Storrs, CT – Redshirt senior forward
Mike Aaman (Hazlet, NJ / Raritan / Rhode Island) tossed in 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds to tie junior guard
Romone Saunders (Temple Hills, MD / Potomac / Mt. Zion Prep) for team-high scoring honors and Wagner held 18th-ranked UConn to 36 percent shooting en route to a near wire-to-wire 67-58 victory tonight at Gampel Pavilion.
The only lead of the game for the Huskies was 2-0 with 19:23 left in the first half. Wagner handed the Huskies their first loss in a home opener at Gampel as UConn came in 27-0 in such games.
"This is huge. This is huge for the program, this is huge for the kids. I'm ridiculously excited for our guys," said Seahawk fifth-year head coach
Bashir Mason. "We had a game plan, these guys stuck to it and they deserved to win. This is unbelievable for our program. We knew coming in that we could not run up and down the floor with UConn. They're long and athletic, they're really talented. We wanted to control the pace of the game, we wanted to take care of the ball. And I told our guys in order for us to win, we're going to have to step up and make some shots and I thought we were able to do that.
"Absolutely, this is an upset," Mason added. "UConn is the 18th-ranked team in the country. Probably nobody in the world thought that we would win the game, except myself, my players and our small, little school up on the hill. This is great for us."
"This is one of the biggest wins in history," said Aaman. "The win in the NIT was big, but this was against a ranked team to start out our season, so it was a very big win for us."
This marks the third win for Wagner over a ranked opponent since becoming a Division I program back during the 1976-77. The last time the Seahawks had knocked off a Top-25 foe was on December 23, 2011 when the Green & White, coached by Dan Hurley, earned a 59-54 victory at Pitt. Mason also had a hand in that win, as he was an assistant coach at the time for the Seahawks. Prior to that, Wagner bested #15 Alabama 86-74 on November 24, 1978.
"They played a great game," said UConn coach Kevin Ollie, who guided the Huskies to the 2014 National Championship. "They're a veteran team and they were poised and it seemed like every time they needed a bucket they made a big-time play."
After UConn scored the game's first basket, the experienced, poised Northeast Conference (NEC) regular season champion Seahawks outscored the Huskies 14-9 over a near five-minute stretch. This run saw the Green & White take their largest lead of the half, 21-11, after redshirt sophomore forward
AJ Sumbry (East Windsor, NJ/St. Benedict's Prep [Quinnipiac University]) was able to muscle in a right-handed baby hook-shot in traffic.
UConn answered back in the form of a 22-14 run over an eight-minute span in forging a tie at 35 on a pair of free throws by Vance Jackson. Wagner entered the break with a three-point lead, 38-35, as Saunders was able to bury a top-of-the key three-pointer.
Wagner opened the second half on an 11-2 surge, capped by another Saunders trey, in opening its biggest lead of the game, a 12-point margin at 49-37 with 13:08 remaining in the game. The stifling Seahawks defense held the four-time National Champions to just 1-9 shooting before UConn countered with a 6-0 burst in drawing to within 49-43. With the Huskies on top by this six-point margin, Saunders was sidelined for the rest of the game with an ankle injury at the 11:12 mark.
This 6-0 UConn spurt was part of a larger 14-3 run that came during a 6:59 stretch that saw the Seahawks convert on just 1-of-7 shots. A big moment in the UConn run came when Terry Larrier banked home a three-point shot from the head of the circle with 9:16 left, to make it a 49-46 game, bringing the near-capacity to crowd of 9,523 to its feet.
With the game tied at 49, junior forward Junior
Marquis Salmon (Lancaster, CA / Village Christian / East Los Angeles CC) knocked down a clutch three-pointer from the top of the key, then converted one of two from the free-throw line, as Wagner led 53-51. The 6-7 Californian then found senior guard
Michael Carey for a big fast-break bucket to make it a 55-51 Seahawk lead with 4:12 remaining. Following a Salmon block of a Jalen Adams shot attempt, Amann scored six consecutive points over a one-minute span to give Wagner a 64-56 lead with 43 seconds left.
Junior guard
Corey Henson (Upper Marlboro, MD / DeMatha Catholic) added 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting, sophomore guard
Devin Liggeons (Philadelphia, PA / Imhotep Charter ) came off the bench to score eight points while Carey finished with seven points, six rebounds and four steals.
In addition to dictating the slower pace of the game and playing stanch defense throughout, the Seahawks managed to gain a 37-33 edge in the rebounding department vs. the taller and ultra-athletic Huskies.
UConn was led by Larrier's 19 points while freshman Alterique Gilbert, a McDonald's All-American, chipped in with 14 points in his collegiate debut for the four-time national champion Huskies.
The Seahawks will be back in action on Monday, November 14 as they travel to Lowell, MA as they tangle with America East members, UMass Lowell River Hawks. Tipoff from Costello Athletic Center is slated for 7:00 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN3 on the WatchESPN app.
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