Motivation for Karaban, Huskies to make one last winning stand is raised as Huskies enter NCAA Tournament

Alex Karaban goes through open practice before starting final NCAA Tournament Friday when UConn plays Furman. (Photo by Jaden Daly/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

PHILADELPHIA — He has played in 145 games over his four years, won two national championships, and could very well be the last of a dying breed as it relates to four-year players who become legacies unto themselves by the time the book closes on their respective careers.

Yet for the all the times he has been there, done that, Alex Karaban is still treating this experience, his last in a University of Connecticut jersey, as if it were his first.

The final arc of the circle will be drawn Friday night, when UConn opens the NCAA Tournament as the No. 2 seed in the East Region against Southern Conference champion Furman. But for Karaban, who first tasted March Madness three years ago this week when UConn clubbed Iona on the way to its first of back-to-back national titles, this last go-round is no different than his first from a preparation standpoint.

“We’ve reached March Madness now, we’ve been blessed to be in this opportunity to play against a good team,” he said Thursday as the Huskies hope to regain their winning ways after a 20-point loss to St. John’s in the championship game of the Big East Conference tournament. “Now it’s just doing what we do best, controlling what we can control, never overlooking anybody. That was similar against Iona, and it’s the same right now with Furman. We’re just going out there and being the best versions of ourselves, being sharp and doing everything in our power that we can control.”

Champions of the SoCon despite a sixth-place finish in its league, Furman is by no means your typical No. 15 seed. The Paladins boast one of the tallest teams in the country, with a pair of versatile 6-foot-11 threats on the front line in Cooper Bowser and Charles Johnston. Freshman Alex Wilkins is perhaps the most multifaceted weapon in the arsenal, a point guard that UConn head coach Dan Hurley praised for impacting winning the same way two of his own floor generals have in Tristen Newton and Silas Demary, Jr.

Hurley is hoping to not only match Furman’s toughness, but also for his own team to assert more of its own on the heels of last week’s letdown, the second time in seven days that UConn had a chance to win a championship only to squander it.

“We got punked in terms of our effort, in terms of our will, in terms of our competitive character,” he said of the loss to St. John’s. “That’s not who we are as a program. Also, when you come up small in that championship moment, and it was the second time in about a 10-day span — with the Marquette loss on top of that — you have to rebuild the psyche a little bit. You have to remind this team, we’ve beaten a 1-seed (Florida), we’ve beaten a 3-seed (Illinois), we’ve beaten a 4-seed (Kansas), we’ve beaten a 5 (St. John’s). You have to build them up a little bit.”

On top of reiterating the body of work, there is also the prospect of playing for UConn’s seniors, each of whom attempt to win a championship for the final time in their careers. For Karaban, Tarris Reed, Jr., Malachi Smith, Dwayne Koroma and Alec Millender, there will be no subsequent opportunity to cut down a net at this level. The longest-tenured Husky acknowledged that in the wake of the Big East championship loss, and placed more of an onus upon himself for letting his teammates down, something he is taking the court in prevention of this weekend.

“This is added motivation,” Karaban said of the final chance to add to his illustrious resume. “As someone who has won a lot and played this much at UConn, I can’t do that. I’m gonna beat myself up about it, knowing that I showed up like this with the reputation that I have and I wasn’t there playing my best basketball for the team. Now, it’s just gonna be motivation carried forward, making sure that I can’t do that again. I’ve gotta lead this team to play at the capability we could play at.”

His coach took a more measured approach, refraining from some of his past comparisons to prior championship-winning outfits, but still expressing a desire to see some of the same qualities in the unit he leads onto the floor Friday.

“I would say you’re hoping that we’re able to turn (it around),” Hurley said. “We took a ’23 semifinal loss to Marquette (in the Big East tournament), we took a terrible January and we were able to dominate the NCAA Tournament two years in a row. I’m waiting to see the personality of those two teams. They’d take the court to shoot, and you’d see that UConn swagger. You want to see that UConn swagger on Friday night at 10:00. That’s what those teams had.”

“I didn’t have to talk them into winning games in this tournament, they were in the tournament to kick some serious you-know-what. I want to see that from the team.”