{"id":83866,"date":"2025-12-03T11:14:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T17:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=83866"},"modified":"2025-12-04T11:16:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T17:16:59","slug":"kansas-offensive-struggles-lead-to-uconns-61-56-comeback-victory-in-allen-fieldhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2025\/12\/03\/kansas-offensive-struggles-lead-to-uconns-61-56-comeback-victory-in-allen-fieldhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas\u2019 offensive struggles lead to UCONN\u2019s 61-56 comeback victory in Allen Fieldhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Lucio<\/em><\/p>\n

The UCONN Huskies avenged the 2023 loss in Allen Fieldhouse in a comeback victory of 61-56 against the Kansas Jayhawks on Tuesday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the Jayhawks were leading for 25 and a half minutes of the game, it was the Huskies\u2019 rebounding and Kansas\u2019 efficiencies in the second half that led to UCONN\u2019s seventh win of the season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the veterans redshirt senior Alex Karaban and junior Solo Ball\u2019s combined 28 points, the winning factors were freshmen Eric Reibe and Braylon Mullins, tallying 29 points to give the Huskies the edge.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEric\u2019s been a monster for us to start the year, and we got a huge lift from Braylon,\u201d UCONN head coach Dan Hurley said. \u201cOur two young guys were just so good, and then obviously, [Caraban], the two-time champion, just had an awesome second half.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After the Huskies got outrebounded by nine in the first half, they grabbed 15 more boards than Kansas in the second, scoring 14 second chance points to Kansas\u2019 five.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI actually thought in the first half, we did a really good job of rebounding the ball,\u201d Kansas head coach Bill Self said. \u201cIn the second half, they physically were much quicker to [the ball], and our bigs didn\u2019t rebound, and our guards didn\u2019t clean up at all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Self also noted the Jayhawks\u2019 lackluster offense as a key factor in the loss, saying that they tried to play too much isolation ball, which is not Kansas\u2019 strong suit without star freshman Darryn Peterson. Peterson was ruled out Tuesday morning with the hamstring injury that\u2019s sidelined him since Nov. 7. Kansas went 5-20 from the field in the second half, only staying in the game with free throws.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of execution was pretty much self-inflicted, and that led to some really poor possessions,\u201d Self said. \u201cWe got the ball [to start] the second half, [we were] right under the basketball the first two possessions, and missed two-footers\u2026 five field goals in a half, that\u2019s not very good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Jayhawk crowd did everything they could to give Kansas a fighting chance. Hurley noted the pressure and incredibility of playing in the Allen Fieldhouse atmosphere, which reached 125 decibels at one point, calling it the best place to play college basketball in the country. Karaban, who played in the loss in Allen Fieldhouse in 2023, said that winning in this environment after losing the first time made it even sweeter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis place is amazing\u2026 Now [playing in Allen Fieldhouse for the] second time, you get the idea of what to expect,\u201d Karaban said. \u201cThere weren\u2019t really nerves, but as much as I love this team, in the back of my head, I kept saying, \u2018do this for the [2023-2024] team.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That crowd helped the Jayhawks come out swinging early in the first half, capitalized by back-to-back threes from redshirt sophomore Jamari McDowell that surged the Jayhawk crowd. The sequence ignited a plethora of Jayhawk crowd-shakers, including slams from freshman Kohl Rosario and sophomore Flory Bidunga, and eight straight points by redshirt sophomore Elmarko Jackson in under a minute.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kansas\u2019 efforts were enough to secure a four point lead at the half, but it was all UCONN in the final 20 minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Jayhawks came out of the break cold, going eight minutes without making a field goal. The drought allowed for a Connecticut comeback at the 11-minute mark when Karaban took the 45-44 lead with a layup.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After UCONN extended the lead to six with five minutes remaining, a Bidunga posterizer and a three from senior Melvin Council Jr. cut the deficit to just one point.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Huskies kept composure with some buckets by Karaban and Reibe, and after McDowell missed a layup down three with nine seconds left, all it took was two free throws by Mullins to ice the game.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we showed resilience, the mental toughness, just to grind out a way to score some field goals late with some offball movement, and [we] just gutted it out,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cThat\u2019s what champions do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking ahead to Kansas\u2019 next game against Missouri, Self spoke on Peterson\u2019s status.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow will be [Peterson\u2019s] off day, and then, hopefully, if there\u2019s no setback, we\u2019ll practice him with us on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, full speed,\u201d Self said. \u201cHe\u2019s 90, 95% [healthy right now], but he wasn\u2019t 100 [percent today], and I said, all alone, we\u2019re gonna wait until he is [fully healthy].\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Jayhawks, now 6-3, will take on Missouri at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 12 p.m. central time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Lucio The UCONN Huskies avenged the 2023 loss in Allen Fieldhouse in a comeback victory of 61-56 against the Kansas Jayhawks on Tuesday night. Although the Jayhawks were leading for 25 and a half minutes of the game, it was the Huskies\u2019 rebounding and Kansas\u2019 efficiencies in the second half that led to UCONN\u2019s seventh win of the season. Despite the veterans redshirt senior Alex Karaban and junior Solo Ball\u2019s combined 28 points, the winning factors were freshmen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":83867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8721,3262,610],"tags":[127,514,256],"class_list":["post-83866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-on-kjhk","category-more-from-kjhk-sports","category-sports","category-sports-articles","tag-basketball","tag-mens-basketball-3","tag-sports-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/processed-1107D024-61EC-4775-B1DB-D0CCA7F18BD3-1.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83868,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83866\/revisions\/83868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}