After the Huskies’ 73-57 win against UCLA on Sunday, Danny Hurley was in good spirits. The transparent, boisterous head coach, when he’s winning, is usually in good spirits, but his Sunday evening presser felt like a specific kind of positivity. It seemed like he noticed something.

“Wearing a UConn jersey in the first round is heavy,” Hurley said. “When we get out of the first round, we become very dangerous because when Huskies get out of the first round, you start believing that a run is coming.”

The run was there in their Round of 32 game. A neck-and-neck battle between the Bruins grew out of reach in the second half because the in-game Huskies run arrived. Trailing 44-42 with 15:40 remaining, Hurley’s team went on a 14-0 run, and all of a sudden, this was a 56-40 game with 10:40 left. From that point on, UCLA was unable to get the game within a possession, and a weathered Huskies team advanced and tried to recuperate with an additional week.

“It relieves so much pressure,” Solo Ball said ahead of Friday’s game. “I think the first two rounds, that's where you feel it most. Especially because you're playing teams that are seeded below you. You know how each team is coming into this tournament.”

That pressure, mixed with the limited availability of starting point guard Silas Demary and wing reserve Jaylin Stewart, made things feel tight for a Connecticut team that was 7-4 over their last 11 games. Back-up point guard Malachi Smith was put into the lead guard role against Furman and played the lion’s share of minutes in the UCLA game.

Smith can play and handle that role as well as you’d expect any backup to manage the game, especially in a complicated offense like Hurley and offensive coordinator Luke Murray’s modern motion offense. But his job is harder when his teammates can’t shoot. And the Huskies against Furman couldn’t come close to the idea of shooting, going 5 for 25 from 3-point. The scoring was more visible in the win over UCLA, which also featured Demary in 22 minutes of action, filling in for Smith.

The Huskies have done their best to compensate for their perimeter shooting, never fully reaching a consistent level this season. It’s the lowest percentage they’ve shot since the 2020-2021 season and the second-lowest 3-point attempt rate they’ve held since their back-to-back championships. This team lives on paint touches for Tarris Reed and Alex Karaban’s masterful read and react to defensive coverages off-ball.

Karaban is averaging 24.5 points, 2 assists and 4 rebounds so far in the tournament and while shooting an effective field goal percentage of 68.8%, nine points higher than his season-long average of 57.8%. He scored a career high 27 points in their win last Sunday.

“I just think you saw, obviously, the team fed off of the level that Alex was playing at,” Hurley said after advancing to the Sweet 16. “When the two-time national champion has that look in his eye and is making that type of shots and plays, that's when the group was able to put the group away.”

Karaban no doubt has offered the ultimate rebuke to those who pointed to UConn’s struggles last season as an indictment of him as the benefactor of the championship teams he played on. Karaban has returned to his second-highest offensive rating in his career and boasts a 48.2%/39.4%/84.9% shooting split this season.

“When [Karaban] is coming off screen,” Ball said, “and they're trailing him, he's going to find the right man and make the right play.”

This Karaban, who’s shooting the ball well and leaning on his extensive experience as he reacts, is a mismatch for most of the teams the Huskies could face. His off-ball movement is decisive and quick for prototypical fours to try and follow him. His 6-8 frame punishes opponents who try to throw a guard on him to keep up, allowing the senior to shoot over them or peer over the defense for cutting teammates.

“I knew [Karaban] was a tough match-up for us because he runs around like a two guard,” Mick Cronin said after the loss. “Our guy wasn't used to guarding somebody [who] does that. We play in the Big Ten and mostly you got guys spotting up or they're power players. He was a tough match-up for us.”

You can argue that Karaban’s effectiveness is a product of the dangers of who the primary option is, but it’s about as clean-cut as a chicken or the egg debate when it comes to Karaban’s perimeter pressure and Reed’s relentlessness in the post against everyone and anyone.

“So much attention [was] on Tarris Reed,” Karaban said after the Round of 32 win, “that it opened everything else up perimeter-wise.”

Reed’s first weekend performance was about as big of a statement as the center could give to the country. The senior big man is averaging 20.5 points and 20 rebounds headed into the second weekend and looked a tier of his own against the mid-major team he faced in the first round and a Xavier Booker playing his best basketball of the season when the two faced.

The 6-11 center leads all NCAA Tournament 10+ minute-per-game players in offensive rebounding percentage (29.3%) and holds the second-most points in the paint scored by players still in the tournament. But as great as Karaban and Reed have been, the Huskies will need a third guy to step up and be that scorer and weapon from the guard and wing position.

Ball was viewed as that guy at the start of the season, performing as an efficient scorer in an expanded role the season prior. But his shot has regressed, shooting 31.9% from the perimeter and dropping to 26% from the field in March. His inability to score led to him playing just 13 minutes against the Bruins last weekend.

The Huskies are a team looking for anyone to join Karaban as a consistent 3-point scorer. Against UCLA, that was freshman Braylon Mullins, who knocked down two looks on his way to 17 points. Mullins adeptly handled coverages and made defenders pay by hitting tough shots off the dribble. UConn made 8 of their 24 attempts from 3-point.

Junior wing Jayden Ross joined the 3-point barrage by knocking down two of his own. It was the first time he hit multiple threes in a game since February 3rd against Xavier in a 92-60 blowout.

“Jayden has been on a great trajectory,” Hurley said. “We were struggling defensively. He came in and changed that. The three was huge and the free throws, but this team needs his athleticism on the court, his size, and you just see a player that's really, really developing, coming into his own right now.”

The defense for the Huskies has been the main concern for the team in the back half of Big East play, culminating in a frustrated Hurley acknowledging its inconsistency as the team dropped their second game in league play against Creighton:

"The defense has been a joke. It was a game of just really bad individual defense. Our defense has been so bad. We've been playing with fire. Obviously, overall defense was just dreadful." 

The Bluejays scored 1.21 points per possession in that game. They were able to penetrate the Huskies’ perimeter defense and exploit the midrange, shooting 10-21 from 3-point range. Since that loss, Hurley’s team has held opponents to under 1.1 points per possession in all but their Big East Championship loss to St. John’s, where they gave up 1.16 points per possession.

The Huskies stymied the Bruins to a 0.91 points-per-possession rate on Sunday night, limiting them to just 38.9% shooting inside the arc. Cronin’s group of guards–Donovan Dent, Skyy Clark and Trent Perry–live off of pick-and-roll actions and getting to the rim for makes. 39.5% of UCLA’s attempts in the halfcourt come in the paint and at the rim this season, where they shoot 52.6%. Against UConn, the Bruins shot 33.3% on these looks.

“Their defense was better than our offense, and I take responsibility for that,” Cronin said. “Got to have your guys ready for the opponent and what the opponent's going to bring to the table. Not just with what they run offensively, but what they do defensively. And their physicality defensively was the difference in the game.”

If the Huskies are able to find that third scorer, they’re playing well enough on both ends of the court to pose a threat to any team left in the tournament. Hurley’s teams are different when they play free and when they play into the second weekend.