Who are the best transfers in UConn history?
The UConn men’s basketball team has a pair of transfers that look pretty good so far.
Tyrese Martin, who played the past two seasons at Rhode Island, had to sit out the Huskies’ Nov. 25 opener but is the team’s leading rebounder (8.5 per game) and brings a toughness and versatility the team needs. R.J. Cole, who sat out last season after transferring from Howard, is the starting point guard and second-leading scorer (11.0 ppg). Dan Hurley would like to see him involve his teammates more, but he’s certainly a keeper.
The early production of Martin and Cole (along with a question posed on Twitter) got us thinking about the best transfers in UConn history. It’s not a terribly deep list: Jim Calhoun famously steered clear of transfers during much of his 26-year reign.
“A leopard doesn’t change his spots. As a matter of fact, he takes them everywhere he goes,” Calhoun reasoned, recalling advice his longtime assistant, Howie Dickenman, once gave him. “If a kid is disgruntled, he leaves for other reasons, you kind of have to keep your eyes open. There’s a reason that things didn’t work out at the other place.”
But it’s a different world since Calhoun retired in 2012. The year after Calhoun, grad transfers became a hot item in college hoops. UConn has benefited from several of them, along with regular transfers, over the past eight years.
We’re also including junior-college transfers,
since Calhoun did take a few of those. It’s too early to include Martin and Cole on this list. But the early results suggest that duo could very well be at or near the top by season’s end.
1. Rodney Purvis: “The Ferrari.” After a season at NC State, Purvis transferred to UConn and had to sit out the 2013-14 campaign. Kevin Ollie famously said having Purvis on the roster but unable to play was like having a “Ferrari in the garage” he couldn’t use. Of course, the Huskies did just fine without him, winning the 2014 national title. When Purvis was finally eligible, he was steady and occasionally spectacular — never more so than in a career-high, 29-point effort in a loss to SMU in the 2015 AAC championship game. Purvis wasn’t quite the “Ferrari” as advertised and had a strange penchant for stepping out of bounds, but he’s the only UConn transfer to score 1,000 points at the school. He ranks 30th on the Huskies’ all-time list with 1,031 (even if 456 of those points were vacated by the NCAA due to program violations).
2. Johnnie Selvie: “It’s Johnnie Time!” Selvie was the national Junior College Player of the Year at Southeastern Community College in Iowa before arriving in Storrs in 2000. Always entertaining, often productive, he found himself in legal trouble after graduation. But Selvie averaged 11.4 points and 6.0 rebounds per game for a 2001-02 team that lost to Maryland in the Elite Eight. “We had a chance to get to the Final Four with Caron (Butler) and those guys,” Calhoun recalled. “(Selvie) was pretty close to the most impactful for that particular year.”
3. Shonn Miller: Probably the most impactful one-year transfer the Huskies have had, the 6-foot-7 Cornell transfer proved that Ivy Leaguers can play at a higher level. Miller was third on the team in scoring (12.3 ppg) and second in rebounding while helping the Huskies win the AAC championship tournament and advance to the second round of the 2016 NCAA tournament — the last berth for the program.
4. Lasan Kromah: Kromah was an unspectacular yet always steady presence, mostly off the bench, for the 2014 national championship team. Others have put up gaudier numbers than the George Washington University grad transfer’s 6.1 points and 2.7 rebounds, but winning a natty pushes him up the list.
5. Terry Larrier: Talented VCU transfer suffered a torn ACL four games into his debut season with the Huskies, and missed time due to a sinus injury the following year. Larrier wound up averaging 13.9 points per game that final season, even if it ended in ignominy, with all 33 games vacated by the NCAA due to Larrier’s offseason workouts with Purvis and Jalen Adams, and Ollie’s subsequent firing after a second straight losing season.
6. Chuck Aleksinas: Arrived in Storrs with great fanfare in 1980 after transferring from Kentucky. Who ever did that — then or now? The 6-foot-11 Litchfield native and Wamogo High grad averaged 12.9 points and 6.1 boards over two seasons and was a fourth-round pick by Chicago in the 1982 NBA draft.
7. Sterling Gibbs: The Seton Hall grad transfer was a solid point guard for the 2016 AAC championship team, averaging 12.3 points per game and hitting 39 percent of his 3-pointers. An intelligent, sensitive kid, the image of Gibbs overcome by emotion, crying his eyes out after the Huskies’ season-ending, NCAA tournament loss to Kansas — as if he had spent four years in Storrs instead of just one — remains indelible. Recently survived a serious bout with COVID-19, as well.
8. Ed Nelson: It still remains somewhat of a mystery to UConn fans how Nelson was the ACC Rookie of the Year at Georgia Tech in 2002. His numbers in two seasons as a Husky (3.1 ppg, 2.6 rpg) didn’t measure up, but maybe that’s because of the talent that surrounded him. “He came along in an era when we had six first-round draft choices on one team,” Calhoun noted. “But, he was certainly helpful to us.”
9. R.J. Evans: The man who started it all at UConn, at least as far as grad transfers go. The Salem product and Holy Cross grad didn’t put up great numbers (3.1 ppg) in his one and only season in Storrs, but Ollie and staff loved the toughness and veteran presence he brought to a team that won 20 games in 2012-13, despite being barred from postseason play. 10. Monquencio Hardnett: To be honest, this final spot was up for grabs between “Q,” Covington Cormier, Tarin Smith, Mike Hayes and David Onuorah. (OK, we’re kidding about that last one). Perhaps we’re forgetting someone? Let us know.