UConn will play St. John's for Big East Tournament title at MSG
Jayden Ross (No. 23), Silas Demary Jr. (No. 2) and Malachi Smith of the UConn Huskies react to a dunk by Ross during the first half of a Big East Tournament men's basketball semifinal against the Georgetown Hoyas on Friday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: Getty Images/Ishika Samant
NEW YORK (AP) — Braylon Mullins scored 15 of his 21 points in the first half, Jayden Ross hit a couple of momentum-stunting three-pointers in the second, and sixth-ranked UConn defeated Georgetown, 67-51, on Friday night to set up a showdown of the top two seeds in the Big East Tournament final.
The second-seeded Huskies (29-4) will face regular-season conference champion and 13th-ranked St. John's in the Big East title game Saturday night after the Red Storm beat Seton Hall, 78-68, in the other semifinal.
Like St. John's, UConn has yet to trail in either of its first two games this week at Madison Square Garden. Mullins scored five of the team's first seven points to go up 7-0, and the closest 11th-seeded Georgetown (16-18) got after that was down three at the 7:30 mark.
UConn led by 11 at halftime, despite not attempting a free throw to that point, and finished with assists on 21 of its 28 field goals. Without leading scorer KJ Lewis, who was ruled out for the season with a left ankle injury in late February, the Hoyas were ultimately overmatched by a stacked opponent they played tight in January and again in February.
Ross, a Long Island Lutheran graduate, had eight points for the Huskies.
Although not as dominant as in a quarterfinal rout of Xavier, coach Dan Hurley's team has responded as he had hoped from what he called a “choke job” loss last weekend at Marquette.
That defeat and the “brutal film session” that Hurley said followed might turn out to be an important learning moment for the Huskies — if they keep this level of play going and make another lengthy NCAA Tournament run two years since the program won the second of back-to-back national championships.
Saturday night features a rubber match between UConn and St. John's this season. St. John's won, 81-72, at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 6 before the Huskies won, 72-40, on their home floor on Feb. 25.
