Alex Karaban scored all 11 of his points in the second half to help No. 24 UConn fend off Georgetown 68-62 in Big East action on Saturday in Washington, D.C.
Adama Sanogo and Tristen Newton both supplied 15 points for the Huskies (18-6, 7-6 Big East), who clinched a regular-season sweep of the Hoyas after defeating Georgetown 84-73 in Storrs, Conn., on Dec. 20.
Newton racked up eight rebounds, six assists and just one turnover, while Jordan Hawkins chipped in 10 points and Andre Jackson Jr. finished with seven points and a game-high 10 rebounds.
Brandon Murray paced the Hoyas (6-18, 1-12) with 21 points but committed a team-high seven turnovers. Qudus Wahab supplied 10 points and six rebounds and Jay Heath provided 13 of Georgetown’s 26 bench points.
Trailing 65-62 with under a minute to play, the Hoyas had a chance to set up a game-tying possession when Akok Akok rejected Newton’s layup, but Jackson corralled UConn’s 19th offensive rebound and found Karaban wide open on the left wing for a dagger 3-pointer that doubled UConn’s lead to six with 27 seconds to play.
The Hoyas missed their final two shots and finished 43.4 percent from the floor, while the Huskies canned 12 of 24 (50 percent) shots from beyond the arc and dished out 20 assists compared to Georgetown’s 10.
UConn outrebounded the Hoyas 38-31 and held a 23-8 advantage in second-chance points.
Both sides battled in the second half after Georgetown erased an early eight-point deficit to knot the halftime score at 31 apiece.
Murray scored 10 of the Hoyas’ first 14 points of the second half to keep Georgetown within striking distance until the Huskies appeared poised to pull away when Nahiem Alleyne buried a corner trey that put UConn ahead 58-50 with 7:43 to play.
Georgetown parried with an 11-2 surge fueled by back-to-back triples from Heath and Bryson Mozone and reclaimed the lead at 61-60 on Murray’s three-point play with 4:42 left.
Karaban answered with UConn’s sixth 3-pointer of the half and Sanogo cleaned up Newton’s miss with a two-handed flush on the ensuing possession to give the Huskies a four-point cushion with 2:08 remaining.
UConn led 25-17 in the first half before going cold from the floor, scratching across just six points throughout the final eight minutes of the half, shooting 2-for-14 (14.3 percent) and going the final 4:07 without a field goal as the Hoyas used their bench players to scrap back into it.
Seven points between Heath and Mozone set up Murray’s layup with 44 seconds left that sent the game into halftime tied at 31.
–Field Level Media
