The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Looking for a point Gaffney announces his plans to transfer
It appears the UConn men’s basketball team’s search for point guards for next season has hit overdrive.
Jalen Gaffney, who just completed his junior season at UConn, is planning to transfer. The news, first reported by The Day of New London, comes a day after freshman point guard Rahsool Diggins also announced he would be leaving the Huskies for the transfer portal.
At a season wrap-up media gathering on Tuesday afternoon at the Werth Family Champions Center, head coach Dan Hurley noted that the team would be looking for skilled perimeter players (a scoring point guard, along with another skilled player ready to start right away). With Gaffney now leaving, the need for a point guard is even more exacerbated.
After a promising freshman season and an up-anddown sophomore campaign, Gaffney really struggled this past season. Serving primarily as R.J. Cole’s back-up at point but often also sharing the court with Cole, he scored in double figures in the Huskies’ first three games against lowmajors but never really got going after that. By the end of the season, Gaffney hardly played at all, logging a total of 16 minutes in UConn’s final three games. He didn’t score a point in any of those games.
Gaffney wound up averaging just 4.0 points per game and shooting just 34.6 percent from the floor and 29.5 percent from 3-point range. In Big East play, Gaffney averaged just 2.3 points per game, shooting 30 percent from the floor and 20 percent from 3.
Hurley seemed to believe Gaffney would return for his senior season in a backup point guard role. Hurley talked on Tuesday about how Gaffney and his roommate Akok Akok, who also saw his minutes and production drastically decrease this season, had plenty to prove.
“They’re both at crossroads here in terms of how
the year went for them, and what they want to do about it,” Hurley said. “Guys have come back from their situation and turned it around and become starters or had significant roles on teams. Some guys have not. They're guys we've invested in for a couple of years. It was disappointing for them that they didn't play more, and it was disappointing from our standpoint because this team needed more.”
According to Vin Pastore, Akok's AAU coach, Akok has no intentions of transferring at this point.
Gaffney averaged 3.9 points per game as a freshman, taking over as a starter for a while after Alterique Gilbert's injury, and averaged 6.1 ppg last season as a sophomore. He was expected to be a reliable backup point guard, or possibly even a starting two-guard, this season, but it just didn't work out.
UConn currently has no true point guards on its roster. Andre Jackson, a 6-foot-6 sophomore, is more of a wing, though he
did man the point at times this past season and is a deft passer. His shooting and ballhandling skills need work, however, and he has been prone to turning the ball over.
Corey Floyd Jr., a 6-3 freshman who enrolled early this season and sat out its entirety as a redshirt, is more of a combo guard. Asked if either Jackson or Floyd could play point next season, Hurley responded:
“It's very important for us to build around this group in a way that makes sense, in terms of getting more skill on the court and being able to play four around one, as opposed to three-around-two. At different points in the game having three non-shooters in the game just becomes tough.
“Corey doesn't have anything he's deficient in. We can put the ball in his hands, he can play on the ball-screen. I just think it's really, really important that we put guys next to Andre and Jordan (Hawkins), or Corey or the internal guys — Jalen Gaffney — we've got to make sure it all fits.”
Ultimately, Jalen Gaffney didn't quite fit. So who could the Huskies pluck from the transfer portal? One intriguing name is Tristen Newton, a 6-5 point guard who averaged 17.1 points and 5 assists per game this past season as a junior at East Carolina. Newton scored 25 points against the Huskies as a freshman.
UConn has also reportedly had contact with Terrance Shannon, a 6-6 wing who averaged 10.4 points last season as a junior with highly-ranked Texas Tech, and Dashawn Davis, who averaged 10.9 points and a PAC-12 leading 5.5 assists this past year as a point guard at Oregon State.
Hurley did not rule out bringing in a Class of 2022 recruit, as well. New Haven's Desmond Claude is a 6-5 point guard from Putnam Science Academy who committed last month to Xavier. Since then, Xavier fired head coach Travis Steele and hired Sean Miller, who was slated to visit Claude on Wednesday. Claude said his initial talks with Miller were positive. UConn did not heavily recruit Claude.