No. 4 UConn men’s basketball cruises past Xavier, 90-67

UConn men’s basketball came out with its foot on the gas against Xavier, riding a hot start to a comfortable 90-67 victory in Cincinnati. The Huskies (13-1, 3-0 Big East) held the Musketeers under 10 points for the game’s first 12 minutes as UConn’s defense put the clamps on Xavier (9-5, 1-2 Big East) while the offense fired on all cylinders.

The Huskies were hot from three to start, and when UConn wasn’t connecting from deep, Tarris Reed was nearly unstoppable down low. UConn jumped out to a 16-6 lead before rattling off a 14-0 run that essentially put the game away for good with 9:46 left in the first half. Reed had eight first-half points to go along with five boards, and Alex Karaban added 13. The Huskies shot 6-16 from the 3-point line in the first half, while UConn held Xavier to 0-10 from deep.

No matter the option, the Huskies’ offense routinely outplayed and outhustled the Musketeers to turn a usually rowdy Cintas Center into crickets. Solo Ball returned to the starting lineup after missing the DePaul game due to injury, and immediately made his presence felt with an early 3-pointer. He added nine first-half points and finished with 17 on the night.

While UConn dominated for the majority of the first 20 minutes, leading by as much as 25 just 11 minutes into the game, Xavier did finish the first half on a 6-0 run. An Always Wright putback just before the buzzer made it 43-28 Huskies heading into the locker room, seemingly giving X some momentum to make things respectable in the second half.

Musketeers head coach Richard Pitino opted to start the second half in a 2-3 zone, matching up into man-to-man to open the second half, and Braylon Mullins made Xavier pay almost immediately. The freshman hit two-straight threes to open up the second half and squash any chance of a potential Musketeers comeback. Mullins finished the night tying a career-high with 17 points, and added two steals, four assists, and six rebounds while shooting 5-10 from three.

UConn stretched the lead to 25 once again in the second half on a 3-pointer from Karaban, who made Huskies history in the process. The made three was Karaban’s 242nd career triple, tying Chris Smith on the all-time list for the fifth-most in program history. The captain would go on to hit another three to take sole possession of fifth all-time.

The effectiveness from deep powered the Huskies as they hit a season-high 13 threes on 28 attempts, good for 46.4 percent. Meanwhile, UConn remains one of the top teams in the country at limiting threes from opponents, holding Xavier to just 4-18 (22.2 percent) from behind the arc.

Karaban finished the night with a game-high 19 points, while Reed joined Mullins and Ball in double-figures with 10 points. Malik Messina-Moore led the way for Xavier with 16 points, while Musketeers star Tre Carroll added nine points and four rebounds.

Next up, UConn takes on Marquette at Gampel Pavilion on Sunday, Jan. 4 at 2:00 p.m. in the Huskies’ first game of 2026. The game will be broadcast on NBC.