UConn head coach Dan Hurley looked happy on the sidelines as his Huskies dominated against Texas in the first half at the Moody Center.
Hurley recently went viral on social media for his temper losses, especially in the team’s three consecutive defeats in the Maui Invitational. But against the Longhorns, even when Texas freshman guard Tre Johnson knocked over his bottle, Hurley was calm as his team worked toward a 76-65 victory in Austin.
“It’s so hard to win on the road, especially against a program like Texas,” Hurley said. “Really talented team, really well coached, clearly going to be an NCAA tournament team.”
The Huskies held the Longhorns to under 30 points in the first half, leading 42-24 after 20 minutes, but Texas found strength in the second half.
“I think it’s more so on us,” UConn junior forward Alex Karaban said. “I don’t think they really did anything differently (in the second half). It’s just more so on us. I felt like we were more relaxed at times, and they started hitting more shots too than they did in the first half, more defense.”
But the Texas players disagree.
“From our point of view, we turned up our defensive intensity, and it shifted the game,” Texas senior forward Arthur Kaluma said.
A 30.8% shooting rate went up to 87.5% in the first five minutes of the second half, and a 16.7% three-pointer rate moved to 100%. The big group of Husky fans in attendance in Austin were no longer the loudest in the building.
Texas fans were on their feet when Johnson scored his third three-pointer of the night early in the second half to narrow the gap to 10 points, the smallest since the start of the first quarter.
“I thought we came out the second half, played with much better effort, especially defensively, and gave ourselves a chance a little bit down the stretch by working hard on that end of the floor,” Texas head coach Rodney Terry said. “You got to learn lessons throughout the course of your season, you can’t give 20 minutes away. We’ll learn from this.”
The Longhorns scored seven points more than the Huskies in the second half, and coach Hurley looked less pleased and with his hands on his head, progressively more stressed as his team went on a 3:33 minute drought with Texas going on a 7-0 run. But, the lead the Huskies had built in the first half was too big to overcome.
Hurley got the win in the end, and the two-time national champion head coach said he was thrilled.
Texas will travel to Storrs in 2025 to finish a home-and-home series against the Huskies, and the Longhorns have four more home games in 2024 before they travel to College Station to kick off the new year and conference play.
