Big East Tournament
Top-seeded UConn women open tourney with St. John’s at noon.
One must wait until the end of the day, play out a college career until the last buzzer sounds, to judge just how good it really was. That’s why Josh Carlton isn’t ready to look back on his time at UConn.
“My favorite moment hasn’t happened yet,” Carlton said. “When our name is called on Selection Sunday and we know we’re going to play in the [NCAA] Tournament, that’ll probably be my favorite moment. My first Selection Sunday with the team.”
If the best is yet to come, it has still been quite a ride for Carlton, Tyler Polley and Isaiah Whaley, three big guys who came north to UConn to play for Kevin
Ollie, came to play for a perennial NCAA Tournament team and frequent championship contender, came to be Huskies for life.
“We’re always were around each other, and it’s pretty much been that way since we got here, just going through all the adversity and knowing you’ve got two dudes to lean on that are experiencing the same thing,” Carlton said. “It’s a really good benefit just having them around.”
Said Whaley: “We’ve gotten
close over the years, going through all the down years together, all the blowout losses, brutal practices, it brings everybody closer. Those are the moments you bond.”
“Everything we went through together, these are my brothers forever,” added Polley.
When the program had a losing season and a slew of players bailed out in the spring of
2017, Carlton and Polley did not go back on their commitments. Unheralded Whaley got a late springtime offer and jumped at the chance to embrace the challenge from which others ran.
When an even worse season followed — eight losses of 20 or more points — and Ollie was replaced, they stood pat, determined to be part of the solution under Dan Hurley.
“‘Cause it’s UConn,” Polley said. “Our name is so big, the history of this program, I just can’t imagine going somewhere else. That’s why I stuck it out: to be part of something special, bring UConn back to what it was.”
They’ve honored their commitment, and Saturday will be the time to honor them. It’s Senior Day, and though it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be their last game at UConn, all three are set to graduate in May.
Fans won’t be at Gampel Pavilion to show appreciation because the coronavirus pandemic has robbed them of that part of their UConn experience too, but Huskies Nation can show it ... somehow. Tweet it, stand and clap, even if you’re alone with your big screen. Polley, Carlton and Whaley have earned it.
“It was just sticking with the goal I came to UConn with, and that was to be a part of UConn history, the good side of it,” Whaley said.
Over time, Hurley has upgraded the talent at UConn, restocked the roster with NBA-caliber prospects, not running off the players he inherited but recruiting over them. That had to be done to turn this
around, bsut it didn’t prompt these players to leave.
Whaley barely played during Hurley’s first year, but determined not to be a complainer or distraction, he worked his way into Hurley’s heart and lineup by the end of 2019-20. Nowhe’s one of the leading shot blockers in the nation.
Polley has started at times and sat for long stretches, but his pretty perimeter shot has always been a piece of UConn’s game plans. And Carlton, the AAC’s most improved player as a sophomore, lost minutes to Whaley as a junior and, after 80 starts, lost his spot to freshman Adama Sanogo this season. He’s done what has been asked of him and provided whatever Sanogo needed to learn Hurley’s way.
“Just a sense of loyalty to the program,” Carlton said. “I want to be part of something bigger than myself.”
UConn turned the corner over the last five games of their junior season. COVID-19 wiped out the AAC tournament, but they could all say they were members of a winning Huskies team for the first time.
Out of the wilderness and back in the Big East, there have been the starts and stops, empty arenas and injuries, but Polley made it back from his torn ACL and torched Marquette and Butler during a special week in January to keep the Huskies afloat while
James Bouknight was out.
Whaley played through an ankle injury when the team needed him to give it a try at Xavier and had a monster game at Seton Hall on Wednesday. Carlton came off the bench to key what has become a critical win versus USC and is ready to come off the bench this Saturday.
Maybethey weren’t Hurley’s guys, maybe they didn’t have the big personalities he likes, but they became his players. They can have another year of eligibility if they want to stay a fifth year and go to grad school. All three say they’re keeping an open mind but are focused on what’s in front of them: Georgetown, the Big East tournament, their first Selection Sunday, the Big Dance. It looks good, but a win over Georgetown on Saturday would makeit more certain.
“It’s extremely satisfying, especially playing all these years and not even really being close to playing in the tournament,” Whaley said. “It makes you really grateful being in the position we’re in, especially last year playing with someone like Christian Vital, the year before Jalen Adams, playing with these really good players who never got to experience the tournament. To be a part of the class that might actually have a chance to do it, it’s something really special.”