SOUTHINGTON – This busy offseason for UConn general manager Tom Moore included a stop at Kinsmen Brewing on Wednesday night, where he represented the men’s basketball program in place of Dan Hurley, who couldn’t make it, on a panel at the UConn Coaches Road Show event.
Alongside Geno Auriemma, softball coach Laura Valentino and first-year football coach Jason Candle, Moore dished on last season’s run to a third Final Four in four years, the Braylon Mullins shot that punched UConn’s ticket and the last two months of putting together a roster that can get back.
“Speaking for Dan and our staff, it wasn’t as dominant as the ’24 season, but we really liked how the kids bounced back from the St. John’s loss in the Big East Tournament to play really well for six games – even the Michigan game we played really well,” Moore said, noting that the Huskies were only a few made shots away from having the Wolverines on their heels in the national championship game.
On the flight back the next day, it was what Hurley called “Tom Moore time.”
“Dan’s turned around to me and he’s like, ‘How much money do we have? Who will we talk to? Who are we gonna to talk to? What’s the plan?’” Moore said. “It’s the new reality and you have to become good at it. You can’t say ‘woe is me,’ you can’t shy from it, you have to figure out ways to attack it and be good in it. And I think we’ve done a pretty good job the last couple of years of having that mindset toward it. Because you have to, or it will sort of eat you up.”
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UConn saw five players leave through the transfer portal and five others who ran out of eligibility – including NBA Draft prospects Alex Karaban and Tarris Reed Jr., who are deep into the process of working out for teams all over the country. Karaban, Moore said, worked out with the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday before they hosted Game 1 of the NBA Finals and has also seen strong interest from both the Sacramento Kings and Boston Celtics. Reed worked out with the Celtics right after their season ended and had former UConn assistant, now Boston College head coach Luke Murray there watching in support.
Both are projected to hear their name called near the end of the first round or early in the second round later this month.
But in Storrs, almost all of the new roster – five returners (including Solo Ball, who will sit out as a medical redshirt), seven transfers (so far), and a pair of incoming freshmen – has been assembled for summer workouts. Freshman Colben Landrew, who has a real shot at competing for a starting spot right away, is in Mexico competing in the FIBA U18 AmeriCup for USA Basketball. Moore said associate head coach Kimani Young went down to see him.
Speaking with reporters after the hour-long panel discussion, Moore provided some updates on the Huskies’ offseason:
Roster nearly complete
Headlined by the return of Braylon Mullins and point guard Silas Demary Jr., UConn’s roster for the 2026-27 season is good enough on paper for the Huskies to land on the top five in many of the “way-too-early” national rankings.
But Hurley, Moore and the staff aren’t done just yet. They are still looking to add another rotational forward who can back up Duke transfer Nik Khamenia.
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“Dan is so good at the roster construction. So good at evaluating what we lose and knowing what we need, and then just brilliant at, like, screening the type of players we need to fill the positions we lost. So we’re really excited about the fits at every position,” Moore said. “Recruiting is a different science than it was way back, where these last two or three guys that we signed (Jaye Nash, Isaiah Shaw, Elmir Dzafic), they’re going to be guys that we need to be great in practice and great in the locker room. So people have to understand it’s really scientific as to the role we have for these guys, the money we allocate to these guys at every single position, a lot of strategy goes into who we bring in. But on the high end, really excited about Nik Khamenia, really excited about Najai (Hines) and Oskar (Giltay) up front, and then Nils (Machowski) too with some combo guard depth.”
Another loaded nonconference schedule
Once again, UConn will play the best of the best in its nonconference schedule. The Huskies even upped the ante by scheduling seven “tough” games against top-ranked teams, including Michigan, Duke, Illinois, Kansas, Arizona, Virginia and Ohio State.
“We like the way it’s worked for us the last couple of years. And it’s hard because we want to play just the elite brands, and it’s amazing how quickly you run out of, like, elite-level brands where you don’t feel like you’re going down,” Moore said. “The analytics tell you when it comes to seeding that you don’t get really penalized for losing those games. You can’t lose all of them, but you don’t get hurt too much by those losses. We’ve been fortunate, we’ve been ambitious and we’ve also won at a great clip. So it tests you and it’ll test us again this year and have us ready for the Big East.”
UConn is still working on finalizing its bye games, which also involves some “scientific” analysis.
“We like to look at how they play defensively, what their tempo is, how they did in bye games last year, what percentage of offense they get from 3s… We go into a lot of analytical study on that. And then everything else has to add up, like the dates have to line up, they have to want to play us, the money has to be right. It’s a really complicated thing, but we’re getting there,” Moore said.
Assistant coach search still ongoing
The job postings for an assistant coach to replace Luke Murray and a full-time Director of Strength and Conditioning to replace Gavin Roberts, who’s gone on to Oklahoma State, are no longer on the UConn website. However, Moore said, they haven’t yet been filled.
“Coach is gonna be really deliberate on it,” he said, specifically on the assistant coach position. “Whoever it is has big shoes to fill.”
