UConn may be resembling a championship team, just not the one you’d expect

UConn’s present team has drawn comparisons to 2024 Huskies, but more closely resembles 2023 title-winning outfit (above) with its ability to find ways to win while working out kinks. (Photo by NCAA)

HARTFORD, Conn. — At a program considered to be among the elite of its sport, it becomes standard practice to eventually be compared to past champions.

At the University of Connecticut, whose six national championships since 1999 are twice as many as any other school has won in that span, the comparisons only grow stronger.

This year’s UConn team, ranked second in the country with just one four-point loss on its record through 20 games, has inevitably been measured against the 2023-24 outfit that could be considered the greatest college basketball team of the century. However, it is actually another crop of title-winning Huskies that bears the more striking resemblance upon closer examination.

“I feel like it’s more like the ’23 team,” head coach Dan Hurley observed Saturday, when UConn needed overtime to prevail against Villanova. “There’s things we’re still working through. We were awesome in the non-conference in ’23, and then we had issues in league (play). Obviously anytime you play, as a coach, you’re chasing a full 40-minute game where you’re excellent on offense, defense and rebounding. We’re just not there yet.”

The 2022-23 Huskies were also the No. 2 team in the nation at a point, its highest ranking in a year where UConn started 14-0 before losing six of its next nine games, completing a tumultuous month of January that Hurley still speaks of in infamous tones to this day. This team has been able to sustain its depth and talent enough to win the close games it lost three years ago, but the killer instinct Hurley has clamored for still needs to be developed further.

“I think we’ve got a will to win,” he said. “We don’t have an ability to sustain the level of basketball that we need to play at both ends of the court to be like we were in ’24. I think that sometimes as a coach, that last great team that you have, you’re kind of measuring this team up against the deficiencies that we have here.”

“We’re 19-1, we’ve won 15 in a row, we’re 9-0 in the league. The season’s kind of gone great for us, but my responsibility as a coach is to be concerned about the things that will prevent us from winning the Big East regular season, winning the Big East tournament, getting to the Final Four, trying to win a national championship. We’re just not playing at that level yet. It’s late January. We gotta get this shit tied up within the next weeks or month.”

Alex Karaban, who was a redshirt freshman on the 2023 national championship team, sees the similarities then and now, and also recognizes the muscle memory and championship DNA as a major piece of the current unit’s success.

“We’re not at UConn just because we’re satisfied with being 19-1,” he said. “We always nitpick and see what we want to do better, but at the same time, we’ve all gotta take a step back and realize that, yeah, we’ve put in a lot of hard work. Yes, these games have been close and we’ve found ways to win, but we’re grateful and blessed to be 19-1, and we’re just gonna continue to stack wins.”

Once the calendar turned to February 2023, UConn only lost twice more that season, by a grand total of five points. The Huskies found ways to win, just as they have this season with nine single-digit victories and seven by five points or less. The one thing missing so far this season is the higher gear that was found in February and March, something both Hurley and his players are jointly striving to recapture.

“Just like in ’23, that month of January was bad and we just got better from it,” Karaban said. “We’re gonna continue to learn, and that’s the same thing with this year, too. We’re winning games and we’re just gonna continue to find ways to win, but I truly believe that this team can be a championship team. I think we have the talent, I think we have the depth that those two championship teams had. We’re not there yet, we gotta get better every single day, but I definitely see the vision, I definitely see the potential and how good this team can be.”