Big East Basketball

UConn men's basketball coach Dan Hurley doesn't believe complacency will be an issue as the program seeks a third straight national title.

"The new players we've brought in, they're seeing the back-to-back championship sweatshirts and banners, and they want that title like they need oxygen," he said to Fox Sports' John Fanta. "In a weird way, it's a perfect storm."

The Huskies had to overhaul their roster with multiple key players from 2023-24 moving on. Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan left early for the NBA draft and were lottery picks. Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer graduated.

That's four of UConn's five highest scorers and that kind of turnover is typically too large a hurdle to overcome for a defending national champion.

But Hurley and his staff added Saint Mary's guard Aidan Mahaney and Michigan center Tarris Reed Jr. through the transfer portal. Five-star center Liam McNeeley and a pair of 4-star recruits, Ahmad Nowell and Isaiah Abraham, signed on as well.

Alex Karaban, the best returning star from last year, made it clear to Fanta that he hasn't taken his eyes off the prize.

"I want to chase history," he said. "I want to be a part of history, and as a collective group, it's about chasing something that hasn't been done since the Wooden days and, individually, being one of the winningest college players of all time."

The Huskies opened the season third in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, which pretty much tells you all you need to know about how much talent they have.

UConn has a relatively straightforward slate of nonconference games before playing No. 8 Baylor, No. 19 Texas and No. 6 Gonzaga all in succession. That stretch will reveal a lot about whether a three-peat is possible.

Ed Cooley has no plans of leaving his job at Georgetown for the now-vacant head coaching position at Virginia.

The Hoyas head coach spoke about rumors of him leaving for Virginia and reassured fans that Georgetown is the job for him.

"Zero truth to that... I'm where I need to be, I'm where I want to be," he said. "I will tell you this, this will be the last college job I have. My goal is to make Georgetown basketball powerful again, inspire other people. That's all false news, and it's unfortunate that people jeopardize livelihoods, jeopardize people. It's unfortunate. But Martin Luther King's dream will protect them too. They can dream big somewhere else, but don't dream on my dream. I'm living that dream, and it's as a Georgetown Hoya."

The rumors of Cooley to Virginia sparked after former Cavaliers head coach Tony Bennett announced his sudden retirement last week, less than a month before the start of the college basketball season.

Virginia will now have to conduct a swift coaching search to find a replacement for the 2024-25 season, but Cooley made it clear his name will not be in the running.

Cooley, who coached at Providence from 2011 to 2023, took over as Georgetown's head coach ahead of last season, replacing Patrick Ewing following his firing at the conclusion of the 2022-23 season.

Cooley found little success in his first year at the helm, going 9-23, but that was to be expected after the Hoyas won just 13 games over Ewing's last two seasons. Cooley is no stranger to rebuilding struggling programs though, as he led Providence to seven NCAA Tournaments during his time despite the Friars missing the tournament for 10 consecutive seasons before his arrival.

In his second season at Georgetown, he's looking to take strides toward returning a historic program to a national stage, but it won't be easy. The Hoyas lost four of their five starters from last season and will have to find production elsewhere this year.

The good news is Jayden Epps, Georgetown's leading scorer from a year ago, is back this season. The Hoyas also have the No. 12 recruiting class for 2024, per 247Sports Composite, meaning they'll have some solid talent to work with.

Year 2 of the Cooley era tips off on Nov. 6 with a matchup against Lehigh.

UConn men's basketball head coach Dan Hurley says junior forward Alex Karaban's snub from the AP's preseason All-American team is emblematic of a "societal issue" with sports.

"Alex does a s--tty job of drawing attention to himself. Maybe if he did more TikToks, he'd have solidified his All-American status," Hurley told reporters on Wednesday (h/t Jaden Daly.) "We value the wrong things in sports.

"We don't value champions, but maybe that's a societal issue."

Karaban, who withdrew from the 2024 NBA draft this spring, is the lone returning starter playing for UConn this fall. He averaged 13.3 points and 5.1 rebounds last season while helping the Huskies to a second straight title.

Hurley is returning to the Huskies after turning down a six-year, $70 million offer to serve as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

He told reporters in June that his decision to ink a six-year, $50 million deal to stay with UConn hinged in part on Karaban's return.

Karaban may not have much of a presence on TikTok, where his lone post is a highlight reel from the Huskies' run to the 2024 title, but that doesn't mean he hasn't profited from his two seasons as a starter for UConn's championship teams. Partnerships with brands including JBL and Dunkin' have earned him an On3 NIL valuation of $989,000, good for the 26th-highest in college basketball.

UConn freshman Liam McNeeley (On3 NIL valuation of $988,000) also reportedly has one of the 30 most lucrative NIL portfolios in college basketball.

Hurley said last week during an appearance on the Come and Talk 2 Me podcast (28:00 mark) that NIL makes him "coach harder" because "the more resources that get poured into you, the more the people that are pouring these resources deserve from you."

But Hurley also expressed concern about the impact of these NIL portfolio's on his players' drive to succeed.

"I worry about the players, though," Hurley said. "There's a sense, I think you can see a little bit, sometimes it's good to be broke. I think sometimes that is a feeling that is healthy to not have, the feeling of desperation and urgency, when you don't have a lot. Now, maybe, you get to 20 years old, and your life is pretty sweet.

"You don't want to get seduced... you don't want this to be the best you ever have it. That would be, I think, haunting for these guys."

There's a possibility that Karaban's name being left off the preseason All-American list could help provide some of that motivation for the third-year guard. Karaban earned a spot on the preseason first-team all-Big East squad but lost out on the conference's preseason Player of the Year title to fifth-year Creighton standout Ryan Kalkbrenner, so he'll have plenty to prove heading into what could be his final college season.

Karaban, Hurley and the Huskies are set to open the regular season against Sacred Heart in Storrs on Nov. 6.

UConn became the first back-to-back national champions since 2007 last season when they downed Purdue in the national championship game, and now they have rings to honor the monumental feat.

On Thursday, UConn revealed its "back-to-back" national championship rings.

The rings feature six stones to represent the Huskies' six national championships along with the Big East trophies, representing their regular season and conference tournament titles, the New York skyline, where the Big East tournament is played, and their 21 conference wins.

The underside of the ring features the scores from their dominant NCAA tournament run. On the side, the rings have "BK-BOS-PHX," marking their journey to the championship through Brooklyn, Boston and Phoenix. The Huskies' 37-3 record is engraved on the same side.

The Huskies dominated on their way to a national championship with a total margin of victory of 140 points. They downed the No. 1-seeded Boilermakers 75-60 in the national title game.

The last team to win back-to-back championships was Billy Donovan's Florida in 2006 and 2007, but now Dan Hurley and UConn are chasing more history as they look to three-peat.

No team has won three consecutive championships since UCLA led by the legendary John Wooden did it in the 1960s and 1970s. While it seems like an impossible achievement, Hurley and the Huskies seem capable.

Nobody can ever accuse Dan Hurley of not caring about the local taxpayers in his community.

A Thursday story from ESPN's Jonathan Givony detailed a time when the UConn men's basketball head coach used a rather interesting motivational technique when leading his team during a practice:

"Hurley then yelled to his team: 'You guys are stealing taxpayers' money' after a missed rotation. The quip came in between one of the thousands of F-words unleashed on his players, who are used to Hurley's coaching style. UConn staff reiterate Hurley's demeanor and his practice intensity are the same every day, whether it is June, October or March."

It's probably a safe assumption that most college coaches aren't invoking the use of taxpayers' money as a motivational tool, even in the era of name, image and likeness donations.

But Hurley isn't like most college coaches.

His demeanor on the sidelines is intense to say the least, and he rarely hesitates to let officials, the media and, apparently, his players know how he feels. It surely doesn't sit well with everyone, but it is also impossible to argue against his success.

After all, the Huskies enter the 2024-25 campaign as back-to-back national champions. They were especially dominant last season while going 37-3 overall and winning every game in the Big Dance by double digits, including the national title contest against Purdue.

They also figure to be among the top title contenders again during the upcoming season and checked in at No. 3 in ESPN's early Top 25 rankings last month.

All that recent success caught the interest of the NBA, and the Los Angeles Lakers made a push for Hurley this offseason after firing head coach Darvin Ham.

However, he ultimately turned down a six-year, $70 million offer from the Lakers that would have made him one of the NBA's six highest-paid coaches, per former NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski.

Had Hurley taken the Lakers job, he may have needed to adjust his approach during practices. After all, it is difficult to envision yelling about taxpayers' money working when interacting with the likes of LeBron James or Anthony Davis.

But it is working at the collegiate level, and he will be chasing yet another championship this season.

One of the top-ranked players in the country out of the Class of 2025 has made his collegiate commitment.

Per 247Sports' Travis Branham, Darius Adams from La Porte, Indiana, has committed to Dan Hurley and the back-to-back national champion UConn.

Adams is considered to be the No. 19 player nationally, the No. 4 shooting guard in the country and the No. 2 player out of the state of Indiana by 247Sports Composite.

Adams held offers from plenty of top-ranked programs but ultimately was down to three schools with legendary coaches in Hurley's UConn, Tom Izzo's Michigan State and Rick Barnes' Tennessee.

After visits to all three schools, he decided Hartford was the best place for him.

"I would just say being around the guys and the coaching staff," Adams said, per Branham. "It was never like I didn't want to be around them, it never got boring. I really wanted to stay there, I really wanted to practice."

Adams marks the first commit for the Huskies for the Class of 2025, but plenty of top players are likely to follow if UConn can have similar success to its 2023-24 season. As for the Class of 2024, UConn boasts the No. 6 recruiting class, according to 247Sports, highlighted by Liam McNeeley, a 5-star prospect out of Montverde Academy in Florida.

After winning another championship last season, Hurley had the chance to walk away from the collegiate ranks but rejected a six-year, $70 million offer from the Los Angeles Lakers to stay at UConn.

He was later rewarded by the school with a six-year, $50 million contract.

After an offseason that proved his commitment to the Huskies, Hurley is looking to lead UConn to a third consecutive championship, which would be the first three-peat since John Wooden's legendary UCLA teams won seven in a row from 1968 to 1973.

Caitlin Clark still has some ties to the college basketball landscape.

Clark's boyfriend, Connor McCaffrey, has been officially hired as an assistant coach for Butler's men's basketball team. Following the news, Clark took to Instagram to celebrate McCaffery's hiring.

Clark posted a story to her Instagram page of McCaffery's official hiring announcement and captioned it "Yayyy!!! So happy for you ❤️."

Clark is in the midst of a strong rookie campaign for the Indiana Fever, averaging 19.5 points, 8.4 assists and 5.7 rebounds while leading the Fever to a 20-19 record. This comes after a prolific collegiate career at Iowa where she was a four-time All-American, two-time Player of the Year and led her Iowa Hawkeyes to back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball National Championship game.

McCaffery played for the Hawkeyes men's team and appeared in 166 games across six seasons. He averaged 4.5 points, 3.2 assists and three rebounds in his collegiate career.

He now joins the staff of a Butler team that is coming off an 18-15 season and has not reached the NCAA Tournament since the 2017-18 season.

A 25-year-old man has been arrested and charged with burglary, petit larceny, trespassing and possession of stolen property after allegedly stealing a ceremonial sword and bullhorn from St. John's men's basketball head coach Rick Pitino's office at Carnesecca Arena in New York City, per the Associated Press.

The New York Police Department revealed Saturday that Emanuel Yakubov was arrested on Friday, one day after surveillance footage showed two men walking down an arena hallway with the sword and bullhorn in hand. The second suspect is at-large, police said.

Police said that the alleged crime took place on Tuesday evening after two people entered the athletics department offices "without authorization" and took numerous items before leaving campus on a moped.

According to Joe Marino, Carl Campanile and Matt Troutman of the New York Post, Pitino's office was robbed of $375 of memorabilia and goods.

Pitino confirmed that a bottle of wine was stolen as well.

Pitino has won two national championships during his storied collegiate coaching career. He has also guided teams to seven Final Fours.

Pitino has coached Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and St. John's. He joined the Red Storm in 2023 and led the team to a 20-win campaign.

St. John's University men's basketball head coach Rick Pitino's office at Carnesecca Arena was robbed of $375 of memorabilia and other goods on Tuesday.

New York City Police Department sources relayed that news to Joe Marino, Carl Campanile and Matt Troutman of the New York Post. The goods includes a basketball and a bullhorn.

An upset Pitino confirmed he was robbed and added that a bottle of wine was stolen as well.

Pitino's office is a floor above the basketball court at Carnesecca Arena, where St. John's plays in Jamaica, Queens, New York.

The university's athletics department released a statement on the matter: "The University shared surveillance footage with the NYPD and is assisting in the ongoing investigation."

The 71-year-old Pitino is a two-time NCAA national champion who has also led his teams to seven Final Fours.

His collegiate career includes stops as head coach at Boston University, Providence, Kentucky, Louisville, Iona and St. John's. Pitino also coached the New York Knicks (1987-1989) and Boston Celtics (1997-2001) as well.

St. John's won 20 games in Pitino's first season and declined an NIT bid after an NCAA tournament snub.

Pitino is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.