Silas Demary Jr. Scores 18 With Six Steals as No. 4 UConn Routs Wagner 83-41

Dan Hurley spent two seasons on Staten Island building Wagner into a 25-win team. On Monday night, the coach got a first look at the old program from the other bench, and the reunion was over almost before anyone found a seat.

No. 4 UConn scored the first 14 points, forced 26 turnovers and led by as many as 47 in an 83-41 rout of Wagner at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs. Silas Demary Jr. scored 18 points with six steals, Jayden Ross added 12, and Na'jai Hines and Braylon Mullins had 10 apiece in front of 10,244 at UConn's first campus game of the season. Nik Khamenia's 11 made it five starters in double figures.

UConn is 3-0. Wagner falls to 0-3 after an opening road trip through Boston College, Miami and Storrs.

The First Five Minutes Settled It

Wagner never had a chance to settle in. Khamenia drilled a 24-foot 3 off a Demary pass on the opening possession, and the Huskies spent the next four minutes turning every Seahawks mistake into points.

Taj Bryant threw the ball away. Demary stole it. Youssouf Singare threw the ball away. Demary stole that one too. Bryant lost another pass to Hines, Cam Estevez was whistled for traveling, and in between, UConn kept scoring. Hines tipped in a Demary miss, Demary hit a turnaround jumper, Khamenia floated in a short one and then buried another 3 off a Mullins feed. Hines tipped in another miss at the 15:09 mark, and it was 14-0.

Wagner finally scored when AJ Rodriguez finished a layup from Bryant at 14:57. By then it felt like a scrimmage with a scoreboard.

Kareem Watson knocked down a 3 from Jaren Curtis to make it 21-9 with 10 minutes left in the half, but Wagner never got closer than 10 after the opening run. UConn answered with a Junior County assist to Oskar Giltay at the rim, a Jayden Ross 3 from the wing and a Demary layup off a Mullins pass, and the lead was 30-10 by the 6:04 mark.

UConn outscored Wagner 12-4 over the final 3:49 of the half and went to the locker room up 44-18. Wagner had 17 turnovers before the break, according to the Associated Press.

Demary's Hands Did the Damage

The box score line is excellent on its own: 18 points on 7 of 12 shooting, 2 of 6 from 3, four rebounds and four assists in 27 minutes. The six steals are what made Demary the best player on the floor.

The Big East preseason player of the year jumped passing lanes and turned Wagner's half-court offense into a feeder system for UConn's break. The Huskies finished with 14 steals as a team and scored 37 points off turnovers. Wagner managed 5 points off UConn's 11 giveaways. That 32-point gap accounts for most of the final margin by itself.

Demary also showed range once the game was decided. Demary opened the second half with a driving layup, buried a 26-footer off a Jayden Ross pass at 12:23, and hit a 25-footer from Mullins at 6:32 to make it 79-33. After a 21-point night against Michigan in Boston on Friday, this was a quieter kind of dominance, but it was dominance all the same.

Hines and Ross Fill the Gaps

The Huskies needed bodies early. Khamenia, the Duke transfer who came in averaging 10.5 points, scored 11 points in the first 8:14, going 4 of 5 from the field and 3 of 3 from deep. Khamenia played only seven minutes, though. Khamenia appeared to hurt his foot and limped to the locker room around the 10-minute mark of the first half, and UConn told the truTV broadcast he was out for the night, according to the Norwich Bulletin. Khamenia's status for Friday was not known at publication.

With Khamenia out, Jayden Ross picked up the slack. Ross shot 5 of 7, hit two of three 3s and added a pair of steals in 26 minutes. Ross threw down a dunk early in the second half, scored on a layup at 13:00 and drilled a 27-footer from County at 11:16 to push the lead to 40 for the first time.

Hines did the grunt work. The sophomore center finished with 10 points, eight rebounds (seven of them offensive), two steals and two blocks in 22 minutes. All four of Hines' field goals were tip-ins or dunks, including back-to-back slams at 17:56 and 17:26 of the second half that stretched the lead to 55-20. UConn grabbed 22 offensive rebounds and won the glass 39-33.

Mullins Has an Off Night and It Did Not Matter

If there was a sour note for UConn, it was Mullins' jumper. The Naismith watch list guard, who came in averaging 21.5 points, went 2 of 12 from the field and 1 of 9 from 3. Mullins still found ways to help, going 5 of 6 at the line, grabbing four rebounds and handing out four assists, including the feed for Demary's late 3 and the pass for Hines' first dunk after halftime.

The lone 3 came at 8:36 of the second half, a 24-footer from Demary that made it 76-31. Every shooter has nights like this, and Wagner is the right opponent for one.

The rest of the rotation got real minutes. County ran the offense for 17 minutes and finished with four points, four assists and two rebounds, three of those assists leading to 3s. Freshman Colben Landrew, named the Big East freshman of the week on Monday, scored five points with two steals and two blocks despite a 1 of 7 shooting night. Giltay was perfect, going 2 of 2 from the field and 2 of 2 at the line for six points with four rebounds. Nils Machowski hit a 3 at 10:46 of the second half, and freshman Egor Amosov pulled down four rebounds in 13 minutes. Fourteen Huskies played, and the bench outscored Wagner's reserves 22-9.

Wagner's Long Night in Storrs

There is no way to dress up 26 turnovers. Wagner turned it over more times than it made field goals (17), shot 33 percent overall and 4 of 17 from 3, and attempted only four free throws all night. The Seahawks did not score a single fast-break point and were outscored 38-22 in the paint.

Bryant had the hardest night, with nine turnovers and five fouls in 28 minutes, though Bryant also scored six points on 3 of 5 shooting and handed out three of Wagner's six assists. Rodriguez was the best Seahawk on the floor, scoring 10 points on 5 of 8 shooting with seven rebounds and two steals in 32 minutes. Estevez made three 3s in the second half, two of them off passes from Ryan Pettis, and finished with nine points. Watson, Wagner's leading scorer coming in, added seven.

Singare made the return to Gampel count for a little. The former UConn reserve, part of the 2024 national championship roster, scored five points with three rebounds and two steals in 26 minutes.

This is the first full season for head coach Dwan McMillan, who took over a roster that lost all 13 players from last year's Northeast Conference semifinal team. Three road games against power-conference opponents in seven days were always going to be about growing pains. Wagner has scored 50, 57 and 41 points in those games. Wagner finally plays at home on Wednesday, hosting Bryant and Stratton-Albany.

What It Means

For UConn, this was the last breather before the schedule turns serious. Ohio State comes to PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford on Friday, Nov. 13, followed by a trip to Arizona on Nov. 18 and a meeting with Duke in Las Vegas on Nov. 25. The Huskies have now beaten Gardner-Webb in the opener and defending champion Michigan in Boston, and this one was mostly about rest, rotation and keeping everybody healthy. The Khamenia injury is the only real question to come out of the night.

For Hurley, it was a strange kind of homecoming. Wagner was Hurley's first college head coaching job, a 13-17 debut in 2010-11 followed by a program-record 25 wins the next season. Hurley was also on the Wagner bench the last time UConn beat the Seahawks, on Nov. 14, 2011. Monday was the first time Hurley coached against Wagner, and UConn now leads the all-time series 6-1. For more on Wagner's road trip, see Friday's Miami recap.

Here is ESPN's box score (opens in a new tab) and play-by-play (opens in a new tab).

Sources: ESPN box score, play-by-play and team stats, The Associated Press, UConn Athletics game preview and schedule, The Daily Campus, The Norwich Bulletin, SB Nation. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

UConn has bigger tests coming, starting Friday against Ohio State. Against the coach's old school, the Huskies did exactly what a top five team is supposed to do: take the ball, take the lead and take the night off by halftime.

Photo: UConn Athletics (file photo from Nov. 6, 2026, vs. Michigan).