One by one, members of Connecticut men’s basketball royalty made their way out of the stands and up onto the court at NRG Stadium. Here came Kemba Walker, then Ray Allen, then Emeka Okafor, then Rudy Gay. Walking on a bed of confetti that had just dropped from the ceiling, the program’s history had come to pay its respects to the present.
There was Allen, offering words of congratulations to guard Jordan Hawkins, then shadowboxing with coach Dan Hurley. There were Okafor and Gay, wrapping their arms around Hurley. And there was Walker, with a spectacularly gaudy Huskies pendant around his neck, declaring the program’s elite position in the college basketball hierarchy.
“[Jim] Calhoun started it. Hurley ended it,” Walker says. “And we’re about to keep going.”
