STORRS, Conn. — Flash back to last March 17, the night the UConn men’s basketball season flamed out in Buffalo with a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to New Mexico State.
The difference in the end was seven points, and we’ll never know what difference Jordan Hawkins might have made had he not been sitting out, recovering from a concussion. How many 3-pointers he might’ve made, if right, without breaking a sweat?
“Man, that hurt,” Hawkins said, after giving fans a full dose of his game in the Blue-White scrimmage last week. “It really hurt out there, especially sitting on he sidelines watching the guys play. It really, really hurt. The way we lost in the Big East Tournament and lost in the NCAA Tournament, I never want to feel that feeling again, and I’m going to take that with me into this season.”
Hawkins, now a sophomore, was impressive, we’ve heard, in UConn’s closed scrimmages against Harvard and Virginia. In the Blue-White scrimmage, he torched his teammates for 14 points in the first 10 minutes. He was moving effortlessly, moving, dare we say, like an NBA player. Smooth moves to the basket, smooth pull-up jumpers, mid-range and 3-pointers.
Smooth stuff, the kind of stuff UConn fans saw only in glimpses last season, as Hawkins missed a chunk of preseason and the first two games with an ankle injury. He averaged 14.7 minutes per game upon his return, until sustaining the concussion at Creighton on March 8 and missing the postseason.
Now, he wants to show what he’s really all about, full bore, full time, beginning with the Huskies’ opener against Stonehill on Monday night at the XL Center.
“It fueled me,” Hawkins said. “I just want to do anything for this college that has given so much to me. It’s only fair to give back.”
Hawkins’ sheer talent is a big piece of this complex UConn puzzle, and this is an important time for the UConn men’s basketball program to put it all together. Through his first four seasons, coach Dan Hurley restored a broken culture, pulled the program from the abyss of three straight losing seasons and pushed it back to the NCAA Tournament. The pandemic disrupted the progress, so it did injuries and a few recruits that just never became what was expected, or transferred out. But the bottom line is that the Round of 64 is supposed to be UConn’s point of departure, not its destination, and everyone around the program feels the urgency to break through that barrier at the end of this season.
That ceiling can only be broken with one hit a time, warming up with the Huskies’ early-season array of mid-major opponents.
They hope to accomplish this breakthrough with a large group of transfers and freshmen falling into roles around a core triangle formed by Andre Jackson, the fire, Adama Sanogo, the power, and Hawkins, the coolness, the smoothness.
“Jordan’s ready to go, he’s ready to fire,” Hurley said. “The pedigree is there. We felt like he was a sure thing as a recruit. Our eyes told us last year in practice where he would have days when he would be the best guard on the court, maybe not consistently. He would have days when he was the standout player with some really good players on the perimeter. We trusted our eyes, trusted our ability to develop a player, and he’s producing. I’m not concerned about him delivering for us this year.”
Hawkins, 6-foot-5 and 195, came to UConn from DeMatha Catholic, the D.C. area perennial national powerhouse, so the responsibility that comes with playing for a program used to winning is not new to him. And he has been wearing the expectation that he was ticketed for greatness long enough for it to feel like part of his uniform.
“There’s confidence that I have in myself that people have in me,” Hawkins said. “Coach Hurley has prepared me for this, and is going to continue to prepare me. And I’m prepared for it. I’m up for a challenge, I’ve never backed down in my life.”
Sitting out his first March Madness with a concussion was especially hard for a player who, in eighth grade, played almost an entire game with throbbing wrist, learning later it was broken. What he learned about himself that day drove him back to the gym again and again, to become the kind of player UConn now expects him to be.
“I’ve been improving every day since the season ended,” Hawkins said. “Since I’ve been cleared from my concussion, I’ve been back in the gym every day. ... I’ve been locked in all summer.”
Jackson will miss the first few games with his broken finger. Sanogo will be there, solid and steady. Hawkins will have to be seeking and creating his shots, be the scoring threat; Hurley says he’s more concerned as the season begins about finding secondary perimeter scorers. Hawkins shot 46.3 percent on 3-pointers as a senior at DeMatha, but 33.3 percent as a freshman at UConn. In the scrimmages, at least, he’s shown he’s not afraid to take threes in traffic, on the move, and can make them.
To have the kind of season everyone wants and expects, that would be a most valuable piece.
“My shot has always been my super power,” Hawkins said. “It just wasn’t falling last year. So I had to get in the gym more, getting more reps and building more confidence, that’s the biggest thing in shooting. I feel great, I feel confident, extremely confident. I expect to do big things for this team this year and win. I can’t wait until Monday.”
