When you’re a college basketball blueblood, it’s expected that a lot of your former players will go on to have success in the NBA.
UConn is no different, with 47 alumni having laced ’em up in the league, and several having competed at the sport’s pinnacle, the NBA Finals.
But having a former student manager lead a team of non-household-names to 80+ regular season and playoff wins and the first-ever title in Oklahoma City?
Now that’s ‘Basketball Capital of the World’ kind-of-stuff.
Former UConn student manager Mark Daigneault is three wins away from coaching his team to an NBA title, as the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers prepare to take the court for Game 3 of the Finals on Wednesday night.
If he does it, he’ll join a starting five of Huskies to have won NBA championships– and he’d become the second Husky to have experienced winning a national title at UConn and an NBA title. He’d also be the first former Husky to win an NBA title as a head coach.
The 40-year-old Daigneault went to UConn from 2003-07, and was a sophomore when the program won its second national championship in 2004. People around the program knew the Leominster, Mass. native wasn’t your typical student manager.
Dom Amore: ‘He controls the room.’ How OKC’s Mark Daigneault developed coaching voice at UConn
“I used to kid players and say, ‘hey, this guy right here is going to take basketball further than all of you guys,’” Patrick Sellers, who was on UConn’s staff then and is now head coach at CCSU, told The Courant. “I would say that all the time because at a young age, Mark was poised, he was smart, he was mature beyond his years.”
“He was a kid that had a quiet maturity,” Jim Calhoun said. “It took me about halfway through the year to see, ‘this guy’s a little different. He’s not just a kid here to get tickets.”
Daigneault has indeed taken basketball pretty far, having won the NBA’s Coach of the Year award last season. He’s in his first Finals now, and despite his quiet, understated demeanor and the middle-of-the-country, small-market franchise he works for, he may soon end up winning his way into becoming a household name, in probably the most difficult market in the league to do so.
Here’s a look at the other Huskies to have won it all in the NBA.
Ray AllenNBA titles: 2008, 2013
The only Husky to have won multiple NBA titles, Allen averaged 15.6 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists while leading the Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA title. He teamed up with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett in Boston’s ‘Big 3,’ delivering the first championship to the city since 1986. Five years later, Allen bolted to Miami and helped the Heat capture their second straight title, averaging 10.2 points while shooting 40 percent from three-point range and draining the most important shot of the season, a series-saving corner three to tie Game 6 with seconds remaining. The Heat would win in overtime and go on to win Game 7 over the San Antonio Spurs.
Richard HamiltonNCAA title: 1999NBA title: 2004
‘Rip’ was the best player on the UConn men’s first NCAA championship team in 1999, which ‘shocked’ the college basketball world when it upset heavily-favored Duke. He won NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors, averaging 21.5 points per game as the Huskies took home their first title.
Hamilton averaged an identical 21.5 points per to lead the Detroit Pistons to one of the biggest upsets in NBA Finals history five years later, starring on the 2004 team that stunned Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the L.A. Lakers to win the title in five games. Hamilton had a strong argument for NBA Finals MVP that season, but it ended up going to teammate Chauncey Billups. He remained an indispensable part of Pistons teams that reached the conference finals in six straight years and fell in seven games in the NBA Finals to the San Antonio Spurs the following season.
Caron ButlerNBA title: 2011
Jim Calhoun calls Caron Butler “the Great American success story,” as he made it out of incredibly difficult circumstances as a kid in Racine, Wis., and became one of the great players in UConn men’s basketball history. Butler was tremendous as a freshman and sophomore at UConn, and although he didn’t want to leave his Husky family, Calhoun said he had to, for the first and only time in his career, “more or less shove one of my players out of UConn and into the NBA to make millions of dollars.”
It ended up working out pretty well for Caron, who played 14 years in the NBA, was named a two-time All-Star and won a ring with the 2011 Dallas Mavericks. Butler was a key member of that squad, which went on to upset LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the Heat in the Finals, though he suffered a season-ending knee injury in January and had to watch from the sidelines. He averaged 15 points in 29 games for the Mavs that season.
Travis KnightNBA title: 2000
Travis Knight certainly wouldn’t have been the first name most Huskies fans would think of when it comes to a list like this, but the former Huskies big man was a college star and won an NBA title with Shaq, Kobe and the Lakers in 2000. Knight played just 3 minutes per game but played in 14 Lakers playoff games during that championship run, the first of the team’s three straight in the early 2000s.
Knight ended up playing seven years in the NBA with the Lakers, Celtics and Knicks, with his final season coming in 2003.
Scott BurrellNBA title: 1998
The Hamden native and former UConn star featured in ‘The Last Dance,’ and he played a role for the Chicago Bulls in 1998, averaging 5.2 points in 13.7 minutes per game on Michael Jordan’s last championship squad. Known for his 3-point shooting and defense, Burrell spent eight years in the NBA, playing for the Hornets, Warriors, Bulls and Nets. His best season in the league was 1995-96, when he averaged 13.2 points and 5 rebounds per game for Charlotte.
Originally Published: June 10, 2025 at 3:13 PM EDT
