The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Coach’s goal is for Huskies to play tougher, cleaner, better
This is what it looks like.
Dan Hurley repeated those six words numerous times last season, usually after one of the 17 losses he endured in his first season as UConn men’s basketball coach.
There is a certain look to a program in Year 1 of a rebuild — and each step moving forward, for that matter — as Hurley would know as well as any coach in America. There are growing pains — and occasional personality clashes — with players recruited by the prior coach. There are fan expectations that have to be tempered. Most of all, there are losses. Blowout losses. Lastsecond, heartbreaking losses. Road losses — a whole lot of those.
UConn had all that and more in 201819, and it added up to a third straight losing season at 1617, a tinge better than the 1418 record of Kevin Ollie’s final year at the helm. Were it not for injuries to leading scorer Jalen Adams and point guard Alterique Gilbert that caused the pair to miss a combined 24 games, perhaps the Huskies could have flirted with 20 wins and even an NIT bid. But that didn’t happen, and by the time UConn’s 8445 rout at the hands of Houston in the American Athletic Conference tournament was mercifully over, Hurley had the look of a beleaguered coach desperate to close the books on Year 1.
On Friday at 7 p.m. at Gampel Pavilion, Year 2 of Hurley’s rebuild officially begins when the Huskies host Sacred Heart.
Hurley has rebuilt programs at Wagner and Rhode Island. Heck, prior to that, he thoroughly revamped the program at Saint Benedict’s Prep in New Jersey. He flips programs like real estate investors flipped houses in the early 2000s, as one national college basketball writer likes to say. He has a multiyear plan — a blueprint, if you will — on how it should be done, and he’s fiercely loyal to that plan. You almost get the sense that he’d sacrifice a surprise season here or there just to stick with a plan that he knows will work.
So what is Year 2 of the blueprint supposed to look like for UConn in 201920?
“I think we’ll be better,” Hurley said, confidently yet carefully. “I think we’ll be a tougher-minded team. We’ll win more of those close games, we’ll be better defensively. We’ll look more like an organized program. I think we’ll
be a better team than we were last year. It’ll look cleaner.”
Ah, yes — “the look.” When Hurley talks about how a team should look, he’s not talking about perception or cosmetics. He’s talking about something tangible. Yet, in the second year of a rebuild, something that’s perhaps not a finished product.
“You’ll be able to see what’s coming down the line,” he said. “There will be young players out on the court flashing talent that will someday turn into great success. You’ll be able to see it, whereas last year, there were a lot of older players that fans had seen for years.”
A quick peek at a couple of earlyseason workouts revealed a team that was markedly more talented and athletic than a year ago, thanks in no small part to a prized group of freshmen. Akok Akok is the type of player the Huskies haven’t had in a while, a 6foot9 forward who can shoot from beyond the arc and swat away shots at the rim. Jalen Gaffney is a talented point guard who can also shoot. James Bouknight, a 64 wing, may be the most talented and athletic of the trio, as evidenced by a few eyepopping dunks at UConn’s First Night festivities last month. However, an arrest for an oncampus vehicular incident in the wee
hours of Sept. 27 has kept Bouknight out of UConn’s exhibition with Saint Michael’s and a closeddoor scrimmage with Harvard, and could sideline him a while longer.
“There’s not as many distractions in practice, in terms of just trying to get effort or get focus, things like that,” Hurley said. “Just a more focused group. But that’s what you get in Year 2. It really doesn’t have anything to do with who isn’t here. You’re going through your second year together, everyone’s a lot more on the same page and understands what my expectations are.”
And don’t just take Hurley’s word for it.
“Athleticism. Definitely energy,” Gilbert, a junior in his fourth year with the program, said of the differences from last year. “A little more communication this year, which I’m proud of, because that’s something we need and coach emphasizes. I’d say on the defensive end, we’re more connected. Offensively, we’ve still got to get better and be more efficient. But on defense, I’m confident what we can do to get stops and get out in transition and run.”
Assuming health, and a relatively quick solution to the Bouknight situation, UConn figures to improve in the standings this season. Picked to finish sixth in the AAC by the league’s coaches, perhaps the Huskies’ final season in the league will be the first time it betters its predicted finish.
In Year 2, UConn should be a better team. Have a better look. At least that’s how it’s worked out in Hurley’s prior two stops.
‘WE WANT THE WAGNER YEAR 2 … BADLY’
In 2010, Hurley took over the reins at Wagner, which had won just five games the prior season, and in his first stint as a college head coach, directed the Sea Wolves to 13 wins — the best turnaround in the nation among firstyear coaches.
Hurley then pulled in a strong recruiting class, and in Year 2, Wagner won a programrecord 25 games and he was wooed away by Rhode Island.
It would be a minor miracle if this year’s Huskies made a similar jump.
“The thing that allowed us to flip it so quickly at Wagner was that I had inherited guys that had underachieved but had
talent,” Hurley recalled. “An (8.8) pointagame guard (Tyler Murray) that went and averaged 17 a game the next year. There were some pieces there that really elevated their game.”
Players Hurley inherited from Ollie have already shown vast improvement. Josh Carlton was the AAC’s coMost Improved Player last season. Tyler Polley has emerged as a legit 3point threat. Isaiah Whaley put on 20 pounds of muscle this past offseason and looked good (14 points) in the Saint Michael’s exhibition.
Of course, all blueprints are not created equally. Hurley’s road to success at UConn will more likely follow the lines of what he accomplished at Rhode Island. URI was in a mess when Hurley took over, on the heels of a 723 season under Jim Baron. Two days after Hurley was hired, talented freshman Jonathan Holton was arrested for video voyeurism and
was booted from the program. Not long after that, the athletics department realized it had calculated the team’s APR number incorrectly, leading to more headaches.
The Rams went just 821 in Hurley’s first season, though there were some positive signs: a doubleovertime win over Auburn, 14 singledigit losses and just one true blowout loss.
In Year 2, Hurley brought in a strong recruiting class led by E.C. Matthews and Hassan Martin, and the team went 1418.
In truth, it’s Hurley’s third year where he expects his team to take the biggest leap forward. Most of the players will be ones he recruited. At URI, he brought in Jared Terrell (who’s now in the NBA) and Jarvis Garrett, and the Rams went 2310 and to the NIT, where they lost to eventual champion Stanford in the second round.
Of course, things don’t always go as according to plan. Blueprints sometimes have to be revised. Year 4 at URI was supposed to be NCAA tourneyorbust … until Matthews suffered a seasonending ACL injury and the Rams finished 1715.
But, after rebuking offers from Rutgers, Hurley stayed at URI and led the program to the NCAA tournament in consecutive seasons for the first time in 18 years, advancing to the second round both times. This is what it looks like.
Now, Year Two at 2. Just like at Wagner and URI,
Hurley’s first true recruiting class is a strong one, a consensus Top 20 in the nation.
“Because we’re gonna rely so much on freshmen, there will be some highend moments where we make the types of plays that will remind people of what explosive talent should look like here,” Hurley promised. “And then there will be some low points, where we struggle because we’re gonna be relying on these freshmen so much.”
The blueprint is in place, but the best laid plans so often go astray. Injuries, legal issues. It happened at URI with Matthews and Holton, respectively. Already, Gaffney has missed significant practice time with an ankle injury and, of course, Bouknight’s situation hasn’t yet been resolved.
“I’m not sure where we are, to be honest with you,” Hurley said recently. “A lot of that’s gonna depend on, at the end of the year, do we have guys voted to the allconference team? That’s always a really good sign. Can Josh Carlton, Tyler Polley, some of these guys that we inherited, can we develop them to a high enough level, and infused with the freshman talent, can we get to closer to the Wagner Year 2 as opposed to that 8to14 wins deal? None of us want that.
“We want the Wagner Year 2. Badly.”