Red-hot Newton facilitates key victory for UConn men; notes from Tuesday’s dominant win over No. 10 Marquette
Tristen Newton knew he was brewing something special with about four minutes left in the UConn men’s basketball team’s dominant 87-72 victory over No. 10 Marquette on Tuesday night.
At the under-four media timeout, the Huskies’ bench let Newton know he needed one more rebound for history. Less than 20 seconds later, a free-throw attempt from Marquette’s Olivier-Maxence Prosper caromed off the right side of the rim in the direction of Alex Karaban. Aware of Newton impending triple-double, Karaban boxed-out Stevie Mitchell until he was on the floor near the baseline.
Newton bolted across the paint and dove onto the floor for the ball.
Twelve weeks prior, also in the XL Center, the senior transfer was hearing the same thing from the bench. That time, against Buffalo, he secured the feat with 1:20 left in the game and when he was subbed out shortly after, Dan Hurley waved his arms, wanting his new point guard to hear it from the crowd.
Newton joined Shabazz Napier as the only players in UConn men’s or women’s basketball history to record multiple triple-doubles. He stands alone as the only to do so in the same season.
Newton’s postgame comments were nearly identical after each, deflecting all praise to his teammates who, after all, made his season-high 12 assists look easy.
After averaging 8.9 points and 4.1 assists per game while shooting 34% from the field through the Huskies’ first 19 games, Newton has upped his numbers to 15.5 points and 5.2 assists over the last six while shooting a heightened 46.5% overall.
He scored or assisted on 43 of the Huskies’ 87 points (49.4%) on Tuesday.
“Our 3-point shooting today, I thought Jordan [Hawkins] made obviously a couple of tough ones, but the rest of them came off of assists and were good, rhythm 3s,” Hurley said.
It was the second straight game the Huskies made 12 3-pointers, and it only took 23 attempts – the team’s best shooting percentage (52.2%) from beyond the arc all season.
Bench comes out of hibernation: Depth was one of the main reasons UConn got off to a 14-0 start on the season. It was also one of the contributing factors in the Huskies’ stretch of six losses in eight games.
Nahiem Alleyne, who had contributed to those struggles with just 17 points over the last nine games before Tuesday, played his best game in a UConn uniform against Marquette. The transfer from Virginia Tech scored 13 points in 20 minutes while shooting 4-of-9 from the field. Three of his buckets came from beyond the arc, including one that banked in from the Husky logo at center court to beat the halftime buzzer.
“If that’s what’s happening, that’s a problem for the other people,” Hurley said. “With what we’re getting from Tristen now on the offense and what we’re getting from Jordan, what Alex does at the four. I thought Andre [Jackson] played with tremendous energy and affected a lot of things even though his stat line wasn’t great. You give us a guy like Nahiem that gets back to his old form, that’s gonna be a problem for the other guy.”
Joey Calcaterra added two points off the bench and freshman Donovan Clingan scored four with eight rebounds. Hassan Diarra also came off the bench to give Newton a rest at point guard and made an impact defensively.
“When we’re all clicking together, this team is dangerous,” Alleyne added. “Once everybody sticks together defensively the sky is the limit.”
By the numbers:
2010 – Tuesday’s 15-point win marked the Huskies’ largest margin of victory over a Top 10 opponent since they beat No. 8 Kentucky, 84-67, in the final game of the Maui Invitational on Nov. 24, 2010.
48 – UConn returned to its dominance on the glass and outrebounded the Golden Eagles, 48-24. The Huskies scored 27 points off 21 offensive rebounds.
20 – Hawkins’ 20 points on Tuesday marked the ninth game in which he scored 20 or more and the fifth time in the last seven games.
17 – UConn turned the ball over 17 times on Tuesday, the highest number of giveaways since the last-second loss to Seton Hall on Jan. 18. The Huskies are 4-4 when they turn the ball over at least 15 times.
11 – Marquette’s trio of Prosper, Oso Ighodaro and Kam Jones combined for 51 of the Golden Eagles’ 82 points when they beat the Huskies in January. On Tuesday, UConn held the three to just 11 points combined.
7 – Marquette, the second-best assisting team in the Big East with 16.6 per game, only dished out seven helpers on Tuesday. Kolek, who is third in the country with 7.7 assists per game, only managed four as the Huskies switched their focus and settled with him taking most of the Golden Eagles’ shots. “That guy, he’s the best quarterback in college basketball, so we wanted him to have three assists or less and I didn’t mind if he took 20 shots tonight,” Hurley said.
