Alex Karaban suits up one more time in front of home crowd Saturday when UConn takes on Seton Hall on senior day at Gampel Pavilion. (Photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)
STORRS, Conn. — Thirty-three times over the past four years, a 6-foot-8 forward from Southborough, Massachusetts has been introduced to crowds at Gampel Pavilion.
Wearing number 11, this forward would go on to spend the seasons that ensued etching his name into history, crafting intricate winning patterns and becoming an increasingly rare breed in today’s college basketball world. In an era where players are easily enticed by the lure of seven-figure paydays in the transfer portal, this particular player decided not to move, returning twice after a pair of national championships and speculation that he would declare for the NBA before his time was up.
Perhaps it seems more fitting than ever this year that this man wore number 11, a duality of sorts that symbolizes his number-one standing atop his program’s all-time wins list and an equal place at the mountaintop of the University of Connecticut fan base’s collective heart.
But on Saturday, Alex Karaban takes the floor in the Nutmeg State for the final time as he leads UConn into what will almost certainly be an emotional home finale against Seton Hall. All good things must one day come to an end, and the farewell is something that Karaban, as decorated a player in Husky lore as he is unique to his sport’s present landscape, has begun to make his peace with as he writes the final chapters of his collegiate coda.
“I think it’s more so just trying to be enjoying the moment,” he said after the first of his two adieus to UConn fans Wednesday in Hartford, when the Huskies overpowered St. John’s. “I’m just really enjoying that, enjoying the fans, enjoying the fan energy, enjoying everything that comes with being at UConn.”
Karaban stands now very far removed from the timid, clean-shaven 19-year-old freshman who came to Storrs just over four years ago and began charting a course through an uncertain world. Now a seasoned and battle-hardened young man of 23, everything that has come with donning the Husky uniform has produced highs and lows, records and superlatives, tears of joy and heart-wrenching agony, memories good, bad and indifferent.
The testimonials speak for themselves: Two national championships, a Big East Conference regular season championship, a Big East tournament championship, a member of perhaps the most dominant college basketball team this century, and 118 career wins representing Connecticut’s flagship. Yet for all the gaudy statistics that would blow a casual fan’s mind, it is the comfort level and trusted voice that goes beyond all the numbers and truly outlines how important Karaban has been in guiding UConn back to college basketball’s elite.
“Just the calming influence of being in the huddle or being on the court with a two-time national champion and the all-time wins leader,” Dan Hurley said last Saturday after UConn defeated Villanova, highlighting Karaban’s greatest unsung quality. “The four guys that are with him on the court are getting probably better advice on what to do than those players are getting from me. So just to have that on the court with your guys, or when you’re on the wrong side of a run and you’ve got that guy just talking to players…and a lot of times, there’s a lot of players that say the wrong stuff to their teammates in huddles. But on the court, this is a guy that is truly like having an associate head coach on the court.”
“This guy right here is a legend,” Tarris Reed, Jr. added, gesturing toward Karaban. “It’s cool playing alongside him.”
All the countless big shots, the clutch three-pointers in UConn’s 2023 national championship run, the many other instances in which Karaban tugged on Superman’s cape, will almost certainly be part of whatever pregame montage the Huskies will honor him and his four senior classmates — Reed, Malachi Smith, Dwayne Koroma and Alec Millender — with.
The headliner of the outgoing group plans to take it in stride as it happens, but there is no guarantee that neither Karaban nor Hurley will let a crack of emotion seep through their steely facades. All each can do is live in the moment, a moment that will signify a player Hurley described as “really fucking weird” upon his arrival as an all-time great Husky whose impact may still be hard to accurately quantify just off all the intangibles.
“When you go out there, you’re playing basketball,” Karaban said. “But when we go in and run, we just try to hype up the crowd and really just soak in all those feelings. So I’m definitely trying to enjoy every second that I have left in this jersey, in this program.”
For one more time, the 66th time featuring Alex Karaban, it is gameday in the basketball capital of the world.
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