HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) \u2014 Southborough native Alex Karaban scored 18 points, including the 1,500th of his career, as fifth-ranked UConn overcame a poor shooting second half to hold off Texas 71-63 on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Tarris Reed Jr. had 12 points, six rebounds, and a career-high five assists for the Huskies (10-1), who concluded their rugged nonconference schedule with a sixth straight victory. Jaylin Stewart and Braylon Mullins added 10 points apiece.<\/p>\n
UConn led by nine at halftime and despite some empty Huskies possessions in the second half, Texas was never able to get closer than five the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
Texas trailed 61-56 when Solo Ball\u2019s desperation heave for UConn beat the shot clock with 3:39 to play. After a steal, Karaban hit an open 3-pointer to put the Huskies up by 11.<\/p>\n
Texas answered with Tramon Mark\u2019s 3-pointer and a floater by Jordan Pope to pull within six. Baskets by Malachi Smith and Stewart helped the Huskies close it out.<\/p>\n
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Pope and Mark each had 15 points for Texas (7-4).<\/p>\n
Mark scored six points in the first 2:48 to give the Longhorns the lead. He had just two more points in the first half.<\/p>\n
Without the offense coming from Mark, the Huskies began to take control. Mullins and Karaban hit 3s in a 10-3 run. UConn took its first double-digit lead on a backdoor layup by Karaban.<\/p>\n
The Huskies led by 12 in the first half. Simeon Wilcher had seven points during a 9-2 run by the Longhorns. It was a two-point game following Pope\u2019s basket, but Texas didn\u2019t make a field goal for the final 2:53 of the half. Back-to-back baskets by Reed and a layup by Karaban in the final seconds gave the Huskies a 43-34 lead at the break.<\/p>\n
Mullins made his first career start and sank all three of his shots in the first half. He missed six of UConn\u2019s first 10 games with an ankle injury.<\/p>\n
Texas is home against Le Moyne on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
UConn hosts Butler next Tuesday in its Big East opener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) \u2014 Southborough native Alex Karaban scored 18 points, including the 1,500th of his career, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21893,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-86464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-connecticut","9":"tag-texas","10":"tag-texas-headlines","11":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}