New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Rising above
In Big East full of big men, Sanogo stands above them all
NEW YORK — Rarely has the Big East been more aptly named.
The conference, like much of men’s college basketball, is stacked with talented big men this season.
There are top-notch 7-footers like Ryan Kalkbrenner, the reigning Big East Defensive Player of the Year from Creighton, and
Jack Nunge, a preseason firstteam All-Big East pick from Xavier.
There are proven veterans like
Villanova’s Eric Dixon, St. John’s Joel Soriano and Providence’s Ed Croswell; impactful transfers like Butler’s Manny Bates, who blocked 147 shots the past two seasons at NC State, and Qudus Wahab, who began his career at Georgetown, spent last season at Maryland, and is now back with the Hoyas.
There’s a highly-touted freshman in UConn’s own 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan.
Heck, one of the league’s coaches, Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing, just happens to be one of the all-time greatest big men ever to play the game.
Standing head and shoulders above all of them this season, however, is UConn’s Adama Sanogo. The 6-9 junior isn’t only the top big man in the league, but the top overall player, named the preseason Player of the Year by the Big East’s coaches on Tuesday.
“He’s just a strong, solid player,” Kalkbrenner said of Sanogo. “He doesn’t try to go outside of himself. It’s always a challenge, because if you relax for a second, he’s going to take advantage of you. So, you always have to be locked in.”
Added Nunge: “He’s very skilled, very strong. He gets to his spots really well. That’s something that could influence my game.”
Of course, Kalkbrenner, the 7-1 junior, and Nunge, a 7-foot grad student, both got the best of Sanogo down the stretch last season. In a 64-62 win over the Huskies in Omaha in early March, Kalkbrenner went for 22
points and 10 rebounds. A couple of weeks earlier, Nunge, who spends a significant amount of time out on the perimeter, burned UConn for 22 points and nine rebounds in a 74-68 win in Cincinnati.
Sanogo was noticeably worn down at the end of last season, in part a result of banging up against bigs like Kalkbrenner and Nunge all season. Earlier in the season, with fresher legs, Sanogo had dominated Walker Kessler, Auburn’s 7-1 SEC Defensive Player of the Year, to the tune of a career-high 30 points in a double-overtime win.
With that in mind, coach Dan Hurley intends to play Sanogo out on the perimeter a bit more this season, allowing him to hoist up 3-pointers here and there, as well as mid-range jumpers.
“For us, and for him, when he plays against the bigger centers, where it’s harder to batter in the low post, like Kalkbrenner ... to be able to drive them away from the basket, where maybe he can drive them, with the threat of being able to make a perimeter shot,” Hurley explained.
It will also allow Clingan and even 6-6 wing Andre Jackson to post up more often. In fact, banging against Clingan every day in practice will be a big benefit for Sanogo. Clingan’s huge wing span alone is enough to provide challenges for Sanogo.
“There are some shots I can’t take against him, because he’s going to block it,” Sanogo noted. “So, I feel like I need to score around him, because he’s so big.”
Make no mistake, Clingan is a freshman who still makes some freshman mistakes, particularly on defense. He’s not Ryan Kalkbrenner; not yet.
“But it’s certainly a simulation,” Hurley pointed out. “Adama’s only real simulation the last couple of years has been 6-8, 6-9 players. So yeah, to practice against someone who’s taller than Kalkbrenner and maybe has a little bit more length ... the opportunity for Adama to find those windows to work through as an offensive player at that type of size, we’ve talked about that as a staff. The benefit when he sees Creighton, when he sees Nunge and Qudus, to a lesser degree because he’s not a 7-footer.”
And it’s not just Big East big men that Sanogo must be ready for. The Huskies will face at least a couple of other players who could be on the preseason Kareem Abdul Jabbar watch list of the nation’s top center. At the PK85 Invitational on Thanksgiving weekend, the Huskies will face Oregon freshman Kel’el Ware, a 7-foot McDonald’s AllAmerican and potential lottery pick. UConn could also face North Carolina All-American Armando
Bacot that week.
When the Huskies host Oklahoma State on Dec. 1 at Gampel Pavilion, they’ll be greeted by 7-1 junior center Moussa Cisse, the reigning Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. At Florida on Dec. 7, Sanogo will tussle with 7-foot Colin Castleton, another All-America candidate.
And that’s all before Big East play begins.
‘THEY’RE STAYING IN COLLEGE’
So why are there so many big-time big men across both college basketball in general and the Big East in particular?
“Because the game has changed so much,” Hurley explained. “When traditional centers were the commodity in the NBA, they were drafted early in their career. Back-to-thebasket, classic centers didn’t stay in college very long. They left quickly. As the game has changed now and the NBA is looking for more five-out type of skill at that position, your traditional, back-to-the-basket centers now, the NBA isn’t calling for them. Now they’re staying in college.”
“Add NIL on top of that,” Hurley added, “and it feels like some of these guys have been in college forever, whereas they were oneand-done or maybe two years, at most (in the past).”
Indeed, the reigning National Player of the Year, Oscar Tshiebwe, returned to Kentucky for his senior year. Gonzaga’s seemingly ageless Drew Timme is also back for another season. Both Tshiebwe and Timme are reportedly cashing in on big-time endorsement deals, thanks to the NCAA’s name, image and likeness legislation.
“Across college basketball, all these great bigs are coming back,” Nunge said. “That’s something that the game needs — skilled guys who are hopefully going to have long professional careers are coming back to college. There’s more focus on it, and I think that’s big.”
And so, there’s a big man revolution in college basketball. Or is there, Patrick Ewing?
“I don’t think the big in college basketball went anywhere,” the former Georgetown and New York Knick Hall of Famer said. “It’s at the next level where it’s more positionless. I believe in the bigs, I’m a big. I try to make sure that our bigs are featured just as well as our smalls. I expect big things out of all of them.”
And nowhere more so than in the Big East.
“It’ll be fun at the end of the year to see who comes out as the best big man in the league,” said Kalkbrenner, “or if there’s two or three big men to pick between as the best.”