MEN’S BASKETBALL Huskies hoping to be able to return to campus soon
Missing out on team-bonding would hurt UConn more than other basketball programs
Dan Hurley prides his UConn program on the family atmosphere and bonds it is able to establish when the team is together on campus. It’s something he sells to recruits, as well.
Consider this: Hurley was literally pulling into the parking lot of the Center for Comprehensive Spine Care in New York City to undergo surgery last September, while simultaneously pleading on the phone with Tricia Altieri, mother of prized recruit Andre Jackson, to make a visit to Storrs.
“He’s gotta take the visit,” Hurley told her. “If he makes a decision without taking an official visit to us, he’ll regret it, you’ll regret it.”
A few weeks later, Altieri and Jackson made that visit. Still undecided at the start of the weekend, Jackson
was “100-percent going to UConn” by the end.
“It’ll be part of his 30for-30 or his E:60, or whatever,” Hurley said. “It was a plea. I don’t think I played the sympathy card like, ‘Hey, I’m going in for spine surgery.’ But I’ll always remember the call. When the kid gets drafted, it’ll definitely be what I think about, when he’s hopefully playing in the NBA, or we win a championship together.”
The unity Hurley and his staff has been able to build within the program is palpable. It’s a big reason why no one left the program after Kevin Ollie was fired, and only one underclassman (Sidney Wilson, in a mutual decision) has left since.
It’s also why the inability for UConn to assemble as a team this summer for any length of time due to the coronavirus pandemic truly hurts the program. Yes, every program in America is essentially in the same boat. But it hurts the Huskies more than others.
“Getting another full summer, the impact of more time together as a group, the impact it was having on our level of play and the ability to win, that time together — players,
coaches, as a program — that’s where the turnaround comes from,” Hurley said. “That part of it is bad for us. There are other programs in the same boat that had momentum and were trying to turn their thing around.”
On Monday, the NCAA began allowing athletes in football and men’s and women’s basketball to return to campus for voluntary workouts. But that is merely the NCAA granting permission. Athletes are still subject to the states and, in most cases, universities allowing them back on campus. It hasn’t happened yet at UConn, and there’s no timetable as to when it might.
“It’s up to the state officials, obviously the leadership at the university level,” Hurley said. “But obviously, we’re all eager to get back together. Hopefully, things are safe enough for us to be able to get back to work. It’s an important time in these kids’ lives to continue their development.”
It’s also worth noting that campuses in parts of the country where the pandemic didn’t hit as hard could be opening a lot sooner than UConn, giving their athletes a head-start.
ZOOMING ALONG IN RECRUITING
Interestingly, UConn hasn’t been hurt in recruiting so far. Coaches are not allowed to visit players and players can’t visit campuses, so throughout the nation, recruiting visits are done via Zoom, Skype and other forms of video communication. Still, the Huskies have managed to get commitments from highlytouted forward Adama Sanogo, who had been set on going to Seton Hall just a couple of weeks before, and Rhode Island transfer guard Tyrese Martin.
“Even on Zoom calls, you can get across your manner and who you are with people if you go on there enough,” Hurley noted. “What hurts us, where we are able to distance ourselves from other places that we recruit against, when people are around the program and get a feel for the chemistry, the vibe. How hard we work, combined with the relationships.”
There are a couple of UConn basketball players currently on campus after receiving permission from the school. Akok Akok has never left since the pandemic began, since campus facilities are the best place for him to rehab his torn Achilles tendon. James Bouknight has been back for several weeks, in part because the virus was much less prevalent in
Storrs than his hometown of Brooklyn, N.Y. Josh Carlton was on campus for a while but has since returned to his North Carolina home.
But in normal times, most UConn players would be back on campus at this time, taking summer courses, working out, getting in some pick-up games and, of course, bonding.
“To have guys like Bouknight, where there’s obviously high expectations, (Jalen) Gaffney, Richie (Springs), Andre, Javonte (Brown-Ferguson), (Sanogo),” Hurley noted, “we’ve got guys that need to be doing stuff with us to keep the thing going.”
Hurley is preparing like the season will happen and start on time, though he acknowledges “it’s somewhere in the back of your mind that the calendar could be adjusted.” In fact, UConn’s schedule, normally completed by this time, is still short by a couple of games — one of which involves an event whose status may be up in the air.
UConn also had to cancel its slated week long, August trip to Italy and Greece — a prime, team-bonding opportunity.
“I don’t even know when you could think about doing something like that again, based on what we know today,” Hurley mused. “I know things change over time.”
When (if?) UConn’s much-anticipated return to the Big East does begin this year, Hurley and the Huskies will have a singular purpose.
“There are a lot of people who have done a lot of heroic things in the state,” Hurley said. “A lot of people that have suffered and a lot of heroes that are gonna need UConn basketball to do its part, to kind of raise the morale and spirits of a lot of people that have been through a lot.”