STORRS – Jaylin Stewart and the No. 25 UConn men’s basketball team know what the task will be Wednesday night and how big it will be against No. 15 Baylor and its talented squad. It will be particularly big without star striker Alex Karaban.

Karaban will miss his second straight game after suffering a head injury in UConn’s final game at the Maui Invitational last week. He missed Monday’s game against Maryland Eastern Shore and was unwilling to return to live practice on Tuesday.

“I just still don’t feel completely myself,” coach Dan Hurley said. “He felt better, but not well enough to be healthy with the protocol. Not sure about the weekend, but definitely traveling for the (Baylor) game. …Big loss. A bit of the last of the boys from the championship teams, but we know that we are playing against an excellent team, a contender for the championship and that we will get the chance to play at Gampel. We need some young guys to play really, really well for us.”

Stewart started in Karaban’s place on Saturday and scored 16 points with seven rebounds and three assists in 24 minutes.

“I feel like I’m kind of made for the moment. “All my teammates and coaches believe in me, so I just try to go out there and do what I need to do,” Stewart said. “We have to win everyone over again. We have a lot of people doubting us now.”

The second-year forward, who came off the bench late last season, has already experienced big moments in a UConn uniform. He broke out in two games in the Big East tournament last March, scoring eight goals and hitting three timely 3-pointers in a tight battle against St. John’s in the semifinals to take the lead over Marquette in the title game. He helped propel UConn’s offense in the first half against Memphis last week.

“I just try to impact the game in as many ways as I can. Without AK, he’s trying to find a way to get the win, so that will be my job,” Stewart said.

UConn’s focus has been and remains on defense, where Hurley rated his team as “a disaster” this week. Baylor loves to get in the game, and the Huskies have struggled in that area.

Hurley mentioned he might change his defensive style after the Dayton loss, but hasn’t found an easy solution.

“I think the frustrating thing about where we are is that the defense is where it is in terms of quality. … Obviously it’s because we have a lot of young players and we’re physically overwhelmed by a lot of older teams and we’re also a little immature given the amount of fouls we’ve made,” Hurley said. “There aren’t many teams that play multiple defenses that are ever really good at defense. So I think we can combine some principles and different shooting situations with different people, but overall we just have to get better at what we do defensively.”

Baylor was defeated by Gonzaga 101-63 in the season opener, but beat John Calipari’s Arkansas team by five in the next game. The Bears opened the Baha Mar tournament with a 99-98 double-overtime win over St. John’s – senior point guard Jeremy Roach, a Duke transfer, got the win with a buzzer-beater – but lost the next Day with 77 against Tennessee -65.

Miami transfer Norchad Omier, a forward who UConn knows from the 2023 Final Four, leads five double-digit scorers with 15.9 points and 10.4 rebounds per game. Roach is averaging 13.3 in his fifth year, with veteran distributor Jayden Nunn (12.9), Robert Wright III (11.9) and star rookie VJ Edgecombe (11.0) as options for him.

Wright III was Liam McNeeley’s point guard at Montverde Academy, where they went undefeated and won a national title together last year.

“That’s not my friend right now. After the game that will be my friend again, but that’s not my friend right now,” McNeeley said. “He shot the ball really well at the start of the season, but we’re going to trust our game plan and we understand it.”

Edgecombe, a former UConn recruit, played against McNeeley in the 2024 McDonald’s All-America Game.

“He’s a really good athlete, but like I said, we just trust our game plan and we understand it,” McNeeley said again.

Hurley had a little more to say about Edgecombe, who was a consensus top-five recruit in the 2024 class.

“I think everyone liked him. He is a fantastic player,” he said. “I think the impressive thing about him is obviously his offensive willingness, but also his offensive rebounding, his defense, his athletic ability…”

“If we want to have a chance to win this game, some guys in college basketball need to step up here,” Hurley said. “The Solo Balls, the Liam McNeeleys, the Tarris Reeds, the Jayden Rosses, the J-Stews – these guys have to make their presence felt by playing at a high level.”

Wednesday’s game is a chance for UConn to regain some of what it lost during this non-conference period toward resuming the NCAA Tournament. But Hurley isn’t looking too far into the future.

“If we start figuring out where we’re going to be in 10 days, I think that would just be a bad direction for us,” he said. “Because we have a lot of young guys and a lot of new guys and because we’ve had such a tough week, our focus is on putting the blinders on, turning off the outside noise and just getting better… I think I have to give the players grace and give them self-confidence. I can’t coach them frustrated, or we can’t coach them frustrated or disappointed, because it’s a group that’s going to get better.”

What you should know

Website: Gampel Pavilion, Storrs

Time: 6:30 p.m

Records: No. 25 UConn: 5-3, No. 15 Baylor: 5-2

Series: UConn leads 1-0

Last meeting: December 28, 1965 – UConn 96, Baylor 88

TV: FS1 – Brandon Gaudin, Bill Raftery

Radio: Fox Sports 97-9 – Mike Crispino, Wayne Norman

Reading before the game: