After dipping toes into NCAA Tournament waters the last two years, UConn men think it’s time for deep dive

After an out-of-conference loss at Villanova in January 2020, then second-year UConn head coach Dan Hurley made a promise and a warning, all in one line.

A reporter posed the question: “Do you feel like the team is rebuilding this year?”

Hurley’s short answer was yes, but the second part of his response was clipped and has circulated social media at different points of this season, three years later, generally by juiced-up UConn fans with dreams of buying Final Four tickets.

“People better get us now, that’s all,” Hurley said. “You better get us now, ’cause it’s coming.”

UConn returned to the Big East the following year and made the NCAA Tournament, ending a four-year stretch without a bid. The Huskies were ousted in the first round as a No. 7 seed by 10th-seeded Maryland and upset again in 2022, that time as a No. 5 seed against No. 12 New Mexico State.

Now, after a 25-win regular season and a 14-0 start with a roster full of players he recruited or found in the transfer portal, Hurley and his program think ‘it’ is here.

‘It’s just the connectivity of the group’

Hurley started with a core three: Andre Jackson Jr., Adama Sanogo and Jordan Hawkins shortly after last season ended.

He and his staff hit the transfer portal hard, looking for shooters that could fill holes left from the 2022 team. And, as new faces arrived, it was Jackson who served as the liaison and brought the team together in the offseason. Jackson and Sanogo, the two longest tenured on the team, were named co-captains – the first captains Hurley named at UConn.

Jackson is the vocal leader of the group. His energy, unlimited, contagiously transfers to his teammates and he is the extension of Hurley on the court. Sanogo is a teddy bear, or a grizzly bear if you ask him, and arguably the best player on the team who leads by example. Hawkins, on the other side of that argument, doesn’t talk much but his shot has helped him climb up NBA draft boards.

“Andre is just our identity,” Hurley said after a November game Jackson missed with a broken pinky finger.

It checks out.

UConn’s ‘identity’ could be described as elite defense, dominance on the glass and relentless effort – Jackson’s scouting report. And he made sure all of the new players were adjusting well and feeling comfortable in Hurley’s practices before the season.

“We’re all best friends, honestly,” Jackson said after Sunday’s selection show. “These guys mean the world to me, outside of basketball as well. I’ll never lose these relationships ever. … I know that they feel the same way about each other. It’s definitely connected and we don’t want it to end and we’re not gonna let it end right now. We need more time together.”

As well as they fit off the court, this tight-knit group has shown it can dominate an opponent on it, too.

“I just think the personalities though, at the offensive end I think we’ve got guys that will let it rip. And then some players that – the Andres, the Adamas – that are older and very confident,” Hurley said.

Joey Calcaterra, a graduate transfer who was brought in to shoot, is both. Nahiem Alleyne, another sharpshooting transfer, already contributed to the madness of March once, when he hit a 3-pointer with 1.4 seconds left to send his Virginia Tech team to overtime against Florida in the 2021 tournament. Tristen Newton and Hassan Diarra each came in to take over the point guard duties while redshirt freshman Alex Karaban holds it down at the four and has made his fair share of clutch shots. Perhaps most important is what 7-foot-2 freshman center Donovan Clingan brings as an offensive presence and a shot-blocker, allowing the workhorse Sanogo some time to recharge.

When the pieces were all clicking early in the season, UConn’s depth vaulted it to No. 2 in the AP poll and back into national title conversations, where the Huskies hadn’t been mentioned since they won it in 2014.

‘Every year is different, every team is different’

In 2021, UConn lost in the Big East Tournament semifinal and then lost its first-round NCAA Tournament game in an arena that was at 25% capacity due to COVID.

In 2022, UConn lost in the Big East Tournament semifinal and then carried the disappointment into its first round NCAA Tournament game and was upset.

In 2023, UConn lost in the Big East Tournament semifinal and then was picked to get to the Final Four by several ESPN analysts – Jay Bilas even picked the Huskies to get to the championship game.

“The overall body of work with the season has been stronger,” Hurley said. “For us it’s about the mental part. Creating the joy and the excitement of playing in the tournament and not being an uptight team. I think we were an uptight team last year. The year before, during the COVID NCAA Tournament, that was such a strange experience and it’s nothing like last year’s experience. I just want my guys to be that perfect combination of intensity and playing with swagger and confidence.”

UConn’s buzz word in March has been ‘different.’

Hurley didn’t like the way last year’s group responded to its Big East Tournament loss, so he made sure to change things this time around. Rather than watching the selection show in their own practice gym like they’d done in the past, Hurley walked the team across the street into the football facility where it was welcomed by cheerleaders, the Husky mascot and the pep band blaring the school’s fight song.

All of it was intentional. The 2023 group thrives off its own confidence.

“I think we have a special team,” Sanogo said. “We’re gonna go into this game not worried about what happened the last couple years. We want to go into this game and play the way we’ve played this year.”

It only helps that the team gets to start its run from the origin point of its energy source, as Jackson will be playing in his hometown of Albany.

Hurley’s best UConn team yet

Back in November, UConn claimed the Phil Knight Invitational trophy and emptied several water bottles on Hurley when he entered the locker room. Jackson handed him the game ball and Hurley gave it a kiss before slamming it down onto the locker room floor.

At that point, the Huskies felt unbeatable.

With the team going nine, 10 deep, the MVP award of that in-season tournament could’ve justifiably gone to four or five different players, but it went to Clingan after he scored 15 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the championship game against Iowa State – UConn won that game by 18.

“We’ve been a good tournament team, or a great tournament team early and then even in the Big East Tournament. Even as poorly as we played offensively, we still had a chance to play for that championship” Hurley said. “So I think we’ve proven ourselves to play well in tournaments.”

That tournament concluded Nov. 27, 110 days before the Huskies are set to begin their NCAA Tournament run, but Hurley is going to continue to lean on it to motivate his guys.

Regardless of the fact that the program has won just one NCAA tournament game in the last nine years, the trajectory of the Hurley’s rebuild, which began in 2018-19, is still headed upward.

UConn is set to welcome a top-five recruiting class for the first time since the ill-fated “Top Five” in 2016. This time it’s headlined by McDonald’s All-American Stephon Castle (the program’s first since Alterique Gilbert in that 2016 group) and two other ESPN 100 signees.

“UConn is at a high level in the body of work, in the foundation of the rebuild of UConn – they’re poised not only to, if they play well, make a run this year. But, as importantly, they’re built for the future,” ESPN college basketball analyst Seth Greenberg told the Courant. “When people say ‘UConn basketball,’ a basketball person, first thing they don’t think, ‘Oh, no, they haven’t won a game in the NCAA Tournament.’ What they think right now is ‘Danny Hurley can coach, those guys play their tails off and they’re a team that looks like they’re gonna be able to compete at the highest level for a long time.”

It starts with Iona

There is pressure on Hurley and the Huskies to get over the first round hump. It’s their third straight year as a favorite in the first round, this time by nine points, and even Iona head coach Rick Pitino wasn’t sure who he’d pick when his granddaughter asked him to fill out her bracket for school.

“It’s anybody’s ball game,” Pitino said in Albany Thursday. “We’ve got great respect for Connecticut, they’re not a four-seed. I think we all know who have watched them, they could go to the Final Four, win a National Championship. They’re so deep, they’re so talented. And we’re a pretty good team as well.”

This year Hurley and his staff are focused on embracing the moment, the fanfare, everything fun that comes with March Madness. They want to keep the team loose and confident, where it’s at its best and where the pressure has little effect.

“If they are who they are, understand who they are and how they win, and play as hard as they play without the burden of worrying about having to win,” Greenberg said. “It’s not a burden, it’s a privilege … That’s the biggest thing, go out and play your tails off, be the hardest-playing toughest team, but on the other hand, enjoy every second you’re out there. And if they do that, they’re gonna win a bunch of games.”