No. 6 UConn men hope to defend home court Sunday against St. John’s; Time, TV info, everything you need to know

After its loss to No. 25 Marquette, the third in the last four games, the UConn men’s basketball team faced a hard reality check. In order to reach their goal of winning the regular season-league title, the team needs to defend its home courts and find a way to get a few wins on the road.

It starts with St. John’s on Sunday. The Red Storm began their season 11-1 against light competition, Syracuse (11-6) their highest-rated opponent by KenPom in that stretch, but lost five of their last six entering Sunday.

UConn hopes to continue dominating opponents on its home court where the Huskies are 10-0 in total this season, 4-0 at the XL Center and 6-0 at Gampel Pavilion. As far as the series against St John’s goes, a matchup that dates back to when the teams were charter members of the original Big East, UConn lost 18 of the first 19 meetings but has a 28-17 advantage since 1989.

The teams have played three times since UConn rejoined the Big East and UConn’s won the last two, including an 86-78 overtime game at Gampel Pavilion almost a year ago, Jan. 13, 2022. Adama Sanogo went off for 26 points, 18 rebounds and six blocks in that one, and now hopes to rebound from a rough 10-point, five-turnover performance at Marquette.

“They’re hard to play against,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “They play the motion offense, so you can’t always script the things you’re gonna see from them offensively. (They have) really aggressive attacking players – I think we don’t have that attacking, aggression advantage when you play against Posh (Alexander).

“They’ve resembled more of the team in the preseason that people said was a potential NCAA Tournament team, the last two games they’ve looked more like it.”

Along with Alexander, the Red Storm are led by 6-foot-11 center Joel Soriano, averaging 16.2 points, 12 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game, forward David Jones (13.6 points, 7.1 rebounds per game) and guard Andre Curbelo who leads the team in assists (5.2).

“They’ve got a lot of guys that I’ve played against in the past, so I’m definitely looking forward to see where I can stack up against them now in my career and really just go out there and compete with them,” Andre Jackson said Friday.

What to know

Site: XL Center, Hartford

Time: Noon

Series: St. John’s leads, 36-30

Last meeting: Feb. 13, 2022 – UConn 63, St. John’s 60 at Madison Square Garden

Last St. John’s win: Jan. 18, 2021 – St. John’s 74, UConn 70 at Gampel Pavilion

TV: FS1, Dave Sims and Jim Spanarkel

Radio: UConn Sports Network on 97.9 ESPN, Mike Crispino and Wayne Norman

Game notes

Alex Karaban a gametime decision: Karaban, a redshirt freshman who’s started at the four in every game since the season opener, hurt his shoulder in a 17-point performance against Marquette Wednesday. Hurley said Karaban has been limited since the game and that he was given an X-ray and MRI and everything “looks good there.” Samson Johnson, who started at the position before being injured in the season opener, has improved to the point where he is able to participate in some live situations during practice. “That was a positive development in the last couple of days, he’s making good progress,” Hurley said.

Hurley looking for improvement from guards: Since Big East play began, the performance of UConn’s guards has been down across the board. The five – Jordan Hawkins, Tristen Newton, Joey Calcaterra, Nahiem Alleyne and Hassan Diarra – averaged a combined 37% shooting from the field in nonconference games, but have shot just 32% since.

“I think (we’ll) try to make some small adjustments and maybe some wrinkles, but a lot of the time it’s just getting better, just being more detailed,” Hurley said. “Maybe the screens are not being set at quite the place where we need them to be set, maybe the guy using the screen is not getting his defender exactly to that point where you need to when the games get tighter and the opponents know you better and the officials allow more physicality off the ball and on the ball.

“When opportunities present themselves for guards to go make more plays and go get more into the paint to create more opportunities, we need them to do that. They can’t be as robotic as they’ve been.”