Last March, after UConn crashed out of the men’s NCAA tournament in the first round for a second straight season, coach Dan Hurley convened a meeting of his team’s returning leadership at its practice facility once the team came back to Storrs. That group featured the Huskies’ three young stars: Adama Sanogo, Andre Jackson Jr. and Jordan Hawkins.
The message: Be in a different position at that same time the following year.
“Coach told us they were gonna build guys around us that could build a championship team,” Hawkins recalled following the team’s Sweet 16 win against Arkansas. “They [were] going to push us all summer.”
The centerpiece of that group was Sanogo, at that point a two-year starter and double-figure scorer who figured to be the star of the 2022–23 Huskies. Sanogo had been disappointing in that first-round loss against New Mexico State, limited to just 10 points on nine shots and seeing his Huskies outrebounded by one in the game.
Fewer than 13 months later, Sanogo is on top of the college basketball world and in rarefied air in a program defined by its stars. Sanogo’s dominance in this NCAA tournament led the Huskies to the program’s fifth national title and earned the junior big man Most Outstanding Player honors. With four double doubles and three 20-point games, Sanogo in one year has transformed his legacy from the previous two early tournament exits into an all-time UConn legend.
Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY Sports
“He’s obviously cemented himself into the pantheon of greatest big guys,” Hurley said postgame. “To have the national championship just puts him in a position in one of the most storied programs in college basketball. He’s an all-time great.”
Sanogo made his mark early in his career as one of the sport’s best low-post bruisers, an immense physical presence capable of pressuring even the sport’s strongest big men down low. But his summer work of expanding his game turned him into one of the most complete players in college basketball and unlocked UConn’s championship-level ceiling.
After that March 2022 meeting, Sanogo set the tone for the Huskies with his work ethic. Freshman Alex Karaban says Sanogo would make at least 500 jump shots a day during the summer, in addition to logging time on the bike and ab workouts. It allowed a player who had attempted only one three in his college career to become a legitimate threat from distance, shooting 19-of-52 from deep for the season and drilling two triples in the Final Four game against Miami.
“I always have trust in Adama, but I didn’t expect his shot to come this fast,” Karaban says. “And he’s the hardest-working player. I know in a couple days he’s going to be back in the gym [shooting].”
Sanogo’s newfound shooting made UConn that much harder for teams to defend. When opponents would sag off him during perimeter actions (like Miami did), he punished them by knocking down shots. If teams closed out to him, he now had the ability to pump-fake and drive past the defense for an acrobatic layup. He also improved his passing significantly, limiting the effectiveness of opponent double teams. When Gonzaga consistently sent doubles in the Elite Eight matchup, Sanogo dished out a career-high six assists, doubling his previous top total.
“I know guys, they don’t expect my shots,” Sanogo says. “So as soon as I [see] him dropping, and I wait a second to see if he’s going to close out, and he [doesn’t] close out, all right, this is my shot.”
Still, his most overwhelming trait remains his power at the rim on both ends, which was on full display in Monday’s championship game against San Diego State. Sanogo hammered away down low at San Diego State’s stable of bigs, chipping in 17 points and 10 rebounds (five on the offensive glass) in addition to multiple shots at the rim defensively. His ability to carve out space early and score from difficult angles against one of the best defensive bigs in the country in Nathan Mensah helped UConn take the early edge it wouldn’t relinquish.
Sanogo, who has two more years of eligibility if he were to choose to return to school, arrived in Storrs three years ago as a reclassified freshman who could have still been a senior in high school. UConn had missed the men’s NCAA tournament in four straight seasons and had just one men’s NCAA tournament win since the 2014 national championship game. Now, Sanogo has restored the Huskies’ place at the top of the college basketball world.
UConn’s four previous men’s titles were all defined by stars, from Richard “Rip” Hamilton to Emeka Okafor to Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier. UConn’s dominant run through this tournament had multiple stars (Hawkins’s shooting and Jackson’s passing also stand out), but Sanogo now has earned his place in the same sentence as those four aforementioned greats.
“He’s arguably the best center to come out of UConn,” Karaban, a Connecticut native, said in the locker room postgame with stars like Okafor and Ray Allen just a few feet away. “It’s hard for me to say that because I’m looking at Emeka Okafor right now, but it’s 1A and 1B with Adama and him.”
Okafor and Sanogo met at practice in September and talked for an hour about leading the Huskies. The two discussed leadership and helping the team stay connected, qualities Hurley later raved about.
“Adama has been talking to me about Emeka since he got here our freshman year,” Jackson told the Hartford Courant in September. “He’s somebody Adama used to watch, idolize in different ways.”
Fueled by two previous March disappointments, Sanogo wasn’t going to be denied this time. Regardless of whether he returns to Storrs, his spot in Huskies lore is secured, a place earned from an offseason of growth that led to a season of domination.
