NEW YORK – Big East coaches aren’t giving Dan Hurley any extra motivation to work with this season.
UConn was voted No. 4 in the conference’s preseason poll before the 2022-23 NCAA championship season and were No. 3 – closer to No. 4 than No. 2, Hurley likes to point out – at this time last year. What followed was a record 18 wins and just two losses in league play, Big East regular season and tournament titles, and a second consecutive NCAA championship.
Now, after losing four starters to the NBA but retaining Hurley and a potential star in Alex Karaban, the Huskies were unanimously voted No. 1 entering this 2024-25 season.
Karaban, snubbed when the AP released its preseason All-American teams at the start of the week, was the only Husky named to the First Team on Media Day Wednesday.
Aidan Mahaney, the Saint Mary’s transfer, was voted for Third Team and Liam McNeeley, Hurley’s second McDonald’s All-American in the last two recruiting classes, was picked as the league’s preseason Freshman of the Year.
UConn hopes Karaban, the cerebral forward with a dangerous 3-point shot, will become an All-American candidate by the end of the year. The only returning starter from both national championship teams, Karaban turned down an opportunity in the NBA Draft for the chance to raise his stock and compete for a three-peat.
Mahaney was part of a two-man transfer portal class that includes former Michigan big man Tarris Reed Jr. He impressed the Huskies as a freshman when they met in Albany for the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, and made a nice introduction to the Connecticut fans as he scored 17 points in the Rhode Island exhibition.
The McNeeley selection gives UConn a preseason top freshman for the second year in a row. Stephon Castle claimed the preseason nod last season before setting a league record with 11 Freshman of the Week nominations and running away with the end-of-season award.
Hurley, the reigning Big East Coach of the Year, hopes for a similar contribution from McNeeley, who he said Friday will miss the ramp up to the season with a lower calf strain. The Huskies hope he will be available for their Nov. 6 season-opener against Sacred Heart.
