Hartford — There's no secret about the key to UConn's success this season.

The perimeter-powered Huskies will go as far as their backcourt carries them in coach Dan Hurley's system.

"The reality of our season is if we're going to be successful and surprise people this year in terms of success the guards are going to have to, across the board, be consistently really, really good," Hurley said.

That certainly happened on Tuesday night.

UConn's backcourt depth wore down Cornell and eventually overpowered the Ivy League foe. Five guards combined to score 71 points in a 91-74 victory before 7,328 fans at the XL Center.

After a sluggish start due in part to a hangover from a lopsided loss to Iowa on Friday in New York, the Huskies (4-1) settled into attack mode. Constant pressure forced the Big Red (3-3) into 19 turnovers.

"It keeps us in attack mode the whole game — on defense and on offense," graduate transfer Tarin Smith said of his team's backcourt depth. "We all guard the ball well fullcourt and then on offense it just lets us take breaks and switch it up."

The UConn backcourt passed around the scoring baton.

Senior Jalen Adams led the charge with a season-high 21 points while Christian Vital scored 19 points, Smith chipped in 12, Alterique Gilbert had 11 points and Brendan Adams added eight points. They took turns injecting life into the offense that already has scored at least 80 points four times, equaling last season's total.

Hurley went with a small lineup to combat Cornell's skilled, agile lineup. Before making the switch, the Huskies gave up a ton of layups, several off back-door plays, and trailed 23-20.

"The first 8-10-12 minutes were frustrating," Hurley said.

Then the Huskies broke loose, scoring 13 straight points to fuel a 20-4 spurt. Adams nailed a jumper to cap the offensive outburst, handing his team a 40-27 edge. The lead grew to 48-33 at the break and climbed as high as 23 in the second half. They finished shooting 50.8 percent and took good care of the ball, finishing with 12 turnovers.

"They have a lot of talent and they don't give in and sort of wear our guards out a little bit in the full court," Cornell coach Brian Earl said. "It makes it hard just staying in front and constantly feeling that pressure on both ends of the court."

Hurley has been encouraging Adams to take over games. Adams did just that on Tuesday, scoring timely baskets. He's much fresher this season after being forced to play marathon minutes last season due to injuries.

"Now we have that depth and players that can keep it going," Adams said. "Once me and Christian got tired last year, it was tough to get over that hump. Now we have so many guards."

It was a typical Vital game, as he played crazy hard but also took some crazy shots.

"Jalen was like an alpha," Hurley said. "I love the way he attacked. I thought Christian was good. He lost his mind with the shot selection a couple times. He plays so hard. It doesn't make up for it. But, man, I wish he wouldn't do that because he's a good player."

The Huskies started a stretch of five straight home games on Tuesday, so there's potential for them to build some early-season momentum.

They hope to polish their rough edges in upcoming games.

"Some good moments but still a lot of things that we've got to be better at," Hurley said of Tuesday's performance.

g.keefe@theday.com