Top basketball prospects don’t make it out of New Jersey without coming across Bob Hurley Sr.’s radar.
That was the case with new UConn center Najai Hines, who moved to Plainfield, N.J. from North Carolina for his senior year of high school and was ranked the top player in the state in 2025. Hines considered a year of prep school before he decided in late July that he would reclassify and head to Seton Hall for his freshman season.
About six months before that, Hurley Sr. had been tipped off by a coaching friend who suggested he give Plainfield coach Mike Gordon a call.
“I said to Coach, ‘You guys have a home game coming up against Union, could you just make sure you save a seat?’ Because they get big crowds,” Hurley Sr. said. “So I went, I watched him play. I was sitting there with two mid-major (coaches), they went to see him, and after about five minutes I said, ‘You guys can go home right now, he’s not going to go to a low major.’”
Hines had 17 points, 12 rebounds, three assists and a pair of blocks in that game, a 64-31 win over Union. That was a below-average performance for the 6-foot-10, 255-pound former Division I football prospect, who finished his senior year with 18.8 points, 16.9 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game, according to NJ.com.
At that point, Hurley was simply appreciating local talent. His son Dan’s plan for the center spot at UConn was already in place with Tarris Reed Jr. coming back for his senior season and Eric Reibe coming in to fill the backup role as a freshman.
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The Huskies knew they would need to reload at the position by the time the transfer portal opened a day after losing to Michigan in the national championship game. And less than a week after Reibe decided to move on, Hines was in Storrs deciding that he would be UConn’s new big man following a promising freshman campaign with the Pirates.
“I know his high school coach, I know the people in his town, and they all rave about him,” Hurley Sr. said during an event in South Windsor last week. “I think you’re gonna see a kid this year that’s gonna come in and be, as a sophomore, a real physical player. I think you’re gonna love him because he typifies how hard the UConn kids want to play. He’ll play like that. Except he was a defensive end in high school that gave up football and probably would play on Sundays in the future if he had just stayed with football. He’s that good of an athletic prospect.”
Largely on the football recruiting scene when he was at South Garner High in North Carolina, Hines collected offers from high-major FBS programs like Houston, South Carolina and West Virginia. He is one of a few former football recruits on the Huskies’ roster for 2026-27 as both Silas Demary Jr. and freshman Colben Landrew also made some waves on the gridiron before centering their focus on basketball.
Hines has already shown what he can do in Storrs once, scoring 11 points with 11 rebounds and three blocks as the Pirates attempted to spoil Senior Day at Gampel Pavilion last spring. He had 10 points, seven rebounds and three blocks when UConn finally escaped Newark with a narrow victory in January.
He averaged 18 minutes per game off the bench for a Seton Hall team that exceeded all expectations to finish fourth in the Big East. Playing behind senior Stephon Payne and limited by a propensity for fouling, Hines finished the year averaging 6.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game.
UConn will count on him for much more.
“His numbers per minute and his defensive impact and his rebounding and shot-blocking… It’s funny he doesn’t look like a classic shot-blocker because he’s thick, but he’s got uncanny timing on shot blocks,” said the Huskies’ general manager, Tom Moore. Hines ranked second in the country in block rate and 19th in offensive rebounding percentage last season.
“I think foul trouble will be something we’re gonna have to really watch with him, but he’s a great screen-setter, seals well,” Moore said. “We’re hoping he can be some variation of Tarris and Adama (Sanogo), just fall somewhere in that neighborhood.”
The Huskies reinforced the position with former Stanford center Oskar Giltay and little-used Arkansas transfer Elmir Dzafic – both of whom impressed Hurley Sr. when he observed practice on Thursday. Giltay, another rising sophomore, averaged 14.6 minutes per game for the Cardinal and will likely be the No. 2 option. But Hines will be an X-factor in determining how far the season goes.
“He plays with a lot of energy. On all of the rim-running by the bigs, they didn’t get a lot of dunks last year because the two players were not fluid enough that they would get a play over the rim in time and be able to dunk it. Well, with this kid, just throw it somewhere near the basket and he’s gonna dunk it,” Hurley Sr. said. “I also think he’s gonna really, defensively, be an anchor. He’s gonna really challenge a lot of shots near the basket. He’s just scratching the surface, I think, because football was his main sport until really his junior year of high school, then all of a sudden he was gonna concentrate more on basketball.”
