No. 2 UConn loses to Colorado, suffering its second loss to an unranked opponent in as many days

CNN
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No. 2 UConn suffered a second loss in as many days to an unranked opponent at the Maui Invitational as Colorado edged the back-to-back defending NCAA champions, 73-72.

Colorado’s Andrej Jakimovski scored a layup with eight seconds left in Tuesday’s game, completing a stunning comeback after the Buffaloes trailed 40-32 at halftime.

This comes after the Huskies, now 4-2 on the season, also suffered a close loss to the Memphis Tigers on Monday, losing 99-97.

Colorado went on an 11-0 run and shot 62.5% in the second half to erase the deficit and take its first lead with just over 14 minutes to play. The Buffaloes trailed by a point at the end of the game, but Jakimovski was able to get to the basket and score the game-winning layup while falling to the floor.

Hassan Diarra had a chance to secure the win for UConn, but failed on his three-point attempt. Prior to this week, the Huskies were riding a 17-game unbeaten streak that included a second straight national championship in April.

Julian Hammond III and Elijah Malone led Colorado with 16 points each, while Jakimovski had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Liam McNeeley scored a game-high 20 points and Solo Ball added 16 points for UConn, which will try to get back on track Wednesday against Dayton.

“It’s difficult to be in this position, but as a team we just have to be able to pick each other up and move on to the next game because we’ve got a long season ahead of us,” Ball told reporters after the game. “Of course they are two tough defeats, but it’s about how we recover from them and get better.”

Head coach Dan Hurley said his team’s defense was “terrible” during the Hawaii games.

“Obviously we didn’t expect to find ourselves out here in this situation based on where we were, but here we are,” Hurley added. “The second half was just really, really bad defensively. We were bad defensively here.”