‘Wake-up call’
Four UConn Huskies have entered the portal this offseason, surprising Hurley
At twilight of a rather eventful Wednesday, at the heart of what felt like a chaotic week in the world of UConn basketball, birds were chirping in the background as Dan Hurley said what’s important to keep in mind while a transfer portal tornado rips through Storrs.
“I think the core of Adama and Jordan and Andre with Tristen, that’s a strong four,” Hurley said. “You’ve got three guys that are legitimate NBA-level prospects with length and athleticism and talent and skill around a potential AllAmerican, preseason player of the year in the Big East. I love the spot we’re in. We can go into next season with our best team.”
You know junior center Adama Sanogo, sophomore guard Jordan Hawkins and junior guard Andre Jackson — players set to be joined by Tristen Newton, a dynamic guard from East Carolina who averaged 18 points, five assists, and five rebounds last season.
UConn landed one of the portal’s best guards but in the meantime, and perhaps in doing so, lost Corey
Floyd to the same process. Floyd, who enrolled early and was with the program while redshirting last season, would have debuted as a freshman and been in line to play, say, 15 minutes a game.
But Floyd announced on Tuesday that he would transfer, underscoring the turbulent nature of coaching and playing and recruiting cycles in 2022. We’ve entered a new era of college basketball, one in which many players think the grass is greener elsewhere and all coaches have the responsibility to recruit top talent from the portal, which featured some 1,300 players.
“For the most part, I understand the basketball moves made by the guys who left,” Hurley said. “The last two years, we made a
lot of progress but it’s not up to the standard that I’d like it to be. It was very clear that we needed to get better in the late signing period here. I get that their roles had diminished where it made sense for them to leave, for the most part. Part of why they’re leaving is because we understand we have to go out and get better.”
Hello to Newton. Goodbye to Floyd, Rahsool Diggins, Akok Akok and Jalen Gaffney, all swept away by transfer winds that followed postseason team and individual meetings.
Hurley was asked a dozen questions but wasn’t willing to answer all of them just yet. He will meet the media Thursday afternoon on campus. As the sun set on Wednesday, he would not get into specifics on individual players and the processes that led to their departures.
Still, players’ development and their obvious trajectories make it easy to understand Hurley’s “for the most part” qualifier.
Akok was the first prized recruit of the Hurley era, arriving at UConn in 201819
and debuting the next season. He tore an Achilles’ tendon as a sophomore, though, and meanwhile the talent around him got better, the program improved. He wasn’t counted on for major responsibility anytime thereafter.
In an ideal scenario, Gaffney would have improved this past season to the point where it would have been easy to pass him R.J. Cole’s point guard torch. But he didn’t.
Diggins never played a meaningful minute. He wasn’t going to.
Floyd, who reclassified to enroll early at UConn, would have played next season. Or, he would have at least been a front-runner to play. But behind Newton. So he is headed elsewhere without ever playing a game for the Huskies.
That’s his right, just like it’s Hurley’s to recruit with the urgency that his contract demands. And this is college basketball in 2022, as much about building a team year-to-year as developing something long-term. It’s taking place just about everywhere.
“Program-building, the way I’ve done it my whole career, with people staying together intact and proving and growing a role and going from somebody that
you can’t play to playable to one of your key players, I don’t know how often that’s going to happen moving forward with the culture of basketball and the portal option,” Hurley said. “This is a wake-up call for me that I’ve got to continue to try to recruit young players that you could be with through their journey and develop over the course of years, and they’ll be willing to go through that process with you. My eyes are a lot more open to blending the use of the portal with that, and being much more flexible.”
He mentioned James Bouknight.
“I tell these kids the truth about themselves,” Hurley said. “Bouk will tell you what my nickname was. When I first started coaching Bouk I became known as ‘Shade King,’ like I’m throwing shade on people. Once James grew up a little bit, he moved me to ‘Truth King.’
“I would love to coach guys like (departed senior) an Isaiah Whaley, who paid his dues for two years before he even got a sniff, and a James Bouknight, who I didn’t start for half the year because he wasn’t ready all-around as a studentathlete and a young man. I wish every player would be
all about the front of the jersey all year long like Andre Jackson.”
UConn, which lost seniors Whaley, Cole, Tyrese Martin and Tyler Polley to the traditional exit, has just eight scholarship players on board, including sophomore forward Samson Johnson, freshman center Donovan Clingan, junior forward Richie Springs and freshman forward Alex Karaban.
Hurley wants to add two guards capable of playing right away from the portal in the coming weeks. He would like to surround Sanogo with four perimeter-capable players, most of the time going with a 4-in-1-out style.
“I want to put a great team on the court next year,” Hurley said. “I want to put a better team on the floor. We need more help at guard and on the perimeter. The best teams I’ve coached in college, we’ve had a number of great guards, a deep perimeter. We’ve had some great perimeter players here but I haven’t quite been able to have that great perimeter, which is what got me here from Rhode Island.”