STORRS — Jaylin Stewart and the No. 25 UConn men’s basketball team understand what the task will be on Wednesday night, and just how tall it will be facing No. 15 Baylor and its talented roster. It will be especially tall without star forward Alex Karaban.
Karaban will miss his second-straight game after suffering a head injury late in UConn’s final game at the Maui Invitational last week. His missed Monday’s game against Maryland Eastern Shore and wasn’t ready to return to live practice on Tuesday.
“Just still not feeling quite himself,” coach Dan Hurley said. “He was feeling better, but not well enough to be healthy with the protocol. Not sure about the weekend, but definitely out for the (Baylor) game. … Big loss. Kinda the last of the guys from the championship teams, but we know we’re playing an excellent team, a championship contender and we get a chance to play at Gampel. Some young guys are really gonna have to play really, really well for us.”
Stewart started in Karaban’s place on Saturday and scored 16 points with seven rebounds and three assists in 24 minutes.
“I feel like I’m kinda built for the moment. All my teammates and coaches, they’re believing in me so I’m just trying to go out there and do what I need to do,” Stewart said. “We’ve got to win everybody over again. We’ve got a lot of people that doubt us now.”
The sophomore forward who came on late last season has enjoyed big moments in a UConn uniform before. He broke out in two Big East Tournament games last March, scoring eight in a tight battle against St. John’s in the semifinal and stroking three timely 3-pointers to create separation from Marquette in the title game. He helped carry UConn’s offense in the first half against Memphis last week.
“Just trying to impact the game in as many ways as I can. Without AK, he tries to find any way to get the win, so that’s gonna be my job,” Stewart said.
UConn’s focus has been and will continue to be on defense, where Hurley assessed his team as “a disaster” this week. Baylor likes to get into the paint, and the Huskies have struggled in that area.
Hurley mentioned potentially switching up the style of defense he uses after the Dayton loss, but hasn’t found a simple solution.
“That’s, I guess, the frustrating thing about where we’re at is the defense being where it is in terms of the quality. … Obviously it speaks to having a lot of young guys and physically getting overpowered by a lot of older teams and then also being a little immature with the amount of fouling we’ve done,” Hurley said. “There’s not a lot of teams that play multiple, multiple defenses that are ever actually good on defense. So I think we can mix up some principles and different ball screen situations with different people, but for the most part, we’ve just got to get better at what we do defensively.”
Baylor was blown out by Gonzaga in its season-opener, 101-63, but beat John Calipari’s Arkansas team by five its next time out. The Bears opened the Baha Mar tournament with a 99-98 double-overtime victory against St. John’s – veteran point guard Jeremy Roach, a Duke transfer, hit a buzzer-beater for the win – but lost to Tennessee the very next day, 77-65.
Miami transfer Norchad Omier, a forward UConn is familiar with from the 2023 Final Four, leads five double-figure scorers with 15.9 points and 10.4 rebounds per game. Roach, in his fifth year, averages 13.3, with Jayden Nunn (12.9), Robert Wright III (11.9) and star freshman V.J. Edgecombe (11.0) as options for him as an experienced distributor.
Wright III was Liam McNeeley’s point guard at Montverde Academy, where they went undefeated and won a national title together last year.
“That’s not my friend right now. After the game, that’ll be my friend again, but that’s not my friend right now,” McNeeley said. “He’s shot the ball really well to start the season, but we’re gonna trust our game plan and we got it.”
Edgecombe, a former UConn recruit, played against McNeeley in the 2024 McDonald’s All-America game.
“He’s a really good athlete, but like I said, we’re just gonna trust our game plan and we got it,” McNeeley said, again.
Hurley had a bit more to say about Edgecombe, who was a consensus top-five recruit in the 2024 class.
“I think everybody liked him. He’s a fabulous player,” he said. “I think what’s impressive about him is his willingness obviously to make plays on offense, but his offensive rebounding, his defense, his athletic ability …”
“If we want to have a chance to win this game, some people are gonna have to announce themselves in college basketball here,” Hurley said. “The Solo Balls, the Liam McNeeleys, the Tarris Reeds, the Jayden Rosses, the J-Stews — these guys are gonna have to announce themselves by playing at a high level.”
Wednesday’s game is a chance for UConn to get back some of what it lost in terms of NCAA Tournament resume during this nonconference stretch. But Hurley isn’t looking too far in advance.
“If we start trying to figure out where we’re gonna be 10 days from now, that I think would be just a bad direction for us,” he said. “Because we’ve got a lot of young guys and a lot of new guys, and because we’re coming off such a tough week, our focus is just like, put the blinders on, turn off the external noise and just keep getting better… I think I’ve got to give the players grace and I’ve got to instill confidence in them. I can’t coach them frustrated, or we can’t coach them frustrated or disappointed, because it’s a group that’s gonna get better.”
What to know
Site: Gampel Pavilion, Storrs
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Records: No. 25 UConn: 5-3, No. 15 Baylor: 5-2
Series: UConn leads, 1-0
Last meeting: Dec. 28, 1965 — UConn 96, Baylor 88
TV: FS1 — Brandon Gaudin, Bill Raftery
Radio: Fox Sports 97-9 — Mike Crispino, Wayne Norman
Pregame reading:
- Dom Amore: Dan Hurley to adjust messaging to tame ‘monster’ he created at UConn
- UConn Notes: Coach Karaban, a ‘defensive disaster,’ and Hurley’s point guard search continues
- UConn men cruise to 99-45 win over Maryland Eastern Shore following Maui disappointment
- UConn men’s basketball falls to No. 25 in AP rankings after three-loss week; drops out of Coaches’ Poll
