UConn men\u2019s basketball (25-3, 15-2) has perhaps its most anticipated home game of the year on Wednesday night, as the Huskies host St. John\u2019s (22-5, 15-1) in a clash between the top two teams in the Big East standings as the regular season winds down.<\/p>\n
The Red Storm are ranked No. 22 in KenPom, with the No. 45 offense in the country, No. 15 defense and rank 23rd in the NET. They check in at No. 15 in the AP Poll, marking this the third \u201cranked vs. ranked\u201d matchup of the Big East regular season, all of which have included UConn.<\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s has been playing phenomenal basketball after a lackluster non-conference slate, and Rick Pitino has his team in position to make back-to-back NCAA Tournaments for the first time since the program made three straight from 1998-2000. In their last game, the Red Storm handled the same Creighton team that just won in Storrs by 29 points at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
UConn sits at No. 6 in the AP Poll, No. 11 in KenPom, and No. 10 in the NET. They have the 13th-most efficient defense in the country, and were in the top 10 before a rough four-game stretch in early February on that side of the ball. The Huskies got back on track on Saturday, picking up a quality win at Villanova thanks to a dominant second half and some great bench production.<\/p>\n
The Huskies are no longer in control of a potential Big East regular-season title, needing to defeat St. John\u2019s and get some help. If both teams finish 18-2, St. John\u2019s would get the title due to the tiebreaker rules and head-to-head against the teams in descending order in the standings.<\/p>\n
Last time UConn played St. John\u2019s, the Red Storm handed them their first loss of conference play and snapped their 18-game winning streak. Can the Huskies return the favor in a sold-out Hartford?<\/p>\n
Date\/Time: Wednesday, February 25, 7:00 p.m.<\/p>\n
TV\/Stream: Peacock, NBCSN<\/p>\n
Radio: UConn Sports Network<\/a>, Sirius XM 84, Sirius\/XM online streaming<\/a><\/p>\n Odds: As of post time, the odds have not been published. They will be put in the post as soon as they are available.<\/p>\n Location: PeoplesBank Arena – Hartford, Connecticut<\/p>\n KenPom Predicted Score: UConn 76, St. John\u2019s 70<\/p>\n The Huskies and Red Storm have played 74 times in their program\u2019s history, with St. John\u2019s holding a narrow 40-34 advantage. In the Dan Hurley era, UConn has won six of 11 matchups. They last faced off on Feb. 6, 2026, when St. John\u2019s beat UConn 81-72 at Madison Square Garden. Silas Demary Jr. led four Huskies in double figures with 18 points.<\/p>\n As of now, everyone should be available for the Huskies. The Big East availability report comes out three hours before tip-off.<\/p>\n The UConn defense fell off a cliff over the previous four games heading into Saturday, but the Huskies turned in one of their best performances of the year against Villanova. The Wildcats shot 41% from the field and had some of their top scorers limited all night. UConn swatted eight shots and protected the paint inside as well as they\u2019ve had in a while.<\/p>\n In the 12 Big East games preceding that first matchup with St. John\u2019s, UConn allowed more than 70 points just twice – both games against Providence. In that 2-2 stretch that followed, they surrendered an average of 79.3 PPG. On Saturday, they allowed just 63 to the Wildcats, including a late surge that netted them a few more.<\/p>\n This matchup will be a true test of UConn\u2019s resolve. St. John\u2019s exposed flaws that the Huskies probably didn\u2019t even realize they had, and it\u2019s taken some time to adjust. Who steps up on the defensive end to try and limit some of the versatile wings that the Red Storm have is going to be a storyline to monitor, but seeing the way they guarded in Philly has to bring some comfort coming into this one.<\/p>\n Silas\u2019 St. John\u2019s struggles<\/p>\n One of the biggest takeaways from the game at MSG earlier this month was the play of Silas Demary Jr. on the offensive end. He scored a team-high 18 points with five assists, but was credited with nine of the 15 UConn turnovers and really struggled to take care of the basketball. Demary couldn\u2019t overcome the full-court pressure that the Red Storm used for nearly the entire 40 minutes. This wasn\u2019t the first time that Rick Pitino had his way with Demary, as back when he was at Georgia last season, St. John\u2019s turned him over 10 times in the Baha Mar Tournament.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think they\u2019re so avoidable for him,\u201d Dan Hurley said on Demary\u2019s turnovers. \u201cThey\u2019re a little bit casual. Some of his turnovers come when he\u2019s got to get the ball to a spot and spray it to someone coming off a screen. He\u2019s got to get better at that.\u201d<\/p>\n On Saturday against Villanova, Demary had seven turnovers, so he\u2019ll be looking for redemption in more ways than one this time around against St. John\u2019s. He\u2019s stepped it up in crunch time on numerous occasions for the Huskies, including 15 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists less than two weeks ago against Georgetown. Demary is going to be called upon to make some big plays, and he should be ready.<\/p>\n The X-factor in that game at MSG a few weeks back was the late-game play of Dylan Darling for the Red Storm. Darling is your prototypical \u201clove him unless you\u2019re against him\u201d type of player, one that can easily get under your skin. He had nine points against the Huskies, including a big three-pointer late in the game, and he\u2019s skyrocketed ever since. In four games, he\u2019s averaging 14 points per game in nearly 26 minutes a night off the bench.<\/p>\n In that now-infamous game against Providence when there were seven ejections, he scored a season high 23 points and took over in the second half to ignite St. John\u2019s to the win. In that four-game stretch, he actually had a game against Marquette in which he went scoreless, so if you want to get technical, he scored 56 points in three games since he last played the Huskies. You can bet that Darling is going to play some big minutes in Hartford for Pitino.<\/p>\n Control what you can control<\/p>\n The way that St. John\u2019s attacked UConn the first time around told us a lot about the makeup of both rosters. Dillon Mitchell proved to be a matchup nightmare when on the floor, especially when playing with both Bryce Hopkins and Zuby Ejiofor on the floor at the same time. No matter who Hurley threw at Mitchell, they couldn\u2019t seem to slow him down on the offensive end.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think that will magically change on Wednesday. Unless a fellow 6\u20198\u201d explosive wing that can pass, rebound, and drive to the rim at will appears in the UConn locker room in Hartford, the Huskies don\u2019t have anyone who matches up physically with Mitchell. Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross are probably the closest you\u2019ve got, perhaps Alex Karaban too, but none of them were able to do much last time. Say you put Karaban on Mitchell, then who guards Hopkins? Not many teams have three legit frontcourt players in college basketball anymore, all playing together, but the Red Storm do.<\/p>\n An area you can control is how you defend the matchups that are closer from a physical standpoint. Ejiofor is more likely than not going to win Big East Player of the Year this year, but that\u2019s not an excuse for Tarris Reed Jr. and Eric Reibe to let him have 21 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists in Round 2. Reed knows that he has to be better and can be better, proving so against Villanova, where he and Reibe held Duke Brennan to just seven points and three rebounds.<\/p>\n The ultimate downfall at MSG came down to the bench minutes for UConn. Reibe and Malachi Smith played five and four minutes respectively, and they were a -9 and -12 in the box score. On the flip side, in a nine-point loss, Demary and Reed each played over 35 minutes and had a positive +\/-.<\/p>\n Since then, the Huskies\u2019 reserves have played pretty well. The bench was one of the main reasons UConn was able to extend its lead against Villanova. Stewart scored six points, snapping a three-game scoreless streak. Ross was a +16 and played great defense on the Villanova wings. Reibe had eight points and five rebounds. The second unit has been playing well for the past week or so, but can you trust them in this one?<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure somewhere in the back of Hurley and the staff\u2019s mind, they have to be having flashbacks to those stretches of the St. John\u2019s game in which the bench lost them the game pretty much, but it\u2019s not like them to use those past struggles as reasons to change up their game plan. I\u2019d expect the usual usage from the bench in this one, with their play dictating how much time they see on the floor, not how they played three weeks ago.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s game in Hartford is the last one at PeoplesBank Arena this season for UConn, which also means it\u2019s the last game in the building for Alex Karaban and the other seniors in the program. This is the first of countless times we\u2019ll be saying \u201clast\u201d in front of whatever Karaban is doing, perhaps an emotional time for one of the most decorated players to wear the uniform.<\/p>\n If you remember his freshman year, that was the year in which UConn lost to a bad St. John\u2019s team in Hartford, coached by Mike Anderson in the midst of that memorable January stretch. How fitting would it be if Karaban\u2019s last game in Hartford is revenge on his worst loss in the building?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UConn men\u2019s basketball (25-3, 15-2) has perhaps its most anticipated home game of the year on Wednesday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,2681],"class_list":{"0":"post-622617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-uconn-mens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622617","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=622617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}