Summer of Abdou Toure (2026 Recruit)
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gtcam
Diehard since '65
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Second that
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Never say never, but it's starting to be definitive that we are out on Toure:
Mike Honcho
I've lost count of titles
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Lol. We've been at all his games. Also wtf is Big East Energy Network. Not giving them a watch.
drayenob
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Why do people still watch this guy?
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He may or may not go to UConn but this guy knows next to nothing. Pretty much clickbait.
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"Zanetto: The Big 12's UConn out on Toure."
Let the doom and gloom commence.
Personally, his biggest selling point is that he is local.
His second biggest selling point is that he doesn't play Hurley basketball so that he might add a little spice to the standard Hurley lineup. This is also a pretty big potential problem for obvious reasons.
BGesus4
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It’s actually finkelstein that says it. So a reputable source but all he says is based on where the coaches spent most of their time the last few weeks it doesn’t seem that we’re making him a priority (for whatever reason). And says that doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way
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Finkelstein might be the best informed basketball recruiting insider in the country, to be clear. I'm not following why his credentials are getting questioned by multiple posters here.
Mingo, Diane, Cloer and Toure were brought up by name and his only response was to say we're definitely in on Diane and not on Toure
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Was talking about Zanetto. It's his podcast. Saw that and didn't even watch. He's not informed well. Finklestein is well informed but went back and watched and he is speculating based on reports of how we allocated our coaches for one weekend. Could be that we have seen Toure a lot and wanted to evaluate other top guys we haven't seen as much because they are not local like Toure. May or may not mean something. Certainly possible but not definitive that we are out on him though.
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Zanetto already said he's not sure why so many UConn fans like Toure.... Why? Because I've seen 10 of his full games in person. Zanetto? Zero games....
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What coach doesn't like team players that are coachable and great students?
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To preface this, I think he has the league in his future. And I want him to play at UConn. And Zanetto sucks.
But I think folKs on here need to stop taking offense to any criticism of Toure. He is not a Mullins, Steph, McNeeley-level player entering his senior year at all. He's a high 4* with some legit gap in his game to fill. Hesitation from a coach or analyst is understandable.
But I think folKs on here need to stop taking offense to any criticism of Toure. He is not a Mullins, Steph, McNeeley-level player entering his senior year at all. He's a high 4* with some legit gap in his game to fill. Hesitation from a coach or analyst is understandable.
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Rare miss by Finkelstein. He's right we were 3 deep to see other guys - Hurley/Kimani/Luke. But we have a 4th coach now and Storrs Central said in their Summer Recruiting Wrap-up :
Boston Amateur Basketball Club (BABC) | Adidas 3SSB Earn Your Stripes Invitational
Event statline - 17 ppg, 5 reb, 2 ast, 2 blk, 1 stl, 59% twos, 50% threes, 95% FTs
He played in his team’s 3rd, 5th, and 6th games this weekend, missing the other 3 games. He was only 2/8 from the field in his first game, but went 13/18 from the floor, including 2/3 from beyond the arc in the last 2 games. Toure shot 19/20 from the FT line in 3 games, an elite effort both in volume and accuracy. He had his best AAU game in a while in his team’s semi-final loss, scoring 28 points on only 13 shots, grabbing 7 boards, and going 10/10 from the line. Coach Nardi was out in California watching him and BABC. According to On3, the teams recruiting him the hardest are Louisville, Oregon, Arkansas, UConn, and Utah.
Abdou Toure
6’ 6” SF | 2026 | 247/On3/ESPN Ranks: #29/12/35 | Notre Dame West Haven, West Haven CT | Offer: YesBoston Amateur Basketball Club (BABC) | Adidas 3SSB Earn Your Stripes Invitational
Event statline - 17 ppg, 5 reb, 2 ast, 2 blk, 1 stl, 59% twos, 50% threes, 95% FTs
He played in his team’s 3rd, 5th, and 6th games this weekend, missing the other 3 games. He was only 2/8 from the field in his first game, but went 13/18 from the floor, including 2/3 from beyond the arc in the last 2 games. Toure shot 19/20 from the FT line in 3 games, an elite effort both in volume and accuracy. He had his best AAU game in a while in his team’s semi-final loss, scoring 28 points on only 13 shots, grabbing 7 boards, and going 10/10 from the line. Coach Nardi was out in California watching him and BABC. According to On3, the teams recruiting him the hardest are Louisville, Oregon, Arkansas, UConn, and Utah.
We've watched Abdou Toure a lot this summer. Of the names shared on StorrsCentral right before the 4 big summer recruiting weekends (Top 100 Camp, Scholastic Live, Session IV/3SSB Champ, Peach Jam/3SSB Earn Your Stripes), Toure was mentioned as someone the staff was watching on all 4 weekends. He's the only guy listed in all 4 reports in fact (but there are some extenuating circumstances for some others like their team not playing on Scholastic Live weekend).
It's true Dan didn't go watch him last session, but the Adidas event was in California, while both EYBL and the event Diane was playing in was in the same area on the east coast. Toure didn't even play in a bunch of the games this past week, and may have been trying to skip the whole weekend, but his team was unbelievably short-handed.
On the other hand, Finkelstein is a UConn guy and talks to the program, and also is a national 247/CBS analyst and has a ton of sources around. You can hear him in the interview redirect the question about who we were targeting, and presumably he has reasons not to say certain things. "I'm just not sure he's their top priority at that wing spot" is pretty blunt, though. It could be that Fink knows something else that informs his opinion to be beyond the logistics, like that we're getting Cloer and the staff doesn't want 2 wings, or that Samuels or Howard is above Toure in the staff's opinion (and we have a good shot, Howard announced we're getting a visit) or even something that Toure told him.
It's true Dan didn't go watch him last session, but the Adidas event was in California, while both EYBL and the event Diane was playing in was in the same area on the east coast. Toure didn't even play in a bunch of the games this past week, and may have been trying to skip the whole weekend, but his team was unbelievably short-handed.
On the other hand, Finkelstein is a UConn guy and talks to the program, and also is a national 247/CBS analyst and has a ton of sources around. You can hear him in the interview redirect the question about who we were targeting, and presumably he has reasons not to say certain things. "I'm just not sure he's their top priority at that wing spot" is pretty blunt, though. It could be that Fink knows something else that informs his opinion to be beyond the logistics, like that we're getting Cloer and the staff doesn't want 2 wings, or that Samuels or Howard is above Toure in the staff's opinion (and we have a good shot, Howard announced we're getting a visit) or even something that Toure told him.
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If his vibe is he's not excited by a team in his own backyard, coached by one of the best, with more and more guys going to the league, and with twice as many championships as a the next best school in the last 26 years, our coaches just may be justified in cooling on him.
But for some, the stranger is more exciting than the people you know. Let's just hope he's not Ryan Gomes the second.......
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In this wild recruiting landscape who knows regarding Abdou but if Arkansas is a player and squid is whispering sweet nothings of big NIL and one and done I tend to think we would target a better cultural fit. I will say the kid is going to be a stud wherever he decides to go.
Huskyforlife
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Did we watch Howard more than Toure? It feels like we watched both about the same, but maybe I’m misremembering.
Cloer is clearly the 1A priority tho, even though I don’t think he should overlap with either of them.
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If a kid thinks he’s and NBA player regardless of where he goes. He may value a new experience over staying in the state he’s grown up in. When you have that kind of talent you have a million great options. Remember Clingan had his sights set the same way until Hurley and Co convinced him otherwise
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Cloer is viewed as an AK replacement. Howard & Toure are viewed more as 2/3's. It is highly unlikely we get all 3.
Going off of who we watched, I believe we watched Howard & Toure pretty equally. Going off of what people are saying behind the scenes, it seems like Howard is a higher priority for us.
For context, Howard is flying up recruiting boards and will likely end up top 10 in the class. On this summer's circuit, he was statistically the best 3-point shooter in the 2026 class by a good margin - and on high volume. The staff are beginning to view him in a similar light to Braylon Mullins, except he has a much longer wingspan than Mullins.
Toure fits something closer to an AJax/Castle mold: Extreme athleticism, long defensive disruptor, hard worker, weak shooter. Except he doesn't have point guard instincts. To me, he looks like a skinnier Coen Carr from MSU. And all that sounds quite similar to Jayden Ross to my ears. And while I haven't heard that particular comparable coming from anyone's camp (to be fair, Toure is much more fluid/instinctive than Ross), I don't imagine Hurley is itching to turn a top 25 kid into a project like that.
If Toure can change any of those deficiencies around pretty quickly, there may be a world where our interest is piqued again, but Hurley is aggressively trying to never have multiple non-shooters on the floor at any one time. I personally like Toure a lot, but that skill will probably be the straw that broke the camels back if his recruitment fizzles.
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Coen Carr is an athletic freak, he's freakier than Toure who is also a freaky athlete. Ross isn't in their ballpark athletically and doesn't play with that kind of explosiveness/force. Toure needs to improve his three point shot but he has a three point shot and a jump shot, Carr is a total non shooter. He's made 5 threes his entire college career. Toure will become an NBA shooting guard.
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I should've given more context here: Toure has said in multiple interviews that his conversations and in-person workouts with Hurley have centered around his 3-point shot. The fact that it is a question mark to the UConn staff is not up for debate.
As for comparables, no two players are identical. My above statement is not saying Solo Ball equates exactly to Abdou Toure - just as my previous post was not stating Coen Carr and Abdou Toure are identical. Nor are any of the players mentioned above the same as Jayden Ross. But each have different trajectories of how much they impact the team. Some are longer than others. Some are shorter. Castle played immediately as a freshman. Jayden Ross was a non-factor as a freshman. He was an athletic wing that likely helped the guys in practice, but played limited game minutes all year that year. Isaiah Abraham fit that same description too. If Hurley thinks Toure also fits that description (as a top 25 recruit), he and other UConn staff members have now publicly stated that is not worth taking a flyer on anymore.
But yes, Coen Carr is athletic freak.
I'm not doubting Toure will play the equivalent of shooting guard (or whatever they are calling the off-ball guard/wing nowadays) in the NBA at some point. Solo had questions about his 3 coming in as well and that skill has (so far) turned out better than initially projected, so there is plenty of hope for Toure to grow that part of his game.
As for comparables, no two players are identical. My above statement is not saying Solo Ball equates exactly to Abdou Toure - just as my previous post was not stating Coen Carr and Abdou Toure are identical. Nor are any of the players mentioned above the same as Jayden Ross. But each have different trajectories of how much they impact the team. Some are longer than others. Some are shorter. Castle played immediately as a freshman. Jayden Ross was a non-factor as a freshman. He was an athletic wing that likely helped the guys in practice, but played limited game minutes all year that year. Isaiah Abraham fit that same description too. If Hurley thinks Toure also fits that description (as a top 25 recruit), he and other UConn staff members have now publicly stated that is not worth taking a flyer on anymore.
But yes, Coen Carr is athletic freak.