When Dan Hurley had a two-day window after last season ended where he thought about retiring from coaching and getting into television analysis, it was Jaylin Stewart and Solo Ball having no interest in negotiating their NIL value that brought him back.
Ball started, and was a star, in all 35 games last season. He was going to be back in the starting lineup as a main focal point and part of the “Big Three” on this year’s team. But Stewart, who saw little action along the way to a national championship his freshman year and made 12 starts as Liam McNeeley recovered from his ankle injury last season, could’ve understandably moved on for a bigger, starting role – and probably a significant pay day – at another high-major program.
Entering this season with another future first round NBA Draft pick, Braylon Mullins, coming in at his position, Stewart understood that he would find himself in a similar situation.
So when Mullins, now recovered from ankle and knee injuries, made his debut in the starting lineup against Texas Friday night, Stewart was ready and willing to make the most of his return to the reserves.
He scored 10 points, made a number of plays on the defensive end and put together an all-around performance over 18 minutes that warranted the first praise in Hurley’s opening statement:
“He wins the game for us,” Hurley said. “We go Braylon to start the game, and the guy’s just such an incredible UConn guy, he’s one of the most selfless, best human beings I’ve ever coached and obviously an incredibly talented player. I just thought his performance here, 3-for-5, 10 huge points, his activity defensively, we win that game and we’re where we’re at as a program because of men like Jaylin.”
It was the fourth game in double-figures for Stewart this season and he’s come through in high-profile matchups where the Huskies needed him, like the games against Arizona and Florida.
“I screwed up the last game with him, not getting him back in in the Florida game where he played well, but this is a deep team,” Hurley said. “Jaylin is, I think this guy’s got a chance to be an NBA player. Your career is a marathon, not a sprint. His best basketball is still ahead of him, he’s still a baby – I mean, he’s still young for being at this point in college. I can’t tell you how big of a heart he has for UConn, how much he cares about his team and his teammates and how much that just does for the organization. I mean, the guy’s an awesome player.”
No. 5 UConn men complete nonconference gauntlet with 71-63 win over Texas
“I feel like my whole career I’ve just been an unselfish player,” Stewart said. “I just want to see my teammates win at the end of the day, so that’s kind of what you see from me, just trying to be the same guy every day for my team… Honestly, I’m ready to do whatever for this team to win. That’s the main goal at the end of the year, just to get another championship.”
Stewart is averaging career-highs across the board with 6.7 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 22.9 minutes per game so far this season. He understands his role, doesn’t force anything and will continue to play “starter minutes,” Hurley said, whether he starts or not, with the coaching staff looking to run more plays for him when he’s in the game. The greatest strength of this UConn team, which it shares with the 2023 and 2024 national championship teams, is the number of players who can impact it.
“He’s one of the most unselfish guys, in general, that I’ve ever been around,” said captain Alex Karaban, who’s served as a mentor for Stewart and several other players as a mainstay in the starting lineup over the last four years. “We’re blessed to have Stewie as a teammate just being a part of UConn and just, I mean, every single night he’s going out there to help the team out. He doesn’t care about himself, he doesn’t care about the shots he takes or when he scores, he just wants to make winning plays. And Stewie, he’s grown ever since his freshman year but ever since he was a freshman to now he’s always cared about the team and being unselfish. That’s a rare trait that you could find in college athletes today.”
“That’s very nice,” Stewart said under his breath, seated to Karaban’s left.
Sean Miller’s assessment of the Huskies, Karaban
Sean Miller has been through it with UConn over his last three years at Xavier and now Texas, and expressed his respect for Hurley and the Huskies’ program on a number of occasions.
“First year at Xavier, they won a national championship, they were good, they got great at the end. Year Two, that’s the best college team that I’ve ever seen. I put them up there with Coach K’s teams, they were just incredible, that second team. And then last year, maybe not as good as the first two, and I would say this year, maybe more on par with that first team that I coached against,” Miller said. “I don’t know if you can build that second team again. That one right there was amazing.”
As for Karaban, who had a game-high 18 points and hit the dagger 3-pointer in the end, Miller didn’t know what he could say that he hasn’t said already.
“I’m the new coach at Texas and there’s high expectations at the University of Texas in every sport, and it’s a big reason why I wanted to go to Texas, to try to see if we can compete for the top prize in our game. When you do that, you have to get a guy like Alex Karaban,” Miller said.
“There’s a lot of amazing things that Danny and his staff have done under their direction building UConn into what it is today, but I don’t think there’s been one decision any bigger than getting Alex Karaban, recruiting him, getting him and having him with them for four years. He’s just a winner and he fits their system so well that there’s just a lot of things that they can do because of his uniqueness as a player. I’ve already said every compliment that I possibly have in my body about Alex, and you can just kind of go back through the history of the different things that I’ve said, but I would be surprised at one point in his career if his number’s not retired based on the impact that guy’s had here. It’s incredible. And the shot he made tonight was the biggest shot in the game.”
