UConn spotlight still on: Clingan tosses first pitch at Fenway, talks about bonding as a new team

BOSTON – Most of the faces were less familiar, as the UConn men’s basketball team marched up the right field line at Fenway Park.

Adama Sanogo, Andre Jackson and Jordan Hawkins are in the pros, Alex Karaban, the one Massachusetts native and a Red Sox fan by birth, was at Jayson Tatum’s camp in St. Louis.

So the latest stop on the Huskies’ victory tour, a first-pitch ceremony before the Red Sox played the Mets Friday night, was an experience for some of the newcomers to understand what the veterans accomplished.

Two of those national championship holdovers, Donovan Clingan and Tristen Newton, did the first-pitch honors this time, as coach Dan Hurley clapped from behind the mound.

“I’m a little nervous, but I’ll throw a strike, for sure,” Clingan said before his pitch. “From the mound. Definitely from the mound. It’s not very often you get to do something like this, definitely a blessing.”

Clingan, the 7-foot-2 center from Bristol Central, is becoming a face of the program now, the next player widely projected to be a high NBA draft pick. With the Big Three gone, it’s on the veterans to lead, build new chemistry.

Clingan, who played freshman and JV baseball in high school, got halfway up the mound and did throw a strike. Newton, a lefty, bounced his.

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“We’ve moved on, it’s a new team,” Clingan said. “You have to find what’s going to work and what’s not. Just work together to get better every day. We’ve got a great group of freshman. This is where we bond, where we form chemistry.”

Since beating San Diego State to win the national championship in April, the Huskies have been to Citi Field and now Fenway Park. Coach Dan Hurley will complete the baseball portion of the tour at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Hawkins, a Maryland native, delivered a pitch at Camden Yards. They’ve been to the White House, rang the bell on Wall Street and Hurley received the key to his hometown, Jersey City.

“There’s a lot of people here,” Newton said. “This is something I never thought I’d do. The White House was a great experience, but throwing out the first pitch at Fenway Park is something I never thought I’d do.”

Though many like to think of UConn as “New York’s team,” because of the Huskies affinity for Madison Square Garden, they are, geographically, a New England team and were were welcomed warmly in Boston, first with a team dinner at a high-end steak house a mile from the park, and then as they gathered behind home plate.

“I was following Miami, my alma mater, and we lost (in the semifinals),” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, with a wink. “We talk about tradition. I used to be in Miami watching our basketball teams (in the original Big East) and UConn was one of the games we circled, we had to go see them play, because they were always really, really good.

“What they did this year was really impressive. They have that pedigree. It was amazing to watch them play, very proud of what they did.”

Cora, who managed the Red Sox to the World Series title in 2018, can identify with Hurley’s whirlwind offseason, and what he is feeling.

“I bet the conversations in (the Hurley) family are very similar to the ones we have at home,” said Cora, whose brother, Joey, is a Mets coach. “At breakfast, we talk baseball, at lunch, we talk baseball, and at dinner. For them it’s the same way with basketball. Dan’s very passionate, loves the game, and to get to that level is something I can’t explain. I lived it in ’18, and I still go back and ask ‘what the heck just happened.'”

Hurley is getting more nervous than Clingan for his first pitch in the Bronx on Sunday and said he’s been practicing, and wrestling with the decision to go on the bump, or stay in front.

“This is the first time, almost since Houston, where I felt the boost of adrenaline,” Hurley said. “Getting out on the field, lot of people in the stands, pregame electricity.”

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And he understood what Cora was saying.

“The elation you feel,” Hurley said, “you can relate to. The increase in confidence you feel as a leader, you ultimately know that what you’re doing really works as you go into the prime years of your career. I’ve had Steve Kerr, and some different championship coaches, have reached out, it’s too cool. … You’re just smart enough to enjoy these moments, because they’re priceless and they bring a sense of awe to your life. But the time in between is just putting in the work, so I guess your life is pretty cool if you’re either working really hard – or doing cool stuff like this.”