Time is now for Bouknight to create his legacy
INDIANAPOLIS — Ray Allen had the runner against Georgetown in the Big East tournament.
Kemba Walker had Maui, and “The Stepback.” Shabazz Napier had Florida, Villanova and a bunch of others. Ryan Boatright had the buzzer-beater against Cincinnati in the American Athletic Conference tournament. Even Jalen Adams had the 75-footer.
James Bouknight? UConn’s star guard doesn’t have his signature shot yet. He’s still looking for his singular moment as a Husky.
Sure, he had the 40-point game against Creighton, but that came in a loss. He’s had all-time dunks at ECU and against Providence, but those are highlight-reel plays, not game-winning shots.
Bouknight has had a terrific, if injury-plagued, sophomore season at UConn. Now is the time for him to step up and etch his name into the Husky history books.
“This is March,” he said, earlier in the week. “It’s different. It’s a whole different ballgame.”
It’s not entirely his fault Bouknight has yet to have his true “moment.” He didn’t have a March as a freshman last season, as conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament were washed out by the COVID-19 pandemic. His sophomore season has featured dazzling plays
mixed with injury, surgery and cramping.
Bouknight missed six weeks and eight games following elbow surgery in early January. He returned, played well, and had his first taste of March at Madison Square Garden, where it appeared he was ready to lead the Huskies to a Big East tournament title.
But early in the second half of a quarterfinal-round rout of DePaul, Bouknight suffered severe, full-body cramping that ultimately led to him being carried off to the locker room. He wasn’t himself the following night against Creighton, shooting 4-for-13 in a threepoint loss that was devastating to him and his teammates.
“I was down on myself,” he admitted afterwards.
Dan Hurley was understanding of his star’s struggles.
“James Bouknight has done so much for UConn basketball,” the Huskies coach said. “His decision to come here has changed the landscape, along with Akok (Akok) and Jalen (Gaffney) and R.J. (Cole). James doesn’t have to explain his performance to anybody, what he’s done for UConn basketball and where this thing was at a couple years ago.”
Indeed, Bouknight has
already created a legacy at UConn. He has, as Hurley explained, helped guide the program back to respectability, back to the NCAA tournament for the first time in five years. If he is, as expected, announced as a 2021 NBA Draft lottery pick, Bouknight’s poster will go up alongside those of Allen, Walker, Richard Hamilton, Caron Butler, Emeka Okafor and other former UConn greats on a wall inside the Werth Family Champions Center practice facility. Those largerthan-life posters serve as prime recruiting tools for Hurley.
Of course, Andre Drummond’s poster is up on that well, as well. He has emerged as a current NBA superstar, a prime selling point for UConn recruiting. Drummond’s one season at UConn, however, offered no signature moments, just an opening-round NCAA tournament loss to Iowa State in the final game of Jim Calhoun’s UConn career.
Bouknight’s introduction to UConn fans 18 months ago wasn’t a great one, appearing in legal court before stepping foot on a basketball court after a series of bad decisions led to an on-campus arrest one September 2019 night. He has grown and matured infinitely since then,
emerged as a true leader of the team. Now, he’s looking to author a stirring final chapter to his brief but memorable UConn story.
It begins Saturday at 7:10 p.m. against Maryland at Purdue’s Mackey Arena.
It won’t be easy. He’ll have a tough matchup in Maryland’s Darryl Morsell, the Big Ten’s Defensive Player of the Year who thrives on guarding an opponent’s best player.
“The kid’s good, he’s a really good player,” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said of Bouknight. “We like to switch screens, but if Bouknight’s getting really hot and doing some things, then we might lock Darryl into him.”
If Bouknight’s time is now, however, it shouldn’t matter if Michael Cooper or
Michael Jordan is guarding him.
“You sense with him that he knows what he has done for the program,” Hurley said recently. “Listen, he’s helped us take a big step as a team, and the profile he’s created in terms of being one of the best players in the country and being a potential lottery pick, it’s meant so much to UConn and us rebuilding this thing.
“But he also knows that he wants to try to turn the end of the season into part of his legacy.”
James Bouknight is ready.
“This is what you work for,” he said. “This is what you want to be a part of. This is something special.”