Former UConn center Tarris Reed Jr. is headed to the San Antonio Spurs after being selected with the No. 26 overall pick in the NBA Draft on Tuesday night.
Traded by the Denver Nuggets, Reed became UConn’s 25th first round pick and 53rd player drafted. He is the sixth first round pick to be coached by Dan Hurley at UConn and the 10th player selected in Hurley’s eight years leading the program.
Now he’ll join former Husky Stephon Castle with the Western Conference champions and add depth to a front court that includes French sensation Victor Wembanyama. Castle was drafted No. 4 overall in 2024, before the big man from St. Louis moved to Storrs.
Reed turned into an NBA player at UConn.
UConn star Alex Karaban selected 29th overall in NBA Draft
But he was a bit of a project at first. A top-40 prospect in his high school class, Reed came from Michigan as a junior with so much talent and athleticism he didn’t know what to do with it. But Dan Hurley and the Huskies’ staff was focused on simplifying his game, getting the fundamentals down and the rest would work itself out.
“He moves better than most guards laterally, running, vertical athleticism off the board, he checks every box,” Hurley said last August, after a season in which Reed was a shoo-in for Big East Sixth Man of the Year playing behind Samson Johnson. “With him it’s motor, it’s intensity, it’s a warrior mentality, it’s discipline, it’s losing your technique and fundamentals at times. If this guy puts it all together, he’s as good a center as there is in the country. But he’s got to, for the first time in his career, we’ve got to help him put it all together.”
Alternating during his time in a UConn uniform between being a “teddy bear” and a “grizzly,” Reed finally showed his full capability in the NCAA Tournament. He owned Furman with 31 points and 27 rebounds to get the ball rolling, and really left an impression as he spurned the 19-point comeback to beat Duke in the Elite Eight and send UConn back to the Final Four.
Reed finished the season averaging 14.7 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 2.0 blocks in 27.3 minutes per game and earned a First Team all-Big East nod. His stock improved after he went for 19.5 points, 13.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game throughout March Madness, and, reportedly, even more through his workouts for various NBA teams.
“Reed has built momentum on the workout circuit and is trending toward the late first round,” ESPN’s Jeremy Woo wrote in his latest mock draft. “His mix of length, physical heft, rebounding instincts and offensive skill make him an appealing plug-and-play role player, and he should appeal to contending teams.”
UConn captain and two-time national champion Alex Karaban was selected three picks after Reed, at No. 29 overall to the Sacramento Kings.
