Karaban enshrined, leads No. 6 UConn past Seton Hall on Senior Day
STORRS – A tangible melancholy permeated throughout Gampel Pavilion ahead of Alex Karaban’s final home game as a UConn Husky Sunday.
The crowd cheered longer and louder than usual as the team took the court for shoot around, clapping for every shot Karaban sank. The assistant coaches pensively watched warm-ups from the bench before Dan Hurley corralled them into the locker room to change.
Karaban, like he had 139 times before in his storied career in Storrs, went about his warm-up routine in the same, methodical way: 10 3-pointers from seven distinct spots on the floor followed by 10 free throws and a combination of runners and floaters from the paint.
It was status quo for the program’s all-time winningest player. Until he looked up.
After each of the team’s five seniors were honored at mid-court, Karaban was told to stay on the Husky logo along with Dan Hurley, who shot the redshirt senior a pointed smile as the lights dimmed.
“I was confused at first because they made me stay in the circle (at midcourt after) the whole celebration happened,” Karaban said.
As a second tribute played on the video board, Karaban’s eyes darted to the back left corner of Gampel, where a curtain covered a new, never before seen plaque mounted on the Huskies of Honor wall. Karaban was getting inducted.
“To see my name up there in the Huskies of Honor, it’s a blessing,” Karaban said. “When I first came to UConn, I never thought that’d happen. Just to have the career that I’m having and to look up and see my name up there, my legacy up there forever, it’s special.”
Karaban, who became the first active player to be inducted into the Huskies of Honor, wasn’t told by Hurley before the game and had no idea he was getting enshrined.
“He’s one of the greatest players that’s worn the uniform,” Hurley said. “There are players that have gone on from here and they had careers in the NBA – there’s a lot of them – but when they were in the uniform, who’s done more than this guy?”
Hurley made the decision over six weeks ago to immortalize Karaban before his final home game as a Husky. It was only fitting that the redshirt senior, praised by Hurley as the ultimate stabilizer, steadied the Huskies’ (27-3, 17-2) offense in the face of 18 lead changes, 11 ties and an 8-point second half deficit built by Seton Hall (19-10, 9-9).
Karaban tied a season-high with 23 points and five 3-pointers, none of which more important than his back-to-back triples that whittled the Pirates’ 7-point lead down to one late in the second half. He did it without ever leaving the floor, playing a full 40 minutes in his Gampel goodbye.
“To play my last game in Gampel the entire game,” Karaban said with a smile, “it’s special. I was never going to ask for a sub. I was never going to ask anything. I was going to play if something was hurt. Just keep trying, keep pushing and do everything to help this team win.”
Connecticut needed every second of those 40 minutes Sunday to hold off Seton Hall, who, desperate to keep its NCAA Tournament hopes alive, was gunning from the field. The Pirates connected on five of their first eight 3-pointers and had punched back from every UConn mini-run with one of their own. Nobody led for longer than two minutes consecutively in a first half war of attrition.
But The Hall began strangling the Huskies with shrink-wrapped perimeter defense out the break, building a three possession lead and holding Connecticut scoreless for over four minutes before the under-12 timeout.
“We were losing,” Hurley said of his decision to keep Karaban on the floor the entire game, “and we had multiple players struggling and he was playing great.”
Curling off two down screens on the left wing, Karaban found the bottom of the net on two consecutive 3-pointers sandwiched between a trio of defensive stops, cutting Seton Hall’s lead to one at the six minute mark of the second half.
Out of the final break, the Huskies claimed their first lead of the second half off a Braylon Mullins trey that was set up by a Karaban block on the other end.
And it was only fitting that Karaban delivered the game-altering points at the free throw line with 20 seconds remaining to give Connecticut its largest cushion of the second half – a mighty three point cushion.
UConn staved off Seton Hall for a third straight game, completing the season sweep of the Pirates and axing their hopes of an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.
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