The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn’s First Night: No hoops, all energy
STORRS — UConn’s First Night celebration is never actually about basketball, a convenient reality Friday night more so than ever because a collapsed basket stanchion thwarted plans for Geno Auriemma’s women and Dan Hurley’s men to hold scrimmages.
The event ended with an “oops” moment that sent confused fans back through the arena doors and scattering at different times across a campus that some refer to as “The Basketball Capital of the World,” a place made all the more vibrant for what did take place.
What matters most at every First Night are the sights and sounds and feelings and, especially this time around, that a student-only crowd of about 7,000 gathered, that Gampel Pavilion rocked, that Connecticut’s favorite building was enveloped in an energy absent since March 2020.
Spotlights cut through smoke wafting in the air. Music boomed. Evina Westbrook and R.J. Cole traded verbal jabs on stage. Amari DeBerry did the worm. Andre Jackson threw down some ridiculous dunks. And the loudest roar, by far, took place during introductions when the P.A. announcer said, “A 5-11 sophomore from Hopkins, Minnesota ...”
At that point, Paige Bueckers had been properly introduced in her own neighborhood after spending all of last season taking over the basketball world one empty building at a time.
The event, scratched last year due to the pandemic, was the unofficial tip-off to the 2021-22 season but it allowed anyone in the building to feel as if they had been transported into a shared basketball delirium nearly forgotten. It was wild until it was over, however incomplete. Hurley’s team dunked for fun. Auriemma’s team did actually scrimmage a bit, half-court work, pretty informal.
But the building throbbed with one giant heartbeat for a halfhour or so and that was UConn’s biggest home victory of the past 19 months.
“There is absolutely no basketball value to anything happening