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How UConn became college basketball’s unlikeliest modern Camelot

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Connecticut Huskies News

Men's College Basketball

UConn’s back-to-back national titles have come at a time when mass parity is flattening the landscape of college basketball.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — That this started, or restarted, with a then-75-year-old Jim Calhoun nearly kicking Dan Hurley’s ass is so perfectly Connecticut that the scene should replace the state flag. It was early spring of 2018. Hurley was the recently named UConn head coach and Calhoun was the retired patriarch of the program, one whose endorsement helped secure Hurley’s hiring. Advertisement Hurley’s first practice with his inherited team was an abomination.

His old pal Gavitt, meanwhile, ended up having great success at Providence, but wanted to better position the school for the future. Gavitt had the idea of creating a new basketball-centric league of like-minded schools. Soon, membership began — St. John’s, Georgetown, Syracuse, Seton Hall and Boston College, so on. Holy Cross declined, twice, so Gavitt called his old friend “Thick as thieves,” says Dan Gavitt of his father and Rowe.

Men's College Basketball

 

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