Turnover trouble sinks No. 19 UConn men's basketball against No ...

No. 19 UConn men’s basketball committed 22 turnovers inside Friday night inside Gampel Pavilion and that, combined with a 14-for-22 performance at the free throw line, was the difference in a 68-62 loss for the Huskies to No. 12 St. John’s.

Tarris Reed Jr. was one of three UConn players in double-figures, with 12 points and 15 rebounds. He also blocked three shots, playing heavy minutes as Samson Johnson was mired in foul trouble.

Liam McNeeley also made his return after going down with an ankle injury in the win over DePaul on Jan. 1. He played 14 minutes in the first half, grabbing seven rebounds, but he was 1-for-7 from the field, including 0-for-5 from beyond the arc. He was better shooting in the second half, going 2-for-4 on 3-pointers. He led the team with 18 points and also snagged 11 boards.

St. John’s made its first three shots from the field and was able to keep with the Huskies early, but after Aaron Scott made it a 10-8 deficit for the Red Storm, the home team went on an 11-0 burst over less than two minutes, pushing the lead up to 13 less than six minutes into the game.

UConn was using St. John’s misses to get out in transition and find easy buckets to the benefit of Stewart, who scored eight of those 11 points. He joined Solo Ball as hot shooters early, as his fellow sophomore had eight of his team’s first 10 and scored 13 points, all of which were in the first half.

The Huskies’ lead peaked at 14 points following a big Reed Jr. dunk with 11:38 remaining in the half and with a well-lubricated and loud Gampel Pavilion crowd, it looked like the 19th-ranked team in the nation was going to blow out No. 12 with a big advantage on the scoreboard. However, Rick Pitino’s squad was not going to go away quietly.

UConn missed its next five field goals and St. John’s began to erase the deficit. The shots began to fall for the Red Storm, with a protracted 15-2 run that took nearly four minutes and was capped off by an RJ Luis and-one shrunk the Huskies’ advantage to one point and it was a ballgame again.

The Red Storm were able to take the lead for the first time with 2:29 to go and while Reed Jr. laid one in to give his team the lead back, Zuby Ejiofor converted an old-fashioned three-point play to push it to two in the final minute.

St. John’s wasn’t shooting the lights out, going 10-for-21 over the rest of the half after UConn pushed the lead out to 14, but the home team went ice-cold. The Huskies were 3-for-15 following Reed Jr.’s dunk, despite 10 offensive rebounds in the half, though that was evened out some by 10 turnovers. They started 5-for-8 on 3-pointers, but finished 0-for-10.

The second half could not have been more different, as it took the teams more than 13 minutes to break 30 combined points with both offenses struggling mightily.

Hassan Diarra committed three turnovers in the first half and did his best to atone for his mistakes, as he knocked down a 3-pointer, his team’s first field goal attempt in the second half, bringing his team’s deficit to one. On the ensuing possession, Alex Karaban cleaned up the mess, laying it in after an offensive rebound, to re-take the lead. The Red Storm re-tied it at 42-42 on a pair of Kadary Richmond free-throws with 17:25 left and then neither team scored for 2:39, missing seven shots in a row as the defenses racheted up.

It was the Huskies that took the lid off the nets, as Diarra found a streaking Reed Jr. alone in the lane after a slip screen. The drought for St. John’s lasted a total of 6:31, missing 11 straight field goal attempts in that span, while UConn scored just four points between 14:46 and 9:16.

The Huskies’ offense was completely out of sorts, taking several tough 3-pointers late in the clock and continuing to turn the ball over, but McNeeley was able to make a pair of deep triples in the middle stages of the half, pushing his team’s lead out as much as six.

From there, St. John’s, at a snail’s pace, re-tied the game. The Huskies committed three turnovers over less than two-and-a-half minutes and took just one field goal, a miss, between McNeeley’s second deep shot at the 9:15 mark and the Red Storm re-taking the lead, 54-52, on a Richmond jumper with 5:30 to go.

St. John’s continued its run, which reached 12-0, going up by as much as eight. However, Reed Jr. stopped it with free throws and the Huskies went 6:40 between field goals but missed just three in that time.

McNeeley knocked down four free throws in the final 90 seconds, bringing the deficit to two, but the Red Storm knocked down seven of their 10 field goal attempts over the final 5:50, cementing the win.

UConn (16-7, 8-4 Big East) will be back in action on Tuesday against Creighton. Tip-off is at 9:00 p.m. ET in Omaha, Nebraska on CBS Sports Network.