Jaylin Stewart might’ve earned himself some additional minutes for when he returns home with the UConn men’s basketball team to face seventh-ranked Gonzaga in Seattle this week.
The freshman out of Garfield High, just a 15-minute ride from where Friday’s game will be played at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, impressed his coaches and his teammates as he made his first three shots from the field during a five-minute stretch in the first half and finished with seven points, two rebounds and an assist over a season-high 14 minutes as the Huskies trounced Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Saturday, 101-63.
“I’m super happy for him, he deserves it. He played one (heck) of a game for us today,” said Alex Karaban, who scored a career-high 26 points on 9 of 12 shooting, 6 of 9 from 3-point range, with seven rebounds and three assists.
Karaban, the starter ahead of Stewart at the four and a unanimous selection to last year’s Big East all-freshman team, needed just 22 minutes to produce Saturday’s stat line, one of the most efficient offensive performances of his career. He was called for two fouls early which led to Stewart’s early stretch. About a minute after he came in, Stewart converted on a layup and then used a clean head-fake to create a midrange jumper, he made a layup through contact and converted a three-point play on the Huskies’ next possession.
Hass on one end, Stewie on the other 💪 pic.twitter.com/b2Nyw9xPOu
— UConn Men’s Basketball (@UConnMBB) December 9, 2023
“He does it all the time in practice, we see him being aggressive in practice, just confident and making tough moves, so just to see that happen in the game is awesome and getting momentum for him going into Seattle, his hometown,” Karaban said. “Just super excited for him and he’s always going to continue to get better and I think he’ll just do great things continuing in the season.”
Stewart is averaging 3.1 points in 9.5 minutes per game on the year. He didn’t play in the loss at Kansas or in the win over North Carolina, games when the Huskies needed as much experience on the court as they could get, and didn’t make a shot from the field in limited time against Mississippi Valley State, Indiana, Texas or New Hampshire.
But he will be an important piece off the bench, “someone we can go to and get Alex off the court before we run him into the ground,” Dan Hurley said, as the Huskies get into Big East play.
With Stephon Castle back from his knee…
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