The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Back where they belong
Moore says UConn is ready for move back to Big East
Having no fans in the building at Gampel Pavilion is an unfortunate situation for the UConn men’s basketball team, according to assistant coach Tom Moore.
“Safety has to come first with this thing,” Moore told Hearst Connecticut Media during a podcast on Monday night. The new reality with the pandemic is that so many of us have had to give up essential and non-essential things in our lives. This is just another one. My heart breaks for the diehard Connecticut basketball fans, because the timing aligned perfectly with us being in the third year of a rebuild and going into the Big East again.”
UConn announced on Monday afternoon that there will be no paying fans inside Gampel, at least to start the season. Players and coaches from both UConn and the visiting team will be allotted four tickets each for family members, and that’s it.
That could change later in the season, if the COVID-19 situation improves.
Either way, Moore, the former longtime UConn assistant who returned as head coach Dan Hurley’s assistant three years ago, believes this year’s team is ready to take the step up from the American Athletic Conference back to the Big East.
“If this had happened our first year, or even last year, I don’t think we would have been ready for the enormity of it, the expectations, the grind that will be January, February, into the Big East tournament,” Moore said. “I think this year’s team is a little bit more ready for it.”
UConn was picked to finish fourth in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll last week, while sophomore guard James Bouknight was a second team all-Big East selection.
“I think our ranking is a little bit based on what we could be, more so than what we’ve actually done,” Moore confessed.
He was, however, a little miffed that Bouknight wasn’t a first-team pick.
“Based on the number of calls we’re getting from NBA scouts, I would have to think he’s one of the top-five players in the league,” Moore noted. “But, Big East coaches (say) you’ve got to prove more. James did it in another league.”
On the Big East Media Day Zoom call last week, Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard said he was “still not too happy” about UConn’s return to the Big East, and that it wasn’t good for his program. When told about Willard’s comments later in the day, Hurley seemed miffed but mused, “I’m not the coach at Seton Hall.”
Moore thought Willard was being sarcastic.
“Kevin’s a good friend, he’s a good coach ... He’s got a little bit of a style that’s snarky ... I think he was in that mindset, ‘I’m gonna be a little bit jokey,’ ” Moore said. “It was a little tricky, because Dan went after him (chronologically) on the conference call. It was sort of like pulling a pin on grenade and throwing it at Dan. Dan could have gone a bunch of different ways with it, but he sort of played it down the middle ... I don’t think there was ill will. I think (Willard) was being a little jokey.”
But he added that most Big East coaches recognize the challenge UConn could bring to the league.
“If you’re (Villanova coach) Jay Wright, you can say bringing UConn into the league is great for the league,” Moore said. “But everybody else could conceivably perceive us as a threat ... It’s another highmajor power, hopefully, that they have to recruit around.”
Moore noted that Hurley has evolved as a coach after his first two seasons and is “probably even more assured of his coaching style and his coaching beliefs.” He noted that this year’s Husky roster is extremely deep and versatile, with plenty of positional flexibility that will make coming up with a starting lineup tricky. Lately, the coaching staff has been preaching a lof of fullcourt pressure, particularly against some of the Huskies’ non-conference opponents.
He said that this year’s team is more of a “skilled, finesse group,” and that the staff is looking for someone who’ll be a “junkyard dog.” Tyrese Martin, a Rhode Island transfer, is a candidate, as is senior Isaiah Whaley and junior Brendan Adams (who’s been sidelined by a foot injury).
Moore added that Whaley’s improvement has been “mind-boggling,” and that Bouknight’s maturity has grown leaps and bounds since his on-campus arrest in September, 2019.
“Since that night, his reaction has been really, really strong,” Moore noted. “He was shook by that. He was cut to his knees by his decision-making that night. It humbled him, and he accepted every single consequence of it.”
“I think James is as hungry and focused as I remember those guys to be.”
Moore said that the staff is fully-prepared for Bouknight to enter the NBA Draft, as a potential lottery pick, at the end of the season.
He noted that the walls of the Werth Family Champions Center are lined on one side with championship banners, and on the other with banners of NBA lottery picks from UConn.