Can UConn pull off a historic three-peat? The next three weeks will provide some answers

Dan Hurley began his postgame news conference this past Tuesday by laying a printout of the box score on the table in front of him and staring at it with disdain.

For the next 10 minutes, the UConn men’s basketball coach about a performance he deemed “comically bad.”

Rebounding? “So far below our standard,” Hurley moaned.

Ball security? “It’s been a long time since we’ve been that bad,” Hurley howled.

Defense? “The amount of times we were driven!” Hurley lamented.

“No one played well tonight,” Hurley insisted. “You can have bad shooting nights, but you can’t play like that. That’s not acceptable.”

If viewers didn’t know better, they would’ve surely assumed UConn lost to East Texas A&M. In reality, the Huskies won by 35. They opened a double-digit lead in the game’s first nine minutes, extended it to 22 by halftime and coasted to an 81-46 rout.

Hurley’s scathing assessment of his team’s performance wasn’t merely a product of UConn’s season-high 19 turnovers against East Texas A&M’s switching defense or the 17 offensive rebounds the Huskies surrendered. The infamously hard-to-please coach clearly wanted to refocus the undefeated Huskies right before their schedule gets a whole lot harder.

The next three weeks will serve as the ultimate litmus test for whether two-time reigning national champion UConn is capable of a historic three-peat, a feat no men’s college basketball program has achieved since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty. The second-ranked Huskies (4-0) will likely play six games during that stretch against teams receiving votes in the current AP Top 25.

It begins Monday when UConn opens the Maui Invitational against an undefeated Memphis team that has already toppled the likes of Missouri and UNLV. Up next is either unbeaten Colorado or a Michigan State team that recently pushed No. 1 Kansas deep into the second half. Looming on the other side of the Maui bracket are Auburn, North Carolina and Iowa State, all top-10 teams in the AP poll and many computer metrics.

The gauntlet continues after a one-game reprieve against Maryland Eastern Shore. On Dec. 4, 13th-ranked Baylor comes to Storrs. Four days later, UConn visits Texas. Then on Dec. 14, in their final game before Big East play, the Huskies travel to New York for a showdown against third-ranked Gonzaga at Madison Square Garden.

That stretch will expose where UConn stands in the early-season pecking order. Did Hurley assemble another title contender despite only retaining one starter from last season’s 37-win juggernaut? Or did the loss of NBA lottery picks Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle and fellow draft picks Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer leave too many holes for Hurley to fill?

Last season vs. this season

The way Sacred Heart coach Anthony Latina sees it, comparing this year’s UConn team to the previous one is “probably not fair.” That team completed the best two-year run in modern men’s college basketball history by sweeping the Big East regular-season and conference tournament titles with startling ease and laying waste to six straight NCAA tournament opponents by at least 14 points apiece.

“That was probably one of the best teams certainly in the last 20 years and maybe in the history of college basketball,” after UConn trounced his team 92-56 earlier this month.

This year’s Huskies aren’t quite as sublimely talented, according to Latina, but they’re still “an elite team” and still “going to be right there.”

“Are they going to win every NCAA tournament game by double digits?” Latina said. “I think that’s asking too much, but this is a legitimate top-five team, a legitimate Final Four contender, no question.”

Le Moyne assistant coach Ben Swank also came away impressed after UConn demolished the Dolphins 90-49 earlier this month. When his teams face a high-major program, Swank is used to marveling at the opposing players’ size, strength and athleticism. UConn had all that, Swank said, plus the Huskies to a man were also highly skilled.

“That was a big eye opener to me,” Swank told Yahoo Sports. That’s how you could tell, OK, this is a top-tier program in the country. This just isn’t just any high major out there.”

The return of Hurley and versatile forward Alex Karaban are the two biggest reasons UConn can dare to dream of a three-peat.

Hurley swatted aside the chance to become Kentucky’s next men’s basketball coach and passed on the Los Angeles Lakers job after a whirlwind courtship. Karaban might have come off the board as early as the late first round and almost certainly would have been the fifth UConn player selected had he remained in last June’s NBA Draft.

On offense, Karaban has gone from complementary piece to focal point without sacrificing any of his trademark efficiency. The 6-foot-8 junior is scoring a team-high 16.3 points per game by knocking down spot-up jumpers, attacking close-outs and staying active on the offensive glass. If anything, UConn needs Karaban to get more aggressive hunting shots because 8.3 field goal attempts per game isn’t enough.

On defense, Karaban is UConn’s vocal leader and most dependable on-ball and help defender. He has even blocked 13 shots already this season, a product of his positional size, anticipation, motor and knack for sliding his feet to stay in front of his man.

“He’s a very high-IQ, very high-level player,” said Swank, who put together his program’s defensive game plan against UConn. “He’s going to find ways to score the ball. You try to guard some screens this way or that way, and he’s really good at reading it and putting himself in a great position.”

For this UConn team to accomplish what the previous two have, Hurley needs his returning role players to shoulder more responsibility and some of his prized newcomers to make an instant impact. Already, sophomore guard Solomon Ball has validated preseason projections that he’d produce a breakout season, freshman Liam McNeeley has lived up to his reputation as a skilled 6-foot-7 shotmaker and sophomore Jayden Ross has flashed immense potential.

Questions remain, however, at the five spot and at point guard. Can the combination of transfer Tarris Reed Jr. and career role player Samson Johnson come close to duplicating the interior scoring and rim protection that Clingan provided last season? And can either fifth-year senior Hassan Diarra or Saint Mary’s transfer Aidan Mahaney evolve into a Newton-esque point guard capable of initiating the offense and making shrewd decisions with the ball in their hands?

The lack of a point guard who can consistently get in the paint and make plays for others is generally regarded as UConn’s most glaring weakness, but Swank argued that’s selling Diarra and Mahaney short. Diarra, Swank said, is “unbelievably solid and composed” and “did a little bit of everything well” against LeMoyne. Mahaney has come out of the blocks slowly, Swank admitted, but the LeMoyne assistant suspects he just needs more time to adjust to his new teammates.

“One that Mahaney has lacked is a scoring threat going to the rim,” Swank said. “I know he missed one or two easier ones against us. I think that will come once gets a feel for his team, but that’s something he could definitely do better.”

Chasing history

Until last year, only two men’s college basketball programs had won back-to-back national titles since Wooden’s heyday at UCLA that ran into the early 1970s: Florida in 2006 and 2007 and Duke in 1991 and 1992. All five Florida starters bypassed the NBA Draft to return to chase a second championship. Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill were among the four Duke starters who did the same.

What UConn accomplished last season was an even more audacious feat. Hurley didn’t have the luxury of bringing his team back intact in a quest for a repeat. Five of his first title team’s top eight players moved on after the Huskies ripped through the 2023 NCAA tournament.

Now Hurley is again trying to reload on the fly — and again his greatest enemies are bad habits and complacency. He’ll twist himself into knots seeking ways to motivate his team, even after a 35-point home victory in the fourth game of the season.

“Once we got up 37 with 12 minutes to go, it turned into just a debacle out there,” Hurley groused.

Message delivered. Loud and clear.