Dan Hurley is one of three head coaches in the NCAA Tournament with multiple national championship rings, but UConn forward Alex Karaban is the only active player in the country who can make that claim.
The Huskies' all-time leader in minutes, games, and made threes knows what it takes to navigate a pressure-packed March. Now, two years removed from UConn’s back-to-back titles, the pressure is off, and the two-seeded Huskies are almost an afterthought after losing the Big East Championship to St. John’s, but that could be what makes this year’s team a terrifying matchup in the Big Dance.
“Last year, obviously, I think that was the most pressure I’ve felt,” Karaban told FanSided’s Sean Daley in an exclusive interview promoting his partnership with Great Clips. “Just with ‘three-peat, three-peat’ talk and everyone constantly talking about, ‘can UConn make history,’ and we didn’t have the season we wanted.”
“Now,” the fifth-year senior continued, “I feel like there’s no pressure on us. We didn’t win the championships that we sought out for so with the Big East and regular season, but we can’t let that affect us to where we let the outside noise creep in for the team. So, I don’t think there’s pressure on us, and we really just go out there and play UConn basketball.”
Alex Karaban’s championship experience is a huge advantage for the Huskies
Throughout Karaban’s career, playing UConn basketball has led to quite a bit of success. Since his redshirt season in 2021-22, Dan Hurley’s fourth year at the helm in Stors, UConn has gone 144-40, and since Karaban took the floor in the 2022-23 national championship season, the Huskies are 121-30, a winning percentage of .801.
Since that 2023 championship, the Huskies have been under one of the biggest spotlights in college basketball, but Karaban drew plenty of parallels to the first year that he and his teammates took college basketball by storm.
“The first one was my freshman year, and I don’t think anybody really expected us to win it. We had a great non-conference, and then we had a tough January, and we didn’t win the Big East or those championships, so I don’t think people really expected us to go out there and win it all. So, there was really no pressure on us.”
This year, the Huskies are thrown into a loaded East Region where Hurley is joined by six other coaches who have a Final Four appearance on their resumes, and the only other active head coaches with multiple titles: Bill Self and Rick Pitino. That, along with Duke, the tournament’s No.1 overall seed, helps to direct attention away from UConn, and with Karaban’s experience, the Huskies are a team that knows how to catch everyone sleeping.
“I feel like that’s what I’m here for,” Karaban said about enforcing UConn’s championship standard. “I came back to lead and to help UConn win, and I want to continue to win, that’s why I came back.”
Karaban hopes that winning continues when the Huskies open their NCAA Tournament on Friday night with a 10:00 p.m. ET tipoff in Philadelphia against 15-seed Furman.
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