UConn's Dan Hurley Discusses Freshman Point Guard: 'We Have To Play Him'
Liam McNeeley isn’t the only freshman that the UConn Huskies will rely on heavily this season.
Early returns on Dan Hurley’s ball club reveal that the Hassan Diarra-Aidan Mahaney point guard duo isn’t good enough, particularly concerning Mahaney, who is more comfortable off the ball (and off the bench, so far anyway).
Diarra isn’t the type of elite point guard that you’d expect to start for a national champion, but despite his flaws as a shooter, no one can deny that Diarra is an absolute warrior who is going to be a massive part of the 2024-25 Huskies until the final whistle of their final game.
Besides, UConn has enough offensive talent on the wing (McNeeley, Solo Ball, Alex Karaban) to make up for the fact that Diarra isn’t Steve Nash. Diarra has tremendous stretches defensively, and by the way, he knocked down three triples (on just four attempts) versus Colorado on Tuesday.
Diarra is a winning player, but the Huskies desperately need freshman point guard Ahmad Nowell to spell him (or match his effectiveness) as the team’s backup initiator.
The sooner that Hurley and his staff realize that they will need Nowell when the games matter the most in March, the better. That way, he can accrue experience starting now to prepare him for the big moment.
Nowell has a world of talent. He has a BIG EAST body (Kyle Lowry 2.0), he’s a really good shooter, and he’s got great instincts on defense. The only thing he lacks is experience, and UConn needs to expedite his learning curve by throwing him into the fire (as they did on Tuesday).
As everyone knows, Hurley likes developing his players at a more natural pace in practice and behind the scenes, and he’s had plenty of success doing it. The current sophomore class — Solo Ball’s emergence, in particular — is proof that Hurley knows how to develop players without shoving them into big games before they are ready.
However, UConn is facing a minor crisis at point guard this season, and Hurley has no choice but to play Nowell, something the head coach alluded to during Tuesday’s postgame presser.
“Ahmad in the first half, I liked,” Hurley said.
“Ahmad in the second half ... showed his inexperience. But he plays with some physicality out there. I think he’s going to be a good player. I think we have to play him.”
It’s funny to speak about Nowell as if UConn is being “forced” to throw him out there, as if he wasn’t one of the top recruits in the nation who would be the best player on dozens of other D-I teams around the country right now.
But after all, this is UConn we are talking about.
Although it might feel uncomfortable for Hurley and his staff to live with Nowell’s inexperience for a large bulk of the season, he’s more than talented enough to be challenging UConn’s other lead guards for minutes.
If Diarra wasn’t the heart of the team that he is, we’d already be low-key discussing whether Nowell should take over as starting point guard.
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-6cddf44b9a81eadb9d1a4c19c1b3db49.jpeg "Colin Keane")
Colin Keane is a contributing journalist for "UConn Huskies On SI." Born in Illinois, Colin grew up in Massachusetts as the third of four brothers. For his high school education, Colin attended St. Mark's School (Southborough, MA), where he played basketball and soccer and served as student body president. He went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Villanova University. Colin currently resides in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For all business/marketing inquiries regarding "UConn Huskies On SI," please reach out to Scott Neville: scott@wtfsports.org