Texas men’s basketball head coach Sean Miller was vocal last week about his disappointment regarding his team’s defensive performance following their blowout loss to then-unranked Virginia and Monday’s victory over Southern University.
“We have problems on defense, unless we get better as a staff (to) solve some of these problems, we’re not going to be good enough,” Miller said on Monday. “
Although the final score on the video board at PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, Connecticut, may not have tipped in the Texas Longhorns’ favor, they lived up to their coach’s challenge of playing better defensive basketball against the No. 5 Huskies.
Still, Texas could not seize on its impressive defense performance, struggling in the field during the Huskies’ long scoring drought in the final 10 minutes of regulation. UConn had enough cushion to seal a narrow 71-63 victory over the Longhorns Friday night.
The Huskies created open shooting lanes and made Texas pay for its aggressive double teams to hit wide-open threes in the first half. Faced with their most hostile environment so far this season, the Longhorns were able to clean up their mistakes on defense from a tough first half.
Texas tightened up, holding UConn to just 42.9% from the field compared to the first half 68% and forcing the team to get into foul trouble. The Huskies were sloppy, drawing 13 fouls in the second half and flipping the script after Texas was struggling in that department through the first 20 minutes.
While the Longhorns had their best defensive performance against a marquee opponent, Texas could not play complementary basketball. Texas shot 30% from the field in the second despite winning the turnover battle.
The best stretch for Texas came from 7:51 through 3:39 in the second, when the Longhorns held the Huskies to zero points during that span. UConn, which shot well from around the perimeter in the first half, went 0-8 at the three during its drought.
The Huskies returned the favor defensively, preventing the Longhorns from gaining any momentum outside of free throws made by Texas senior guard Jordan Pope and sophomore center Matas Vokietaitis, accounting for only four points.
Texas junior guard Dailyn Swain experienced unusual struggles at the free-throw line tonight, going 3-8. His two missed free throws late in the game set up UConn’s final run to seal the night.
Huskies junior guard Solo Ball and senior forward Alex Karaban brought the juice back into the crowd, knocking down back-to-back threes. That put the juice back into a silent sellout crowd and gave UConn enough to hold off Texas’ late-game rally.
Pope and graduate guard Tramon Mark led the Longhorns in scoring, both ending with 15 points against the Huskies. Graduate forward Lassina Traore came down with seven rebounds, three steals and one block.
Texas returns home to face the Le Moyne Dolphins, 7:00 p.m. Tuesday at the Moody Center.
