WICHITA, Kan. _ The UConn men have spent most of this season playing from behind. On Thursday night, they had trouble playing from ahead.
Samajae Haynes-Jones hit a fall-away one-hander from the baseline as the buzzer sounded to give Wichita State a 65-63 victory over UConn Thursday night.
A 10-point lead and a chance to end the Huskies' long season of road misery slipped away as Wichita State dominated the final 16 minutes at Charles Koch Arena in American Athletic Conference play. The Huskies built a nine-point lead in the first half, and had a 10-point lead after Alterique Gilbert's 3-pointer with 16:49 to play.
But it was nearly all Wichita State after that, a second-half fade reminiscent of several of UConn's losses to better teams. The Shockers began to press, their big crowd in the circular building got back into the game and the Huskies (13-15, 4-11) unraveled.
After UConn fell behind, Christian Vital hit two free throws to tie the game at 54 with 4:11 to play. Gilbert, after a drive to the basket that went awry, went down with a leg injury.
UConn regained the lead on freshman Brendan Adams' 3-pointer, his third of the game, with 3:00 left, but WSU answered with a 3 by Haynes-Jones, who scored 20, and spread it back to three. Gilbert returned for the last two minutes, though he was limping.
Markis McDuffie, who rebounded from a slow start to score 19, seemingly buried the Huskies with a 3-pointer with 1:05 to go. But Gilbert hit a 3, and after a WSU miss, he hit another, a desperate fall-away from far beyond the arc, to tie the game again, at 63, with 6.4 seconds left. Gilbert led UConn with 18 points.
That left WSU enough time to get the ball to their hottest shooter, and Haynes-Jones dribbled the length of the court and put it in from about 12 feet right of the basket.
Vital was not in UConn's starting lineup for the second game in a row, again a coaching decision. He sat the first 3:46 before checking in. Meanwhile, the game started out with a long stretch of poor shooting by both teams. Wichita State made its first two shots, then missed eight in a row. But with UConn making only two field goals in the first 11{ minutes, the Shockers had a 12-5 lead.
The Huskies then got their offense on track. Tarin Smith hit a pull-up jumper, and Gilbert a 3-pointer to get it started, then Tyler Polley hit a 3-pointer from the right wing to give the Huskies their first lead, 13-12, with 6:36 to go.
They extended the run to 10-0, and 19-3 on Vital's second-chance basket to take a 24-15 lead with 2:48 to go.
The Shockers' top scorer, McDuffie, missed eight of his first nine shots, but made a pull-up jumper with 31 seconds left in the half to pull his team within five, and UConn led 27-22 at the half _ the Huskies first halftime lead in a road game since Jan. 2 at South Florida. Polley and Smith each had six points, Vital and Gilbert each with five for UConn. Wichita State finished the half 7 for 29 from the floor.
Haynes-Jones, who scored eight in the first half, hit a 3 to pull WSU closer at the start of the second half. But Josh Carlton hit two at the line and Sidney Wilson hit a 3 after some nice ball movement to up the Huskies lead to 32-25.
Two nice fall-away shots by Gilbert, one a 3-pointer, increased UConn's lead to 37-27 with 16:49 left. Haynes-Jones hit another 3 to pull the Shockers within six, as the capacity crowd made itself a factor. Adams answered for UConn, with a 3.
Wichita State then put together an 8-0 run, Haynes-Jones scoring off a Vital turnover to cut UConn's lead to 40-39. Carlton scored for UConn, but Jaime Echenique scored, and completed the three-point play to tie the game with 10:15 to go. After Wilson scored for UConn, McDuffie hit a 3 to put the Shockers ahead, 45-44. Wilson and Gilbert were stuffed at the rim on back-to-back possessions, and WSU's Asbjorn Midtgaard finished with a dunk at the other end to make it 49-46, Dan Hurley taking a timeout with 8:13 to play.
