Retaining championship experience ‘critically important’ as UConn men build roster to compete

STORRS – With the roster Dan Hurley and staff have nearly completed for the 2024-25 season, the UConn men’s basketball program is not going to change any of its goals.

The Huskies want to win everything again.

“We think that this is going to be potentially our most talented roster when you look top to bottom,” Hurley said Thursday, the day after the transfer portal closed. “It may be a little bit more youthful, but on the positive side we get to retain a lot more people than a lot of other programs are retaining.”

UConn, despite losing at least four starters, didn’t have any rotation players enter the portal. The Huskies quickly filled 11 of the possible 13 roster spots (Hurley, like he said last year, doesn’t feel it’s necessary to fill all 13), and are waiting patiently on one decision.

Alex Karaban, feeling out where he stands in the NBA Draft, would be the only player on the roster who played multiple minutes in the last two national championship games, should he decide to return. The decision, a “win-win” either way for the program, Hurley feels, has to be made on or before the May 29 deadline.

“Alex has earned as much time as he needs,” Hurley said. “You hope he doesn’t go as long as Andre (Jackson Jr.).”

Hurley was going to a wedding when he got the final call from Jackson, who waited until the deadline to announce he was staying in the draft.

“I think Alex’s will be sometime after the (May 12-19) combine, he’ll have a workout or two prior,” Hurley said. “With Alex’s situation, at some point you know. Does the NBA really want you? You know. Alex I think is a really smart guy, him and his family, I think it’s a pretty cut-and-dry situation for him.”

In the event that Karaban doesn’t return, Hurley has been “laying some groundwork” so that he has some contingency plans in place, like potentially adding another forward, though there aren’t many minutes left to go around.

For the most part, UConn will rely on player development. It was a major focus to keep players from the freshman class this past season – which was ranked top five in the nation coming in – and the next talented class yet to move onto campus. There will be competition for roles across the board, but the staff didn’t want to recruit too much to where any of those young players, particularly the rising sophomores who were largely waiting in the wings last season, decided to leave.

“Winning the championships and losing so many people that were part of that, we would’ve lost the advantage of having members of a championship organization if we would’ve taken three or four portal kids and now everyone transfers out,” Hurley said. “We’d be starting over.”

UConn should have no issue carrying over its championship culture with Hassan Diarra and Samson Johnson back and expected to take on heavier leadership roles – Karaban, should he return, was a key leader last season. The Huskies also have the benefit of four sophomores who’ve won it all and are also going to be expected to make jumps.

Diarra, a senior who had to decide whether or not to use his fifth year of eligibility and stay in Storrs, was challenged by Hurley in conversations leading to his decision.

“It was obviously a leadership challenge, and then, ‘Can you go from Sixth Man of the Year in the Big East to a true driving force? How much better can you get with the basketball, with decision making, as a 3-point shooter, as a finisher in the paint, as a facilitator?’ With the level that Tristen (Newton) and Cam (Spencer) played at, obviously we’ve got to get multiple players in the backcourt,” Hurley said.

“Those guards, those are big shoes to fill. So, ‘You took a big jump between your first year here and your second year here, but you need to make another big jump here.’ That’s the challenge for him.”

He had to put an end to teammates calling him “Unc” at the start of last season for being one of the older players on the team. Now he might have a new nickname to fight off as he becomes the only graduate student on a roster that currently includes only three other upperclassmen, four sophomores and three freshmen.

Johnson has the tall task of filling in for projected lottery pick Donovan Clingan. He’s not 7-2, but Hurley thinks there is more skill to develop even away from the basket (like Marquette’s Oso Ighodaro) to where he can provide a different, still devastating, look.

“Guys like Hassan and Samson, we believe there’s another level for them to get to with another full offseason. And then obviously we’re betting heavy on Solo Ball and Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross, as well as the incoming freshmen, that they’re going to be able to help what we’ve added from the portal thus far,” Hurley said.

“We’re bringing back a lot of people that understand what we stand for, how we practice, how we communicate, what it takes to win a championship. … We were so dominant last year, don’t compare what we are right now or what we’re going to be to last year’s team. Let’s just compare who we are and where we are to other college programs. We don’t have to be as good as we were last year to win championships next year. Because no one could get close to how good we were.”