2026 Recruiting: Colben Landrew interview (commit)

[Inyatkin]

This one may take the cake Ruff. Wow.

It'll be overtaken in a day, just wait

 

[navery12]

Unless something changes (which I won’t speculate on), I think 1 (Demary), 2 (Ball), 3 (Ross or Landrew), and 5 (Reibe) are pretty locked in as starters. The 4 and timeshare 5 are obviously the big question that I assume will be addressed by big portal splashes and then the bench will get some attention as well.

The interesting decision, which we can't talk about here without locking the thread, is what we do if Braylon Mullins isn't happy with his draft projection

 

[HooperScooper]

There needs to be balance. Tristan and Alex were quiet guys nice guys. Cam Ajax Steph even joey California on the other hand had attitude

But no tattoos. So they must have been nice guys without attitude. 😂

 

[WhereistheDove?]

The interesting decision, which we can't talk about here without locking the thread, is what we do if Braylon Mullins isn't happy with his draft projection

Yeah I’d rather not discuss that position for a number of reasons. I have faith in Hurley to make the right call.

 

[pj]

Imagine being Andre Jackson listening to this interview that makes it seem like recruiting him and getting a championship from it was a “mistake”

Andre had offense through his assists. He wasn't a nothing offensively. It did take them time to find an offense that worked with him, and they did need scorers around him.

 

[pj]

Silas has a big tattoo on his leg but nothing on his arms, Landrew has a big tattoo on his arm. If you could merge the two you would have the perfect player.

I'm thinking a PG-wing with 4 legs and 4 arms would be a real plus defender.

 

[pj]

I think we're going to have around 5 portal players. Three of them are going to have to be big time additions. A four to replace AK, I really hope it's an elite athlete forward. An athletic big to give us a two headed monster at center. A backup point guard and hopefully a guard who can break his man down off the dribble.

Yes, a second center, second PG, and starting PF are obvious needs.

Then there's the question of what to do at guard-wing, and how much NIL do we have? Does Mullins come back? Can we afford Ball, Mullins, Landrew, Ross, Stewart, and a portal add on top of the other three portal adds?

 

[FfldCntyFan]

There's a big gap between winning the national championship every year and what makes a successful season at a place like UConn. Hurley may never win another one, they're supposed to be incredibly difficult to win.

I am disappointed we didn't win the Big East regular season or Big East tournament the past two seasons and I will consider this season a failure if we end it with a disappointing NCAA tournament. I would be fine/happy with an elite 8 this season but anything less than that and I will consider the season a failure because we didn't take home any conference hardware and the expectations were so high going into the season and early in the season with the way we played in the tough nonconference. My expectations for the team last season were lowered very early whereas this season I thought we were the best team in the country before Big East play started.

Somewhere (likely another thread) I posted that winning neither the regular season nor BET title this year, being that it was clearly the historically worst version of the BE ever was a failure. I am not arguing that at all.

My argument is that some on this board are beyond unreasonable with their expectations and the offense they take to less than stellar performances is absurd.

This is not new for this place. I still vividly remember a boneyarder criticizing the 2014 team because of what little they had shown prior to the NCAA tournament.

At times this place gets as nutty as any board possibility can.

 

[upstater]

Yes, a second center, second PG, and starting PF are obvious needs.

Then there's the question of what to do at guard-wing, and how much NIL do we have? Does Mullins come back? Can we afford Ball, Mullins, Landrew, Ross, Stewart, and a portal add on top of the other three portal adds?

Many teams play small ball. You don't need to have a prototype PF.

They do need a backup center.

But if all those players are in the lineup already, then you can play with Landrew and Stewart taking Karaban's position.

Reibe + C
Stewart + Landrew as forwards
Mullins + Ball + Ross as guards
Demary + County for PG

That's 9 deep.

 

[BGesus4]

Not sure Boozer or Dybantsa have any tattoos. Hopefully they’ll fix that.

Pitinos got one but not sure what his eligibility looks like at this point

 

[husky429]

I'm struggling to understand our roster for next season. We're losing 5 or 6 off this year's roster and have what, two incoming recruits? It would've been great to have signed Abdou Toure.

I hate relying so heavily on the portal. I'd like one or two portal at most, and want them to have a minimum of 2 years of eligibility. Any insight on 2026 roster make-up (not including outbound transfer speculation of course), would be appreciated.

We're going to have 3+ portal players. Our recruiting isn't even halfway done. You need to change your mindset about roster management. High school is old news.

 

[husky429]

How do face tattoos fit in this equation?

 

[uconn_jack]

I'm eager to see how we perform in this year's Tournament performance before declaring that we need to completely change our roster philosophy.

I think it's clear that our roster is not ideally constructed for the Big East in the way that St. John's's is. We overcame that in 2023-24 by being so much better than everyone else that it didn't matter.

For the last 4 years we've generally acquitted ourselves very well outside of the conference.

If we look good again and make a run to the Elite 8 and show ourselves to be competitive with the top teams out of conference, then maybe we just decide that we're OK being disadvantaged in the BE while knowing that we're going to be fine in March.

If we continue to stumble, then maybe it's the case that we've been figured out, aren't improving over the course of a year, and some evolution in approach is warranted, both for in-conference and out-of-conference success.

Stop being rational.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

At that point though you're looking at a team that goes 10 deep. Logjam.

As we’ve seen many times, logjams have a way of working themselves out either during the offseason if a player is unhappy with their potential role, or during the season due to injury/ineffectiveness. I would be downright shocked if we don't make a big portal splash for a starting four.

 

[uconn_jack]

The results that we've seen over the past few years would turn Rupp Rafters into a meditation gathering at a Tibetan monastery, but we've got people acting like this.

Seriously, what results would be good enough? If we don't run through this tournament and cut down the nets three weeks from today it will mean that Dan Hurley will have failed at something that everyone in this sport at this level other than John Wooden has failed at (winning three titles in four years).

From the time they allowed multiple bids from a conference (50 years ago) only three schools have ever won back to back titles. There have been quite a few hall of fame coaches in that time frame who couldn't do it.

Should we aspire to being the best team out there year after year? Absolutely.

Does Dan Hurley have the same aspirations? I'd bet my house on it.

Will we accomplish this every year? There is no way that this could be possible.

I'll wager heavily that Dan Hurley knows far better than we do what this team's shortcomings are and he knows better than all but a very short list of people how to game plan around these shortcomings.

At this point in the season he can't bring in a Cam Spencer or Adama Sanogo to plug some of the holes on the roster. He can't tell Demary to have Shabazz Napier's persona on the floor and have it somehow happen.

Yes, there were a few things he could have done differently last offseason, but there is no guarantee that a few different moves would have produced a better team than what we currently have.

He doesn't want mercenaries, he wants guys who will fit with the program because he wants the program to run for years. He isn't trying to make one last ditch run at the brass ring the way Pitino is. He isn't trying to buy credibility the way a few schools with little history are operating.

I would love someone to tell me what coach's results at any one school over the past five decades would be enough to make them happy, figure out what Dan Hurley will need to accomplish over the next time however many years to match those results. I'll wager heavily that everyone here would be disappointed with what the required results would be.

To match K he would need three more titles, but have three decades to do it. Anyone else would take at most two more, with more than a decade to get there.

If we were told that from here on out, we would win one title every five years for the next fifteen years, then Dan Hurley would call it a career, who would sign up for that right now? I know everyone here wants far more than that, but in reality, that may be an absurd expectation.

I want more, but I also realize that it is a ridiculous expectation.

You're also being too rational.

 

[uconn_jack]

I agree with your post for the most part, but Tristen was not a nice guy on the court towards opponents. There were many times I would see him talking trash and not saying nice things to opponents-I loved that about him. He had the rip your heart out cutthroat mentality just like Cam did, but he didn't show his emotions like Cam. I think people sometimes get fooled by his calm demeanor which was the perfect ying to yang of Hurley's sideline behavior.

The smirk he pulled out once in a while told the story.

 

[Tenspro2002]

I think it's better to build for the NCAA environment than the big east environment. the way the big east is ref'd it's just a distinct playstyle.

This is the philosophy we're testing this month. Fairly interesting and high-stakes experiment.

 

[DogMania]

This is the philosophy we're testing this month. Fairly interesting and high-stakes experiment.

It's not like any coaching staff gets everything they want, as in all the HS and Portal recruits they want, never mind building a roster that can play and win the BE and the NC. Hurley and his staff are trying the best they can to achieve that. They came up just short as far as winning the BE regular season and BET, and who knows what will happen in the NCAA tournament.

How much of the results are on the coaching staff (coaching or recruiting) and how much is on the players responding to the coaching and performing?

 

[HW611]

Many teams play small ball. You don't need to have a prototype PF.

They do need a backup center.

But if all those players are in the lineup already, then you can play with Landrew and Stewart taking Karaban's position.

Reibe + C
Stewart + Landrew as forwards
Mullins + Ball + Ross as guards
Demary + County for PG

That's 9 deep.

I’m thinking this is our lineup for next year if everyone decides to come back.

The portal additions I can see are at backup 5, backup 4, and maybe a backup PG.

 

[karstenkibbe]

I’m thinking this is our lineup for next year if everyone decides to come back.

The portal additions I can see are at backup 5, backup 4, and maybe a backup PG.

Not maybe on the portal PG. it’s a must-get and a priority. In no world should County be our only PG off the bench.

 

[HW611]

Not maybe on the portal PG. it’s a must-get and a priority. In no world should County be our only PG off the bench.

Eh. You really only need one off the bench PG. So if we won’t trust County to do it I probably wouldn’t expect him to play next year.

He’s also kind of an interesting recruit for us because Hurley has yet to mold a successful PG who he identified and recruited out of HS. So this is another chance at that in Year 9. Treating him like Nowell or Diggins probably aren’t great ways to start the development. If that’s the case there was really no need to bring in another top 50 guard that you wouldn’t trust to play.

 

[bendm]

Diop would be the perfect transfer piece. He’d be the starting PF splitting time with Stew and he can split time with Reibe at C. Based on the rumors that were swirling this year, I’m concerned with how reibe’s camp would react to staff bringing in someone that’s going to directly compete with him for the starting C spot. But It’s easy to spin Diop’s fit.

 

[karstenkibbe]

Eh. You really only need one off the bench PG. So if we won’t trust County to do it I probably wouldn’t expect him to play next year.

He’s also kind of an interesting recruit for us because Hurley has yet to mold a successful PG who he identified and recruited out of HS. So this is another chance at that in Year 9. Treating him like Nowell or Diggins probably aren’t great ways to start the development. If that’s the case there was really no need to bring in another top 50 guard that you wouldn’t trust to play.

Yeah that’s a hard no. Silas goes down with an injury and County is the only guy on the roster with handles? That’s loco roster construction.

 

[uconngb]

This one may take the cake Ruff. Wow.

I was thinking the exact same thing

“We don’t care if you win Dan, just start bringing in dudes”

He continues to lower what I thought was an unlowerable bar

 

[3rdbass]

Many teams play small ball. You don't need to have a prototype PF.

They do need a backup center.

But if all those players are in the lineup already, then you can play with Landrew and Stewart taking Karaban's position.

Reibe + C
Stewart + Landrew as forwards
Mullins + Ball + Ross as guards
Demary + County for PG

That's 9 deep.

Ross is not a guard. He is 3 who can backup at 4 when needed. His handle isnt tight enough to play the 2.