No. 1 UConn falls at Creighton, snapping 14-game winning streak dating to Seton Hall loss

Heading into Tuesday’s titanic clash at No. 15 Creighton, Dan Hurley said his team would have to be “willing to go to hell and back” to get the win in one of the toughest road environments in the nation.

Turns out No. 1 UConn went to hell, but never came back.

The Bluejays snapped UConn’s 14-game winning streak, 85-66, handing the Huskies their first defeat since they lost by 15 points at Seton Hall on Dec. 20 — a stretch of exactly two months. Creighton improved to 4-0 at home against UConn while getting their first-ever win over the No. 1-ranked team (1-6).

The No. 1-ranked team has now lost five games this season: Kansas (to No. 4 Marquette), Purdue twice (to Northwestern and Nebraska), Arizona (to No. 3 Purdue) and now UConn, per ESPN.

“I mean, it’s a historic game for our program,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said.

“We played a really, really good game and we beat an incredible team, a team that has a legitimate chance to win a national championship, but we’re pretty good as well.”

UConn has now lost 19 straight road games to ranked opponents dating to 2014, per ESPN.

“We did a bad job coaching tonight, our players did a bad job playing, i did a bad job coaching,” Hurley told reporters.

“Your huddles aren’t going to be super-energized when you haven’t lost in two-plus months. This doesn’t happen to us very often. Yeah, we were definitely stunned…We didn’t expect this to happen.”

Creighton students stormed the court after the historic win.

Tristen Newton poured in 27 points with 12 rebounds for the Huskies (24-3, 14-2 Big East), who on Monday were named the unanimous No. 1 in the AP Poll for the first time in program history. Creighton held sharpshooters Alex Karaban and Cam Spencer to 13 total points on 1-of-5 shooting from deep.

The Huskies showed they were human by losing for just the third time this season, and the third time since last March 10 before their NCAA Tournament run.

UConn still holds a 3-game lead over Marquette and Creighton as it seeks its first regular-season Big East title since it shared the crown with Villanova in 2006.

Steven Ashworth went for 20 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists for Creighton which improved to 20-7, 11-5, moving into a virtual tie with Marquette for second place in the league. Ryan Kalkbrenner added 15 points and 5 rebounds, and Trey Alexander had 16 points with 4 assists. Baylor Scheireman, a leading contender for Big East Player of the Year, notched 12 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists.

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Creighton jumped out to a 43-29 halftime lead and led by as many as 23 points in the second half.

Donovan Clingan cut it to 74-64 with a dunk off a dish by Newton with 4:39 remaining.

During a timeout, Hurley told his team they needed to “get it to 10 under 4 [minutes].”

But Creighton rattled off a 7-0 run to push it to 81-64 on a pair of free throws by Scheierman.

The Huskies will next host Villanova on Saturday, when ESPN’s GameDay will make its first appearance on campus since 2011.

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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.