UConn Men’s Basketball: 3 Takeaways from Exhibition Win vs. Michigan State

The UConn Huskies men’s basketball team made it two wins in a row over the Michigan State Spartans with their 78-70 victory Tuesday night in East Lansing, Mich.

This game was just an exhibition, and the last time they met, the Huskies defeated the Spartans in the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Tournament. And even though this one didn’t count, Huskies head coach Dan Hurley got a good look at some of the strengths and weaknesses of his team against an opponent also ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press preseason poll.

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No. 4 UConn opens the regular season on Nov. 2 against Gardner-Webb. No. 6 Michigan State makes its season debut the same day against Quinnipiac.

Here are three takeaways from the Tuesday night game, in no particular order.

Khamenia played for Duke last season and has made the transfer to the UConn system look easy. Against Michigan State, he scored a team-leading 19 points, and was 6-of-11 shooting, including 2-of-4 from long distance. He also pulled down six rebounds, tied for most on the team with backup center Oskar Giltay.

Against the Syracuse Orange last week in the Huskies’ first of three exhibition games, Khamenia scored 12 points on 4-of-12 shooting, but he was 3-of-5 from beyond the arc. He also had eight rebounds.

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The Huskies were without standout sophomore guard Braylon Mullins again as he recovers from an undisclosed injury. It is important for the Huskies to have a weapon from 3-point-range in addition to Mullins, and Khamenia looks to be it.

No one is ready to forget Alex Karaban, but Khamenia does look comfortable filling that role.

Against Syracuse, UConn shot 18-of-27 from the foul line. Against Michigan State, the tally was 14-of-22, for a combined 65.3% shooting between the two games.

UConn has seven opponents on the schedule who are ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 preseason poll, plus teams throughout the Big East conference who always give UConn as much as it can handle. There will be back-and-forth games…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/uconn-mens-basketball-3-takeaways-020829703.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-21 02:08:00

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