uconn-mens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115916420155088755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}