Dan Hurley continues to revamp backcourt to extend UConn's dynasty

Despite missing out on a third-straight National Championship in 2025, the UConn Huskies are the premier program in college basketball right now. It isn't just because of their penchant for winning basketball games and titles. Sometimes, it is because of their coach, Dan Hurley, and his antics. His rivalry with the referees is one of the best storylines in college basketball year after year.

Now that the season is over, the self-proclaimed "best coach in the game" is back to doing one of the things he does even better than arguing with officials: acquiring talent for his Huskies team, which had some big holes to fill on the 2025-2026 roster. The holes were mainly in the backcourt, given how incompetent the Huskies' struggled to replace former point guard and two-time national champ Tristen Newton.

UConn lands commitment from Dayton transfer Malachi Smith

On Tuesday, nearly two weeks after the addition of Georgia guard Silas Demary Jr., Hurley double-down on his backcourt overhaul, adding Malachi Smith, a transfer from Dayton. He is the perfect player to run the UConn system. Smith is from the Bronx and brings a New York City toughness. He plays hard for 40 minutes and is a pass-first point guard.

It should be no secret that the best way to acquire talent in this era of college basketball is through the transfer portal. Coach Hurley tried to do that last year when he acquired Tarris Reed from Michigan to help patrol the paint and Aidan Mahaney from Saint Mary’s to run the offense.

Mahaney always felt like a weird fit for the Huskies and what they were trying to do. He was an offensive-minded point guard who has never been very efficient. He did win the West Coast Conference Player of the Year but didn't put up huge numbers outside of scoring.

Mahaney ended up as a back-end rotation piece by year's end. The Huskies couldn’t rely on him to run the offense with the efficiency they needed, and he wasn’t helping the lack of defense for coach Hurley. Mahaney decided his time at UConn would last for one season; he entered the transfer portal at season's end.

If it isn't Mahaney, what does Hurley look for in a player, especially a guard? Let's go back and look at the lead guards on the National Championship teams. Tristen Newton was a tough pass-first point guard who ran an efficient offense. Newton could pass, rebound, and get the team a basket when they desperately needed one.

Hurley turned Newton into an All-American and rode him to the National Championship two seasons in a row. Those are the types of players that coach Hurley should be looking for in the portal. The UConn headman may have just found his next Championship winning point guard.

All those things were a giant appeal to Hurley as he tried to reload the Huskies' backcourt. Smith would rather pass and set up an open shot than take the shot himself, as evidenced by his 5.3 assists per game. He isn’t passive on the offensive end; Smith knows he is a better player and gets into the game flow when he lets the offense be secondary to his ability to set up his teammates for a better shot.

The Bronx mentality works its way to the defensive end, where he is a grinder on defense and will gladly guard the best player on the floor. UConn desperately needed to improve their perimeter defense, and this move does that. Smith is a career 39% three-point shooter. Is he the missing piece for another title run?