INDIANAPOLIS —- After the hugs subsided and the faint mist of tears were wiped away, Alex Karaban sat in the UConn locker room and tried to keep it all together.
As he made it through question after question about the game that ended his college career, Karaban eventually looked down at his hands and used his left one to grab ever so slightly at his right ring finger.
Though his answers remained monotone and straightforward, he kept trying to crack his fingers and seemingly felt around for a piece of hardware—a national championship ring—that won’t be there following the Huskies’ gutting 69–63 loss to Michigan in the final game of the season Monday.
Karaban already has two rings at home in Southborough, Mass., an incredible accomplishment that the sands of time will allow him to focus on more intently than the pain of the one missing.
Until that time, though, the thing that is now no longer kept sitting there, staring the senior in the face.
“I care about winning. I care about winning. I want to do everything, I have done everything in my power to help this program win,” Karaban said. “For Coach to play me for 40 minutes, I can’t thank him enough. That’s all I wanted. That’s all I wanted, is to give everything I got, leave everything I’ve got out there and try to do everything to help us win.”
Karaban very nearly did become the first player since the UCLA dynasties of the 1970s to win three NCAA men’s basketball championships in four seasons, scoring a team-high 17 points and pulling down 11 rebounds for just his fourth career double-double.
In a game in which many of his teammates ran into foul trouble against the lengthy and active Wolverines, he committed just one. His two assists were far more indicative of his role—to shoot, and shoot some more from outside—than they were of any streak of selfishness.
“He’s maxed out his career. I mean, you’re in a conversation of greatest Huskies [ever]. You’re the biggest winner that’s ever played on the men’s side. You’ve set records in March,” said coach Dan Hurley, noting he did most of his crying on the way to Lucas Oil Stadium. “His career, what he’s accomplished, that means he’s the greatest winner in men’s basketball history at UConn—in a place where it’s hard to make history.
“And you know, heartbreak is good though. You know heartbreak means you’re in the fight. As long as it’s joy or heartbreak, I think you’re on the right track in life.”
The loss was UConn’s first in the championship game and just the second of Karaban’s career in March Madness—all by a combined eight points. His remarkable 18–2 overall record tied his coach’s older brother, Duke’s Bobby Hurley, for second all time in career wins in the Big Dance.
Karaban also finishes his illustrious career as the program record holder for games played (151), starts (150), three-pointers made (292) and most minutes played (4,909).
The most telling accomplishment, the one his teammates and coaches spoke so highly about when it came to how much he meant to them, was that he also set the Huskies’ record for most career wins with 126. The perfect embodiment of the Karaban who was never the most talented player to take the floor but came out on top more than anyone at a place on an incredible three-decade run of winding up on top.
“He’s the face of the program. You want to almost follow in his footsteps, you want to just learn constantly from him,” junior forward Jayden Ross says. “He has a personal connection with everybody on this team—the love for him runs deep. It’s really upsetting thinking about you couldn’t get him out of here with the super high note because he deserved it.”
There are few relationships like that of Karaban and his coach. Though Hurley is as tough as they come on his players—the yelling, screaming and gesturing are not saved just for the officials he avoided criticizing for fear of a fine—he saved his longest embrace for the guy who he has spent the most time around and has molded into a team leader well beyond the box score.
“It’s going to be tough not seeing Coach every single day. That man, he means everything to me and it’s gonna be really hard,” said Karaban, starting to show some emotion. “I’m not going to stop talking to him. I’m always going to come back and visit and just be proud of what I’ve done with Coach Hurley here. He’s changed my life for the better.
“There are losses where we go out like suckers, and he’ll let us know. And then there’s losses where he’s going to let us know that he’s proud of us, so you know he’s proud of us. We put up a fight, we hustled, we gave it everything we got—just a couple shots away from holding that trophy.”
After shaking every Michigan player’s hands and congratulating them on feeling how he once did, Karaban made it back to the Huskies’ locker room and did the same to every one of his teammates.
He gave them all hugs and looked them in the eyes as he spoke individually with each one. He told them what he meant to the guy who has largely defined this era building up to—and hanging around—the mountaintop of college basketball.
“The relationship I had with him will last for a lifetime. We’ll probably be at each other’s weddings,” says junior guard Silas Demary Jr., who fouled out and was limited to just two points. “We’ll probably see each other down the road in our professional careers, just always cheering and rooting for one another. I’m just appreciative to have Alex in my life. I just want to continue to keep loving on him, even though this time is hard. I know I have a great friend for the rest of my life.”
“I gave him a hug, that was the words basically. He’s just such a special person,” adds freshman forward Braylon Mullins after an off-game shooting produced only 11 points. “He’s the whole representation of a player that should be playing in modern college basketball. Staying at a school for that long and just being able to support a program like this, it’s incredible. He’s the standard of UConn.”
That wasn’t always the case. When Karaban first arrived on campus, he noted how he was antisocial, not talking to anybody and staying in his room. On those first two dominating title teams, Karaban was far more of a role player than a star who gets asked to do every news conference and make every television appearance.
Not now. Not these last few years as he was pushed by Hurley and pulled by the vacuum of leadership to the front of the team at every opportunity—making them give everything they could not to just win a title for themselves, but to do so for Karaban.
“He just wanted it bad, he knew it was his last time putting on his UConn jersey,” says junior forward Jaylin Stewart. “We wanted to try to get three for him, but we couldn’t.”
There are a handful of signs that dot the interstates around Connecticut that proclaim the state to be home of the basketball capital of the world, something Hurley constantly leans into when professing his love of the program he has made his own. When others may denigrate Storrs, Conn., as isolated and lacking in things to do, the Huskies coach is quick to spin that around into a point of pride when discussing how singularly minded the area is on hoops.
Sometimes, proclaiming yourself to be something so lofty is proof positive that you are, in fact, not what you claim to be.
But this is the environment that Karaban has managed to transform himself and thrive in. He helped largely make that the case and state it loudly. He was the ultimate winner for the Huskies on an incredible run, one whose final victory just so happened to escape him at the end.
“This guy changed my life, the staff’s lives, the joy he’s brought to the university, the fan base,” Hurley said. “He’s put UConn in that rarefied place in college basketball. Everyone owes everything to that guy, and I figured, let me play him into the ground one more time, just one more 40-minute game for Alex.”
It did not end how either man wanted to, searching for a ring that would never come, but it won’t diminish Karaban one bit for walking out a winner.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Alex Karaban Leaves as UConn’s Ultimate Winner—But One Title Short.
