UConn Men's Basketball: Defense Makes History Not Seen in 30 Years in Latest Win

The UConn Huskies men's basketball team moved to 3-0 on the young season with an 83-41 throttling of Wagner on Monday night at Gampel Pavilion.

Wagner, which gave Dan Hurley his start in coaching, is now 0-3. Our own Jami Leabow gave her recap of the game here, but this contest underscored what Hurley told reporters after the team's first exhibition win against the Syracuse Orange: He feels really good about his team's defense.

Not only did the Huskies hold the Seahawks to 41 points, they held them to just 33 percent from the floor (17-for-51) and 24 percent from 3-point range (4-for-17).

As noted by Katie Sharp on social media, the Huskies forced turnovers on 40.5 percent of Wagner possessions. That's the highest opponent turnover rate since KenPom started its database 30 years ago.

UConn forced Wagner into 26 turnovers against just eight assists. UConn had 16 assists and 11 turnovers while registering 14 steals and eight blocks.

Of course, the Huskies are expected to blow out Wagner, but that's not the point. This group has the focus to accomplish the task at hand while also having the physical skillset to make life uncomfortable for opponents. Silas Demary Jr. may be the best ball-hawking guard in the country, according to Hurley. And he just might be right on that.

And offensively, Demary played well as well. He scored a game-high 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting. He had six steals.

Na'jai Hines, the transfer center from Seton Hall, also played well. He scored 10 points in 22 minutes and pulled down eight rebounds - seven of which were offensive. If Hines can remain that active on the glass, he gives UConn a solid element as it works to replace Tarris Reed Jr., who is now in the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs.

Ranked No. 4 in the nation for the second straight week, the Huskies will be back in action for the second consecutive Friday.

After beating No. 16 Michigan last week, UConn will take on Ohio State of the Big Ten at 7:30 p.m. ET (Hartford). The Buckeyes are 2-1 after suffering an early-season loss to No. 25 BYU.

ESPN Analytics gives the Huskies an 81 percent chance of winning this game.

It will air nationally on TNT and we'll have our takeaways immediately following, as we do for each game.