STORRS — Dan Hurley’s philosophy in recruiting changed after the UConn men’s basketball team had its season ended by New Mexico State in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
Since that point, he and his staff have sought out and gone after more polished offensive players and loaded their roster with shooters year after year.
“We recruit really good offensive players now and we force them to play defense,” Hurley said. “We force them to rebound the ball like it’s a life-or-death proposition, because ball possession represents life in my mind.”
The Huskies’ 2025 recruiting class, still growing, fits the mold.
Darius Adams, a 6-foot-5 guard, has multidimensional scoring ability. Eric Reibe, a 7-foot center, can shoot 3s and score over defenders in the post.
UConn is also among the top three schools for five-star guard Braylon Mullins who, at 6-5, is described as “one of the best long-range shooters in the country” by 247Sports Director of Scouting Adam Finkelstein. Mullins will choose between UConn, Indiana and North Carolina at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
Those types of players – like Jordan Hawkins or Cam Spencer or Tristen Newton – have proven to be assets for the Huskies, who’ve been coached into a juggernaut on both ends of the court during the last two NCAA Championship runs.
Through trial and error, Hurley has learned what works.
“It’s hard to win championships and it’s hard to win a tournament like the NCAA Tournament unless you can score,” he said. “It’s hard to get out of the first round if you’re in a rock fight, because you feel enormous pressure in the first round of NCAA Tournament games when you coach at UConn. The best way to mitigate that is to have a high-power offense that can go on runs… to blow up a game because you’ve got firepower.”
Since coming to that conclusion and evolving UConn’s offensive system, success and access to recruits has followed. One of the reasons Hurley says he turned down the NBA this summer was because he likes to pick his players, and he has never had more of an ability to do that than he does now.
“We have way more access with recruiting now. We can recruit the best players. Everyone wants UConn on their list, the top players, everyone wants us to recruit them right now because our level of basketball is the best level of basketball in college and people love the way we play,” Hurley said.
That doesn’t mean, however, that UConn wants to recruit all of the top-ranked players. It has to be the right culture fit, and it can’t be about Name, Image and Likeness compensation.
“We’re selective, and we’re not exactly what everyone is looking for in terms of the workload, the accountability piece, the commitment that you have to make to the team with us. It’s not for everyone, so we don’t recruit everyone,” Hurley said. “It’s a pretty strong filter. The way that we do things is a pretty strong filter for us.”
