Tulane falls to UConn on Senior Day, 80-76

NEW ORLEANS – Graduate Christion Thompson continued his hot scoring streak with a team-high 21 points, but the Tulane men’s basketball team dropped a hard-fought, 80-76 decision to the UConn on Sunday afternoon inside Avron B. Fogelman Arena in the Devlin Fieldhouse.

Tulane’s (12-18, 4-14 AAC) setback to UConn (19-12, 10-8 AAC) marked the third straight game in which the Green Wave have lost by eight points or less.

“It’s been like this all year, we’ve put ourselves in position (to win), but in the end, we just don’t make the right play,” head coach Ron Hunter said. “The good news is that I know we are heading in the right direction.”

As a team, Tulane outshot UConn 48-43 percent from the floor and held a 24-22 advantage in bench scoring.

The Green Wave also forced the Huskies into 14 turnovers, while the Green Wave only had 13 miscues. Tulane has committed fewer or equal turnovers against its opponent in 28 of its 30 regular season games.

“I don’t think there has been a team that we’ve played against that we didn’t have an opportunity to win,” Hunter said.

Thompson was one of four players that finished in double-figures, as junior Teshaun Hightower (14 points), sophomore Kevin Zhang (12) and redshirt sophomore Jordan Walker (12) also reached the benchmark.

UConn opened up its largest lead of the second half, 66-57, at the 6:18 mark thanks to a tip-in by Josh Carlton. Tulane would respond with a 7-0 run to trim the Huskies lead to two, 66-64, with 4:50 to go in the game.

The Green Wave were able to cut UConn’s lead to two on four separate occasions over the next four minutes but were unable to even the score or take the lead down the stretch.

Tulane held a 41-39 lead at halftime after connecting at a 55.6 percent shooting clip.

Before the game, Tulane honored its 2019-20 senior class, which included K.J. Lawson, Thompson and Nic Thomas.

Up next, Tulane opens play in the American Athletic Conference Championship as the No. 12 seed against No. 5 seed UConn on March 12 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. Tipoff is for 2 p.m., and the game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.

“The scouting won’t be much different because we just played them, so we’ll have ourselves ready to play,” Hunter said. “People have always said that it’s hard to beat a team times, so we’ll get out there and give ourselves a chance to win.”

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