No. 2 UConn men’s basketball has not lost consecutive games since January 15-18, 2023, and has not lost non-conference games during Dan Hurley’s tenure as head coach, which dates back to the 2018-19 season. The Huskies will look to keep that streak alive Tuesday against Colorado in the loser’s bracket of the Maui Invitational. The Buffaloes are coming off a 16-point loss to Michigan State in their first game in Hawaii.

TV: ESPN2

Radio: UConn Sports Network

Opportunities: UConn -15, over/under 140.5

Location: Lahaina Civic Center – Maui, Hawaii

Predicted result by KenPom: UConn 76, Colorado 66 (83 percent win probability)

Series story

The Huskies and Buffaloes have only played once. The two met in the first round of the 2016 NCAA Tournament, where UConn won 74-67 in Des Moines, Iowa. Rodney Purvis scored 19 points in just 25 minutes, leading his team to overcome a nine-point halftime deficit.

What you should pay attention to

Force some turnovers

Colorado doesn’t hold the ball well and leads to high turnovers. The team’s overall turnover rate of 22.1 percent ranks in the bottom 40 in the nation, while 13.0 percent of its turnovers result in a steal, which is 332nd in Division I. UConn isn’t the best at forcing plays like this, sitting at 10 percent. The steal rate is right on par with the national average, even against subpar competition, but this is an opportunity to grab a few easy buckets and grab some momentum .

The Buffaloes had 12 turnovers (17.4 percent) on Monday against Michigan State, which has the No. 11 KenPom defense. The Huskies also forced a nearly identical rate (17.6 percent) on Memphis on Monday. Typically, the team that can control the ball better wins, and that gives UConn an advantage.

Get Tarris Reed Jr. more minutes

Tarris Reed Jr. has outperformed Samson Johnson to this point in the season, and the Michigan transfer had a great game against Memphis on Monday. He scored 22 points and 11 rebounds in 28 minutes, while Johnson didn’t fire a single shot from the field for 14 minutes before committing a foul. Reed added three blocks before being disqualified for committing five fouls, but was a force on both ends of the court.

According to KenPom, he is the best offensive rebounder in the country with an offensive rebound percentage of 25.3 and is in the top 25 defensively. He is also in the top 75 in block rate (8.6 percent) and has Made 75.0 percent of his 2-point shots, good for 68th in the country. Only seven players ahead of him took more shots.

Reed is also the more physical of the two, standing at 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds. Colorado is the seventh tallest team in the country and starting player Elijah Moore is listed at 6-foot-10 and weighs 268 pounds. It’s not often that he’s oversized, but UConn will need all that physicality to set the tone against a bigger team.

How is UConn moving forward?

The Huskies have not lost consecutive non-conference games since falling to Michigan State and Arkansas in the 2017-18 season to close out the PK80 Phil Knight Invitational, which was Kevin Ollie’s final game behind the bench. This is a series of 74 games.

The loss to Memphis was tough for a number of reasons. First, the game went into overtime and UConn only has a 23-hour turnaround time between tipoffs, which is difficult under normal circumstances. When a team feels as upset about the officiating as Dan Hurley did, it’s that much harder to get things together and get back on their feet in such a short amount of time. Even the athletic trainer got a technical foul. This feeling runs deep, but the program needs to suppress it if it doesn’t want to get upset for the second day in a row.

Colorado is not a world-beating squad. It’s No. 125 in adjusted offensive efficiency according to KenPom and No. 62 in defense. Despite their immense length, the Buffaloes aren’t particularly good at arcing on either side of the ball or particularly good at blocking shots. However, they are still in the top 100 on KenPom and are no walk in the park. The Huskies will have to make sure to leave on Monday and get up for another early tip-off, which will be at 10:30 a.m. local time.