The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Freeman ‘overwhelmed with joy’ to be back
Kevin Freeman knows his way around UConn’s campus as well as anyone. He decided to soak it all in upon arriving back in Storrs on Friday morning as a newly minted Husky assistant coach.
“I was overwhelmed with joy ,” he said. “Thinking back to when I was 18 years old and I looked down that hill, seeing the UConn sign, seeing Gampel. I know probably every shortcut to get onto campus, but I took the long way (Friday) so I could take in the emotions and what it was like to get back here.”
Freeman is all about UConn. A hero of the 1999 national title team, he knew he wanted to get back to the school when he learned of Kenya Hunter’s unexpected departure to the staff at Indiana a month ago. He was happy at Penn State, where he had been an assistant the past two seasons after spending the prior seven seasons as UConn’s director of basketball administration (a non-coaching position).
Still, when he learned of the UConn opening ...
“My eyes got big; my mind was racing,” he admitted. “My wife could see the wheels turning in my mind to try to figure out how to get back on Coach [Dan] Hurley’s staff.”
Now he’s back. Freeman took in his
first practice as a UConn assistant Friday. He knows some of the players on the team from his prior stint, and it won’t take long for him to establish bonds with the rest of the roster. He’s watched the improvement of guys like Isaiah Whaley from afar, and he should mesh well with UConn’s big men.
There’s really only one question about Freeman’s hiring: Can he recruit?
“It’s hard work,” he said. “I had to learn. I kind of got thrown right into the fire patch. (Penn State coach Pat) Chambers did a great job of molding me in that aspect. Recruiting is something that can’t be overlooked on a daily basis. You have to cover it every single day. It’s the bloodline of your program. Pat Chambers taught me that. He would circle a recruit from every aspect you could think of. You have to be relentless. He showed me how to start off with a recruit and how to finish it off.”
Freeman went from never having recruited before to having to compete against other top programs in the Big 10 immediately after joining Chambers’ staff in June, 2018. He’s heard the “Can he recruit?” question before.
“It was another challenge in my life, something I looked forward to, and something I took head-on. That was the one underlying issue that everybody said I couldn’t do. That was something I really took a focus on.”
It wasn’t easy.
“In recruiting, you get a lot more ‘nos’ than ‘yeses’,” Freeman noted. “You don’t understand why you get ‘nos’ when you try so hard and you feel like you’re right there, then somebody else comes in, a bigger school, a basketball name comes in. When you finally complete that deal and a kid is committed to you, it’s overwhelming. What it does for me is motivate to get the next guy and the next guy. You want to continue to have that feeling.”
Hurley, for one, feels Freeman is a natural on the recruiting trail.
“One of the things that stands out about Kevin is that he’s great with people,” the third-year UConn coach said. “He’s a great communicator, he’s a very genuine person, high, high-quality guy with great people skills. Coaching and recruiting is all about relationship-building, building trust. He’ll be a natural in terms of connecting with people. I think his UConn experience, his UConn story, what he achieved as a player and what his experience has turned into with his life, the stories he can tell about championships and what you can accomplish here is going to resonate with the team and with recruits.”
And, as Hurley pointed out, it won’t hurt to have the UConn brand and history behind him.
“It’s gonna give him a great advantage,” the head coach said.
Hunter had largely been UConn’s point man for recruiting in the D.C./ Maryland/Virginia area. He recently nabbed Maryland’s Jordan Hawkins as well as Canadian big man Javonte Brown (who prepped for a year in Baltimore).
Freeman’s exact recruiting responsibilities have yet to be defined, but he believes his experience at Penn State, where he had to find diamond-in-the-rough players to get them to commit to a Big 10 school, along with his connections in New England, New York, New Jersey and other places will be a boon.
“Whatever Coach Hurley needs me to plug in, I’ll figure it out,” he said. “I’ve got great leaders with Kimani [Young] and Tom Moore helping me guide my way.”
Kevin Freeman, who played 11 seasons overseas, is simply happy to be back at UConn. Back home.
“I’ll be honest with you, I want to be on the staff for a very long time,” he said. “I want this to be home for my family. I’ve traveled overseas a lot. I want this to be my home, basketballwise, and have many successful years at UConn.”
RIM RATTLINGS
⏩ Hurley reported that junior Brendan Adams has been dealing with a foot issue that will keep him out of live action for a while, but shouldn’t hinder his ability to start the season. Andre Jackson (knee) and Tyler Polley (ACL) are progressing well but won’t likely start live action until October. Akok Akok is only doing stationary work right now.
Hurley also said that the school should learn whether or not Rhode Island transfer Tyrese Martin will receive an NCAA waiver to play this season within the next week or two.
⏩ Hurley has no idea when or how the 2020-21 season will be played, but believes the most likely scenario is games being played inside a bubble, at least for a while.
“It just makes the most sense to me, in terms of being able to get one site, with the protocols and the testing, where there’s a level of confidence,” he said. “One set of protocols, one set of testing that would be able to be done in one place.”
He added: “I know we’re all excited that it feels like there’s a lot of momentum behind playing in November.”