What has plagued UConn in its quest for a three-peat; can Huskies right the ship?

Michael Cohen

College Football and College Basketball Writer

HARTFORD, Conn. — In the days following UConn‘s calamitous and catastrophic loss to Seton Hall on Saturday, some familiar faces wandered into the team’s practice facility. One belonged to Donovan Clingan, the 7-foot-2, 280-pound Goliath who anchored head coach Dan Hurley’s schematic designs on both ends of the floor during a storied two-year collegiate career. Another belonged to Tristen Newton, the long-limbed transfer from East Carolina who blossomed into a consensus first-team All-American for Hurley and was subsequently inducted into the Huskies of Honor. Both players were instrumental in Connecticut winning back-to-back national championships.

Their return to campus was enabled by the fortuitously timed NBA All-Star break that happened to coincide with UConn’s nadir: a lowly three-day turnaround from one of the most galling defeats in recent memory to a must-win clash against Villanova, with the Huskies’ season effectively hanging in the balance. Never had Hurley and his team, which tumbled out of the AP Poll last week, been farther from their stated goal of authoring college basketball’s first three-peat since UCLA in the early 1970s than the sullen bus ride home from New Jersey that Hurley described as being like “a casket with wheels.” At that moment, none of them knew if UConn would even qualify for the NCAA Tournament barring another magical run through March.

But spending time with Clingan and Newton helped lift the spirits of a coaching staff that has been desperately searching for ways to cure its flawed roster. And while neither player could suit up for the Huskies themselves — though Hurley would have certainly loved it — their presence was a reminder of both the heights this program has reached and the standards its greatest players have set. Newton and former teammate Cam Spencer, another member of last year’s national title-winning squad, both received standing ovations from an XL Center crowd of 15,684 when they sat courtside for Tuesday night’s game, an arm’s length from the Connecticut bench.

“I think it gave us a lift of energy,” point guard Hassan Diarra said. “It’s been a tough couple days. Seeing those guys, seeing those champions, that championship DNA, it just gave us a little bit more confidence of remembering who the Huskies are and what we do. And we showed that in those last 12 minutes.”