THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
When the University of Connecticut won the NCAA men's basketball championship on April 4th (note March Madness now extends into April, because this is America and More Is Always Better!) it was their fifth such title since 1999 - under three different coaches - the most of any college team in that span. While all their wins may have been unlikely in some senses, this one was certainly the most unexpected. UConn's men's basketball is not like their women's teams. The women have won 11 titles since 1995, all under Geno Auriemma, who vies with UCLA's John Wooden as the most successful college basketball coach ever and who made it to the Sweet Sixteen of the women's tournament despite an injury-riddled season whose losses included the reigning NCAA player of the year Paige Beuckers.
UConn's men have almost always been underdogs. The NCAA seemed to dislike their brash coach Jim Calhoun, who nonetheless won their first three titles: in those days they clawed their way out of the old Big East conference, fighting Syracuse and Georgetown, then had to play second fiddle to the media's popular enthusiasm for Duke and the Atlantic Coast Conference (to which Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Boston College eventually defected). After Calhoun retired, former UConn star Kevin Ollie replaced him and in 2014 they became the first regional seventh seed to win the championship. But a year after their first losing season in 30 years, Ollie was fired for “just cause”, as a result of a wide-spread NCAA investigation which in the end didn't punish the program; Ollie claimed it was a ploy to get out from under his contract.
The new coach was Dan Hurley, who played for Seton Hall against UConn, as did his NBA -bound brother Bobby; they're the sons of legendary New Jersey high school coach Bob Hurley. Dan was hired away from the University of Rhode Island in 2018, and took three seasons to qualify for the NCAA tourney; in both 2021 and 2022 they were eliminated in the first round. He knew he needed to make changes, and it's instructive to see what he did to turn a 23-10 team that flopped in post-season, into a 31-8 squad that won the national championship.
I'll confess an interest: I root for UConn for three reasons.
First, I'm from Connecticut, and my father went to UConn, where he played football, and basketball played at Storrs is a statewide obsession.
Second, Connecticut is a basketball state: when I was a kid we dominated the New England high school tournament; UConn dominated the Yankee conference; in 1964, led by Toby Kimball, they went to the NCAA regional finals and beat Bill Bradley's Princeton, then lost to Duke (of course, the games were played in Raleigh, North Carolina). The next year, with an even better team, they lost to St Joseph’s in a game played at Philadelphia's Palestra.
And finally, Connecticut is the only college I know of whose nickname is a play on words: the Huskies. Huskies have nothing to do with Connecticut, but UConn Huskies, Yukon Huskies. Geddit? It's as if Elon College called their teams the Gators.
Anyway, Hurley addressed his team's needs in what the NCAA euphemistically calls the ‘Transfer Portal’ but is really a free-agency meat-market in which players can transfer without losing eligibility; in fact, due to the Covid years, and if a player is working on a grad degree, they can even extend their eligibility.
Hurley's 2021-22 team was built around center Adama Sanogo, a strong 6-9 player from Mali, via two US schools. His best support came from two shooting guards, Jordan Hawkins from the famous DeMatha High School programme in suburban DC, and Andre Jackson from Albany (NY) Academy, a slasher, not an outside shooter, who could act as a small forward too. Hurley knew he needed a point guard, outside shooting, and defensive depth. He activated the portal and came out with four players. The most important was Tristen Newton, 6-5 point guard who'd played three years at East Carolina. Nahiem Alleyne was a 6-4 guard from Virginia Tech and Joey Calcaterra was a 6-3 shooting guard who'd had four seasons at the University of San Diego. Hassan Diarra, who at 6-2 could play either guard spot, came from Texas A&M, was the only one who came in with a second year of eligibility for the Huskies.
In the normal recruiting process, Hurley added two front court freshmen: Alex Karaban, a 6-8 forward from Southborough, Mass, who went from Algonquin Regional high school to New Hampton prep in New Hampshire, to the IMG Academy, a sort of basketball finishing school in Florida. The other was 7-2 center Donovan Clingan, from Bristol Central High School in Connecticut: no prep schools, no IMG, an actual in-state recruit who was undervalued as he was still very raw.
By the end of the season, Hurley was using a nine-man rotation. Sanogo played the fewest average minutes (26.5), mostly due to foul trouble in big games, but led the team in scoring (17.2 points per game and 7.7 rebounds). Hawkins averaged 16.2 scoring; he, Newton, Jackson and Karaban all averaged around 29 minutes each game; Alleyne 18, Calcaterra 14.5, while Diarra and Clingan got 13 apiece. Karaban's quick adjustment to college ball helped, but the flexibility afforded by the group of tall guards allowed great defensive pressure, and the improved outside shooting made defenses cautious about collapsing on Sanogo. The tenth man was 6-10 sophomore Samson Johnson, from Togo; the eleventh was a walk-on from Glastonbury, Connecticut, Andrew Hurley, the coach's son.
The Huskies started 14-0. While some of those games came against cupcakes like Stonehill College, Buffalo, Delaware State, Boston U and UNC Wilmington, they beat Alabama, who wound up the season ranked first in the polls, along with Oregon, Iowa State, Florida and their opening Big East game against Georgetown. By Christmas they were ranked number two in the country. Then, on New Year's Eve, they lost to Xavier, followed by four of their next five, all to other Big East teams. After a win against Butler and a second loss to Xavier, their record stood at 16-6; they were down to 24th in the top 25. They went on an 8-1 run to end the regular season, finishing fourth in the Big East, and ranked tenth overall. In the Big East tournament they beat Providence but lost in the semi-final to Marquette, who beat Xavier in the final. We should note that the new Big East is more Big-Eastish, as half the league is west of the Allegheny River, including Butler (Indianapolis), Creighton (Omaha) De Paul (Chicago) along with the already mentioned teams in Milwaukee and Cincinnati. Television money does amazing things with college sports geography and arithmetic: USC and UCLA in the Big Ten, which now has 16 teams?
UConn thus entered the NCAA tournament 25-8 and eleventh in the country. The unusual thing about their season was that all eight losses had come within the Big East; they were unbeaten everywhere else. Was it the traditional physicality of the Big East? Or was it getting used to playing more intense defensive opposition? As it was, they stood 0-2 against Xavier, 15th in the final polls, and 1-2 versus number six Marquette. So UConn got shipped out to the West Regional where they received the fourth seed.
Being under-seeded may have been a blessing. This was a tough tournament for high seeds: in the South top seed Alabama was beaten in the regional semi-final by fifth seed San Diego State (NCAA geography, remember?). Previously, second seed Arizona had been upset by 15-seed Princeton in the opening game. Princeton would eventually lose to Creighton, from the Big East, who lost to SDSU for a place in the Final Four. A day after beating Arizona, Princeton's win wasn't even any longer the biggest upset by a team from New Jersey, as 16-seed Farleigh-Dickson knocked out the East's top-seed Purdue in what might have been the biggest tourney upset ever (the NCAA should have shipped FDU to the West Regional!). FDU was then beaten by ninth-seed Florida Atlantic, who beat fourth seed Tennessee and third-seed Kansas to reach the Final Four. Finally, in the Mid-West, top seed Houston was beaten by fifth-seed Miami, who beat second seed Texas for their spot in the Finals.
Meanwhile in the West Regional in Las Vegas, eighth seeded Arkansas upset top seed Kansas, and number three seed Gonzaga beat number two seed UCLA. UConn had beaten 13 seed Iona by 24 points, fifth seed St Mary's (ranked 19th in the polls) by 15, then disposed of Arkansas by 23 and finally Gonzaga (ranked ninth in the country, two spots ahead of them) by 28. You might argue Arkansas and Gonzaga were caught in the hangover from their big wins, or you might say the Huskies ran both teams ragged early in their games and shot well enough to build on those leads.
The lineup in Houston therefore favored UConn, as much as the media didn't want to face it. Weirdly, the Huskies had never lost an NCAA playoff game in the state of Texas. They drew Miami, ranked 16th in the final polls, and for the first time in the tourney had trouble early, but put on a last quarter burst that saw them win by 13. San Diego State (ranked 18 overall) squeaked by FAU to set up the final. UConn stopped the Aztecs early, led 36-24 at the half, and rode to a 76-59 win. Newton, penetrating easily, scored 19, had 10 rebounds and four assists; Sanogo had 17 and 10, while Hawkins scored 16. The Huskies won their six tournament games by an average of 20 points; the biggest margin in history, and finished the year 31-8.
It's not like John Wooden's days, when players stayed four years and the tournament kept you in your region until the Final Four. College basketball got used to the “one and done” recruiting process: Rick Pitino at Kentucky, for example, would bring in four new freshmen every year who could start immediately; Mike Krzyzewski at Duke could do the same but persuade some players not to declare for the NBA draft after a single season. The NCAA became a revolving door for players whose high school careers were most meaningful in prep schools that recruited across the country or AAU teams that played in the high school off-season. As with many sports, overseas recruitment has become crucial; one of the reasons you can expect French pro player Victor Wembanyama to go first overall in this year's NBA draft is that, just turned 19, he's already been playing against grown pros in France's top league; at 7-2 with great skills, he a generational player.
But the portal has changed the way the game is played. Coaches who lose players to the NBA or can't recruit enough top-flight ones or develop the ones they have, can turn to other teams' players. You can argue Dan Hurley used the portal to rebuild his team in a few months, but it's worth noting San Diego State owed their deep run to top scorer Matt Bradley, originally from Cal-Berkeley, point guard Darrion Trammell, a transfer from Seattle, guard Micah Parrish, from Oakland U. Another portal gem, forward Jaedon Ledee, had played previously at Ohio State and TCU.
Only weeks after March Madness ended, nearly 1,000 college men had entered the portal, and almost 200 had committed to other universities, perhaps not even seeing out their final semester in classes. One of the biggest stories came from the University of Kentucky, where 7-0 Nigerian Ugonna Onyenso, who came to Connecticut's Putnam Science Academy from the Nigerian NBA development programme, and played for the Wildcats this year, entered the transfer portal on 4 April, only to recommit to Kentucky a week later. This came after Kentucky's wheeler-dealer coach John Calipari had signed Aaron Bradshaw, another seven-footer and a five-star high school prospect from Camden New Jersey. But reports from Kentucky indicated that the reason for Onyenso's brief departure came from his “camp”, in a dispute over NIL money due.
Yes, his “camp” - agents and advisors. NIL stands for Name, Image and Likeness, for which the NCAA now allows players to be reimbursed. This includes everything from doing local ads to jerseys sold by licensed apparel companies to the player's image being used in a video game. And obviously, they are biddable, because a program at a university with wealthy boosters, or in an area of media dominance, can offer a lot. In NCAA football, where more than 2,000 players have entered, you can find out how much money a player is talking about; Travis Hunter, a receiver from Jackson State who followed coach Deion Sanders to Colorado, is listed at $1.7m, while Sanders' quarterback son Shedeur, who did the same, comes in at $1.5m, and younger son Shilo Sanders, a defensive back, collects a measly $605,000. The biggest payday for a non-Sanders recruit is quarterback Sam Hartman from Wake Forest, who will collect $1.1m for one year's free agency at Notre Dame.
What can UConn fans expect next season? As with a Super Bowl win, the odds are very much against a repeat. Not only is it hard to keep a team together, but in a winning season so many things have to go right, even if they do so only at the right time. Hurley addressed the future by telling reporters “we don't want a kid to pick my school because we matched an NIL offer or gave the best offer. I want kids to come to UConn because they want to play for me.” When asked how they'd compete, he said “we're still going to do it with high school recruits that we are going to develop over the course of time, and supplement these guys with transfers out of the portal.”
Hurley's work will be cut out for him right away, as Hawkins, his best scoring guard, has already declared for the NBA draft, rather than return for his junior year. He's likely a day two prospect. Sanogo hasn't yet decided; he's not a top of round one prospect either, as his game is more back to the basket and strength, but having won a championship, he may feel it's not worth the risk of injury. Three of the four portal products will be gone, but Diarra returns.
Hurley's freshman class last year included Karaban and Clingan, but also Yarin Hasson, a 6-9 forward from Israel, and Apostolos Roumoglou, a 6-7 small forward from Greece. This year he signed a group of five highschoolers who have been ranked in the top five recruiting classes. The top recruit is Stephon Castle from Georgia, a 6-6 combo-guard ranked the fifth best in the country. Small forward Jaylin Stewart, at 6-6, was ranked the best player in the state of Washington. Solomon Ball, a 6-3 shooting guard and Jayden Ross a 6-7 small forward are both from Virginia, but were teammates at St James in Sharpsburg, Maryland (better-known as the site of the battle of Antietam). Ball finished at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro New Hampshire; Ross at Long Island Lutheran. The group is completed by Malian center Youssouf Singare, a seven footer who played on Mali's under 16 team, then at Bella Vista Prep in Arizona and finally at Our Saviour Lutheran in the Bronx.
Big time high school basketball is a big-time business, and these kids will be well-traveled, and likely well-rewarded, by the time they start playing in Storrs. Castle, Stewart, Ross, Ball & Singare have already been labelled the new “Fab Five”.
But it's worth remembering that the original Fab Five at the University of Michigan, which included Chris Webber, Juwan Howard and Jalen Rose, became the first team to start five freshmen in the 91-92 NCAA tournament. But they lost in the finals to Duke, and the next year to North Carolina (in the game where Webber got a crucial technical foul for calling time out when the team had none left). They never won a title.
