Hurley and co.’s track record on balancing development with the perfect portal additions has to be the best in the country. Did we miss on kids from the 2024 class that we wanted? Yes. But does that mean he has no other options/ is slacking off on the remainders of 2024 if he thinks they’d be a fit? No, of course it doesn’t.
I recall after the Flagg commit Hurley said something vague along the lines of… we aren’t going to go after kids just to fill the depth chart. We are UConn, we are going to construct the best roster we can. That means talented freshman every year supplemented with the proven talent needed from the portal. Reading between those lines… I think we can assume a few things are potentially true:
- He has confidence that some combo of Stewart, Ball and Ross will be positioned to make big jumps next year.
- he has confidence that come March/April, we will be able to get the pieces we need from the portal. Whatever combo of starters/bench pieces that is, he feels we are better served getting that from the portal than from the remains 2024 class.
- it has never been a well-kept secret when we are all in on a kid. We go full court press for what we want. If we’re not seeing a full court press for a certain kid, it means we don’t feel it’s warranted or worth it. Could be because we cool off on our end or cuz the kid is not receptive, but either way, this staff has a pretty good idea of how this whole recruiting thing works. They’re not going to chase kids that don’t want to be here or don’t belong here.
We probably aren’t going to have an honest evaluation of where Hurley thinks this team will be/what they need for next year til the end of this season. But I highly doubt Hurley is seeing these kids every day in practice/ is watching the kids we have coming in next year and has absolutely no plan for what we’ll need. The man is a machine. He’ll make the right moves to ensure we continue to be competitive at any level every year.