New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Hurley, UConn will be active in portal
STORRS — Dan Hurley and his UConn men’s basketball staff have some work to do. A lot.
That’s what happens when you get bounced from the NCAA tournament’s first round two years in a row. That may be acceptable at other programs, but not at UConn.
“You’re starting to get over the sadness, the frustration, just feeling really, really terrible that your season didn’t go further and you didn’t accomplish more,” Dan Hurley said on Tuesday afternoon. “I love watching the men’s and women’s tournaments, but I can’t wait for the men’s to be over.”
R.J. Cole and Tyrese Martin, who combined to account for nearly 30 points per game, have announced they’re going pro. Rahsool Diggins is leaving the program and entering the NCAA transfer portal.
Hurley and his staff will be scouring the NCAA transfer portal in the coming weeks, looking for a couple of skilled players — a scoring point guard would top the list, along with another skilled scorer who could start right away — to fill out the roster.
“I would imagine since my first year, in terms of getting the right guys, this is an important late signing period for us,” Hurley said. “We have a very specific plan for how we want to attack it, while keeping our culture intact. Part of the returning players that are committing to be here, they understand that we want to maintain our culture. But we’re gonna need some help in the late signing period here.”
While Hurley didn’t rule out looking for Class of 2022 players, the emphasis appears to be on bringing in veteran talent.
“We’ve got some building blocks here that we can build around,” Hurley noted, “and some young players that believe they’re going to be able to fight their way on the court.”
He emphasized that he’d like to get back to the “fourout” style (four shooters around one big man) that he had success with at Rhode Island.
“Just get more skill on the court,” Hurley said. “Having three non-shooters in the game just becomes tough ... I think it’s really important we put guys next to Andre ( Jackson) and Jordan (Hawkins), or Corey (Floyd Jr.) or Jalen (Gaffney). We’ve got to make sure
it all fits.”
Diggins, a national top-50 recruit out of Philadelphia, wound up playing just 46 minutes over nine games as a Husky. The 6-foot-2 point guard played little more than garbage time as a freshman at UConn. He played 12 minutes in a blowout against Grambling, but otherwise never more than nine minutes in any game. Diggins only got into four Big East games — all in garbage time — and played in just eight minutes of those games.
“It was a frustrating year for Rahsool,” Hurley said. “You just wish him well. He’s a really good player and a quality guy. When you’re a young player and you don’t get a lot of opportunity to get in there, and
you’re as competitive as he is, he feels there’s a better place for him.”
“A combination of (wanting to play) closer to home, a little bit more playing time,” John Mosco, Diggins’ coach at Archbishop Wood in Philadelphia said. “He wasn’t chased out. It was ’Sool’s decision. Danny (Hurley) wanted him to stay.”
Mosco said there are a few schools who have already expressed interest in Diggins.
Jalen Gaffney is the only point guard currently on UConn’s roster. The 6-foot-6 Jackson has manned the point at times, but is more of a wing. Floyd, who enrolled early and sat out this season as a redshirt freshman, is more of a shooting guard.
Floyd tried to convince the staff to allow him to play a few times this season, but
Hurley & Co. never caved, despite Hurley admitting: “If Corey had played, he would have helped us.”
RIM RATTLINGS
Cole and Martin will be teammates one more time.
The duo has been selected to participate in the 2022 Dos Equis 3X3U National Championship this weekend at The Sugar Mill in New Orleans.
Cole and Martin, two of UConn’s top three leading scorers this past season, are among 64 players who have elected to begin their pro careers and will represent all 32 Division I conferences and compete for their share of $150,000. Each conference will be paired with another, forming 16 fourman rosters that will be separated into four pools. Martin and Cole are two of four players who will be part of the Beast Coast Ballers,
a team comprised of players from the Big East and Atlantic-10 conferences.
Both Cole and Martin have also been invited to the Portsmouth Invitational, a showcase for graduating players.
Hurley said he had a “very productive meeting” with Akok Akok and hopes the junior is ready to work hard and get back to being an impact player.
As for Akok and Gaffney, Hurley said: “Guys have come back from their situations and become starters. 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.”