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PROVIDENCE — Dan Hurley knew Bryce Hopkins would be a tough matchup for the UConn men’s basketball team.
Boy was he right about that.
Hopkins scored 27 points to lead Providence to a 73-61 victory over the Huskies.
Hopkins, a 6-foot-7-inch, 220-pound sophomore forward, abused UConn freshman forward Alex Caravan for much of the night, taking him hard into the hall and receiving numerous fouls. He hit 13 of his 15 free throws. In fact, the entire Friar team made a steady parade to Charity Stripes, nearly doubling the Huskies in the line at 29 to 35. UConn he was 10 to 19.
UConn ended up committing 27 fouls while Providence committed just 20 fouls. It brings to mind the Huskies’ first loss of the season at Xavier on Saturday, when he was outshot 28-9 from the free-throw line.
Fourth-placed Huskies lost two games in a row, dropping to 14-2. They will host Big East preseason favorite Clayton at noon on Saturday at the Gumpel Pavilion, where the Huskies are 0-5 since returning to the Big East.
Providence improved to 13-3, 5-0 Big East.
It was the first time Harley rode the Adama Sanogo-Donovan Klingan big-man combo since November 24 against Oregon, and the Huskies led most of the first half, trailing Sanogo by five (19-14). Lane’s spinner topped off his two-and-a-half-minute Sanogo-Klingan combo in the first.
But then the Huskies cooled off, hitting just one of their seven 3-pointers in the first half. The Flyers took the biggest lead in the half with his 3-pointer with 26 seconds remaining.
Sanogo responded with a last-second layup and the Friars halftime lead was 33-30. UConn dominated the board (21-14), including 11 aggressive boards that led to 11 second chance points. However, Hopkins could not stop driving into the lane and scored 14 points at the break.
It didn’t help that Andre Jackson picked up two fouls within the first four minutes and sat out the other half.
The Flyers didn’t trail in the second half, extending their lead to a whopping 10 points behind Hopkins and many free throws.
Jordan Hawkins led UConn with 15 points, and Donovan Klingan had 12 points, 11 rebounds and 4 blocks. Karaban and Sanogo each scored 11 points.
[email protected] @DaveBorges
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