Braylon Mullins Hits Five 3s and Na'jai Hines Scores a Career-High 20 as No. 4 UConn Pulls Away From Ohio State 84-68

For about 26 minutes, Ohio State looked like it had come to Hartford to make a statement. Then UConn did what UConn does under Dan Hurley: it found another gear, squeezed the life out of the possessions that mattered, and turned a coin-flip game into a 16-point win before most of the 15,495 at PeoplesBank Arena had time to get nervous.

The No. 4 Huskies beat Ohio State 84-68 on Friday night, pulling away after a second half that opened with four ties and five Ohio State go-ahead baskets in the first five minutes. Braylon Mullins led everyone with 22 points and five 3-pointers, Na'jai Hines added a career-high 20 points on 7-of-8 shooting in only 20 minutes, and UConn shot 61.2 percent from the floor to move to 4-0. Ohio State fell to 2-2.

The final margin hides how long this one stayed honest. UConn led by 14 in the first half, watched the lead melt to two at the break, trailed early in the second half, and then outscored the Buckeyes 42-28 after intermission. The official box score (opens in a new tab) tells the rest.

A Fast Start, Then a Leak

Mullins set the tone on the first possession, burying a 25-footer off a Silas Demary Jr. feed 13 seconds in. Jayden Ross followed with a hook shot, Colben Landrew turned a defensive rebound into a layup, and UConn was up 7-2 inside two minutes. By the time Mullins hit another three off a Junior County assist at 11:39, UConn led 25-13.

Ohio State answered with effort plays. Ivan Njegovan scored twice inside, the second a tip-in that started a 7-0 burst, John Mobley Jr. hit a pull-up, and Andrija Jelavic and Amare Bynum got to the line, trimming the gap to 28-22. UConn pushed it right back out, and when the lead reached 41-27 with 4:20 to play in the half, the night looked like it was heading toward another Hartford blowout.

It was not. UConn did not score again until a free throw with 27 seconds left, and Ohio State ripped off 10 straight points in the meantime. Jelavic hit two free throws, Justin Pippen scored a layup, and Jimmie Williams accounted for six of the 10 with two layups and two free throws, cutting it to 41-37 with 51 seconds left. After a UConn free throw, Ohio State knocked down a three with six seconds to go, and the Buckeyes walked into the locker room down just 42-40.

Jimmie Williams Nearly Flipped It

The second half opened like a heavyweight round. Pippen drilled a three off a Mobley assist at 18:46 to put Ohio State in front 43-42, and from there the Buckeyes kept punching back through one player.

Williams, coming off the bench, scored every Ohio State point during a stretch from 17:49 to 15:23: a layup, a three off a Jelavic pass, a jumper and another layup. Each basket put Ohio State back in front, and each time UConn had an answer. Hines tied it at the line, Landrew dunked off a Demary assist, Hines threw one down off another Demary dime, and Mullins scored a layup to tie it at 52 with 15:00 left.

Williams finished with 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting in 24 minutes off the bench. The issue for Ohio State was that the rest of the roster combined to shoot 17 of 40. Mobley scored 16 on 6-of-12 shooting with four assists, Bynum had 11 points and five rebounds, and Jelavic, the Buckeyes' leading rebounder coming in, made only one of six field goal attempts. Jelavic did convert 6 of 8 free throws to finish with 8.

The Turning Point: A 14-2 Run

Mullins changed the game at 14:23, burying a three off a County pass for a 55-52 lead. UConn never trailed again.

What followed was the stretch Hurley's teams have built a reputation on. After an Ohio State bucket made it 55-54, Ross hit a three at 13:47, Mullins sank two free throws, and County scored on a layup at 12:19 for a 62-54 cushion. Ohio State scored once more, and then UConn went 7-0 again: Demary on a layup, Hines on an and-one at 9:37 and Hines again on a layup at 8:53. That made it 69-56, and the building finally exhaled.

All told, UConn outscored Ohio State 14-2 over roughly five minutes, and the Buckeyes never got closer than 11 again. The lead hit 16 at 74-58 with 7:05 to play and peaked at 18 when the Huskies went up 84-66 with 47 seconds left. A pair of technical fouls at 1:33, one on Mobley and one on Demary, was the only real drama after that.

Hines Was the Difference Inside

Mullins will grab the headline, and earned it, going 7 of 13 from the field, 5 of 9 from three and 3 of 5 at the line, and the threes came at the exact moments UConn needed separation, including the opener and the go-ahead shot at 14:23. It was the third 20-point game in four outings for Mullins, per UConn, following the 23-point night against Michigan in Boston.

But Hines was the problem Ohio State could never solve. The big man set a career high, missed one shot all night, went 6 of 7 at the line and blocked two shots, all in just 20 minutes. Ohio State went ahead five times early in the second half, and Hines delivered the answer to three of those go-ahead baskets. Hines narrowly missed a second double-double of the season against Wagner on Monday, and this was the kind of efficient post presence UConn will need when the schedule gets nastier.

Demary did the playmaking, even if his scoring line was modest. The guard posted 10 points, nine assists and two steals in 24 minutes, and his four fouls plus the late technical were the only blemishes. Landrew added 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting and four rebounds, Ross chipped in eight points and three steals in 37 minutes, and County gave UConn five points, three assists and two steals off the bench.

The numbers explain the gap. UConn assisted on 18 of its 30 field goals, while Ohio State had just seven assists. The Huskies won the rebounding battle 24-21, outscored Ohio State 40-36 in the paint and 17-11 in transition, and went 9 of 19 from three while the Buckeyes made only 4 of 14. Ohio State turned the ball over 16 times. The one area UConn left points on the table was the line, where it went 15 of 23.

What It Means

For UConn, this was a necessary kind of win. The Huskies played without Nik Khamenia, who left Monday's game against Wagner with a lower-leg injury and did not appear tonight, and the bench gave them only 12 points. They still shot 61 percent, survived a choppy finish to the first half and closed like a team that expects to be playing in April. Ohio State was the second of seven nonconference opponents ranked in the KenPom top 35 on UConn's slate, per the school's game preview (opens in a new tab), and the next one comes fast. UConn's first true road game is at No. 12 Arizona on Wednesday, Nov. 18.

The win also evened the all-time series at 4-4 in the first meeting between the programs since the 2016-17 season. The return trip to Columbus is set for next season as part of a home-and-home.

For Ohio State, there is real material to build on. A roster with nine newcomers went on the road, erased a 14-point deficit and went ahead five separate times in the second half against the No. 4 team in the country. Williams looked like a legitimate scoring option off the bench, and Pippen's 7 points included the three that put Ohio State ahead to open the second half. The problems were familiar ones for a team still learning itself: too few assists, too many turnovers and not enough from the perimeter. After falling to No. 25 BYU in the opener, recapped here, the Buckeyes are now 0-2 against high-major competition. Next up is Prairie View A&M at home on Monday, Nov. 16.

The Takeaway

UConn did not play its cleanest game. It went scoreless for almost four minutes late in the first half, missed eight free throws and let a 14-point lead slip away. And it still won by 16, because when the game tightened, it had Mullins pulling the trigger, Hines finishing everything inside and Demary making the right pass. That is the formula of a national title contender in November.

Ohio State proved it can hang. Now it has to prove it can close.

Sources: ESPN box score, play-by-play and team stats; CBS Sports play-by-play; UConn Athletics; Ohio State Athletics; Field Level Media. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Na'jai Hines in UConn's white home uniform against Gardner-Webb on Nov. 2, 2026 (file photo). Photo Credit: UConn Athletics.