Jayden Ross, Solo Ball led the Huskies as they wore down the Bulldogs.
UConn quickly overcame its opening night jitters on Tuesday.
In the opener of its 40th season as a member of the Big East, No. 5 UConn defeated Butler 79-60 in Hartford, Conn., using a big first-half run to overcome an early deficit.
Despite UConn’s success in the Big East – the Huskies (11-1, 1-0) are the league’s all-time leader in regular-season titles (11) and tournament championships (eight) – their conference shine traditionally has been dim on opening night.
In Big East openers entering the game against Butler, UConn stood 19-20, including 9-12 at home. Even Dan Hurley, who led the Huskies to back-to-back national titles in the past three seasons, was only 2-5 in UConn conference openers.
Slow start
Tarris Reed Jr. scored the first two points of the game for UConn, but Butler (8-3, 1-1) proceeded on an 11-2 run to take a seven-point lead – the Bulldogs’ biggest of the night. UConn answered with a 35-14 run to take 39-25 halftime lead.
After 5-of-8 shooting to open the game, the Bulldogs make just 11 of 47 shots the rest of the half. Both teams had 55 attempts, with UConn draining 28 shots to 16 for the Bulldogs.
Butler entered the game averaging 90.1 points per contest and shooting 49.3%. The Huskies held them to 28.1% in the first half.
Ross awakens crowd
The Huskies took a 46-29 lead on a Reed hook-shot jumper with 18:02 left in the game. But with just one basket falling in the subsequent two-plus minutes, the crowd silenced until Jayden Ross made an impressive rebound of a missed Solo Ball 3-point shot and slammed the ball into the hoop to give UConn a 21-point lead at 50-29.
Over the next seven minutes, Butler shaved 10 points off its deficit, trailing 62-51 with 8:35 remaining. The Bulldogs missed two 3-pointers, with Braylon Mullins grabbing the rebound, finding Silas Demary Jr. on the pass, and Demary fed the ball to Ross for a commanding alley-oop dunk.
What could be have been an eight-point deficit for Butler turned into a 13-point UConn lead, and Butler never threatened again.
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By the numbers
Ball led UConn with 26 points, his career high. Reed scored 16, Ross had 12 and Mullins had 12. Ross led the Huskies with eight rebounds, and Demary tallied a career-high 11 rebounds.
Drayton Jones scored 13 points to lead the Bulldogs The Huskies held team scoring leaders Finley Bizjack (18.8 points per game) and Michael Ajayi (17.4) to a total of 15 points on a combined 5-of-21 shooting.
Still, Hurley was not happy with the defense his team played overall.
“We're still struggling a little bit,” he told NBC Sports after the game. “Transition defense was … a joke. It was just a joke.”
UConn moved to 12-0 lifetime against Butler. It was the program’s 23rd consecutive win and its home away from home, PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford.
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