Dan Hurley‘s UConn basketball program has the chance to pull off a feat not seen since John Wooden’s legendary UCLA squads: win the national championship for three straight years.
Replicating the seven consecutive titles that Wooden won is not on the cards for any team anymore. But after once again winning the national title in convincing fashion, the Huskies want to make history in the way that the early 1990s Duke teams and mid-2000s Florida teams couldn’t. To put it simply, it’s going to be a very tough challenge.
Losing Adama Sanogo, Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson Jr. to the NBA didn’t stop UConn from laying waste to its opponents on the way to another championship. As Donovan Clingan, Stephon Castle, Alex Karaban, Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer look to turn pro, Hurley will have a lot of new faces to work with.
Hurley knows that getting back to the level of his last two squads will be tough. So he pleaded that the 2024-25 team be compared to the field of challengers and not its predecessors, according to Mike Anthony of CT Insider.
“Don’t compare where we are right now or who we’re going to be to be to last year’s team,” Hurley said, via CT Insider. “Let’s just be comparing, I guess, 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.”
UConn basketball aiming for three-peat amid roster reshuffling
A target on their backs hasn’t stopped the Huskies yet, nor will it deter their ambitions to win another championship. But it’s bound to make rival programs even hungrier to take them down.
Hurley said that the potential additions to his program “have to be serious people.” He wants to make sure he’s using his time building his next roster wisely and only considers players who he feels will have what it takes to contribute to a contender. Through recruitment of high-school standouts and players in the transfer portal, UConn basketball is bringing in some intriguing talent to keep the good times rolling.
Big-time roster additions like five-star recruit Liam McNeeley, Michigan transfer Tarris Reed Jr. and Saint Mary’s transfer Aidan Mahaney will join a UConn roster that should once again be a powerhouse and top-tier competitor in the Big East and on the national stage.
The Huskies should have a good amount of holdovers from last year’s squad plus Hassan Diarra and Samson Johnson, who have been a part of both title-winning teams. Along with them, Solomon Ball, Jaylin Stewart, Jayden Ross and Youssouf Singare — and potentially Karaban should he choose to use his remaining eligibility and forgo the NBA for another year — will have the opportunity to step up and be the next faces of the UConn basketball program.
Being able to blend homegrown talent with top players coming over from other collegiate programs is paramount in the collegiate sports landscape of today. That’s why UConn basketball is bound for another successful season and why three-peating doesn’t seem totally out of the question.
