Husky Sports Spotlight (Episode 1): UConn basketball getting chip no. 6? What’s wrong with UConn Football? Stratton Stave joins the show!

Today on the Husky Sports Spot­light for episode one of the pod­cast, a team of Evan Rodriguez, Kaleb Jen­nings and John Lib­er­a­tore will dis­cuss some of the most impor­tant top­ics regard­ing UConn Foot­ball, UConn men’s bas­ket­ball and the wom­en’s pro­gram. From whether Huskies offen­sive coor­di­na­tor Nick Charl­ton is on the hot seat to what role Cam Spencer will have for the men’s bas­ket­ball team, we’ll be answer­ing every­thing in episode one of the show. We’ll also be joined by a very spe­cial guest, Strat­ton Stave of the Dai­ly Cam­pus, to dis­cuss the wom­en’s pro­gram and what the out­look of that pro­gram will look like this season.

Intro

Evan: Alright man. Wel­come to the Husky Sports Spot­light, where we give the scoop on UCon­n’s most pop­u­lar sports news on cam­pus. I’m Evan Rodriguez. 

Kaleb: I’m Kaleb Jennings.

John: I’m John Liberatore.

Evan: And let’s get straight into it! alright? 

Wom­en’s Basketball

Evan: We’ve got a super spe­cial guest on the pod­cast today. He’s cov­ered the 2021 UConn Wom­en’s Nation­al Cham­pi­onship appear­ance. He’s cur­rent­ly the sports edi­tor of UCon­n’s pre­mier stu­dent news­pa­per, the Dai­ly Cam­pus. It’s my very good friend, Strat­ton Stave. Strat­ton, thank you so much for com­ing on the show, man. Hap­py to have you.

Strat­ton: Yeah, thanks for hav­ing me on. It’s great to be here.

Evan: Yeah. So this is def­i­nite­ly anoth­er excit­ing sea­son for wom­en’s bas­ket­ball in stores, you’ve got a healthy Paige, there’s a return of like Nika, and Aaliyah, and you even got healthy Ice Brady. But what are some of the X fac­tors on this ros­ter in 2023?

Strat­ton: Yeah, I mean, you think about it, it has to be Paige to start. I mean, as you men­tioned, she should be ful­ly healthy on paper. I mean, you nev­er know how peo­ple adjust com­ing back from injuries and stuff, but it all starts and ends with Page and you look at Aaliyah Edwards, return­ing All-Amer­i­can. She did a lot with­out a lot of help last year. I mean, you lose Lou Lopez-Senechal, but giv­en the tal­ent that you have com­ing back, I mean, that’s not the end of the world. And Azzi Fudd, some­one that was­n’t men­tioned, she played the first six games of last year at an All-Amer­i­can lev­el. A lot of peo­ple for­get about that. I mean, she pret­ty much sin­gle-hand­ed­ly beat Iowa so who went on to have a pret­ty good run there in the tour­na­ment and a cou­ple of good new­com­ers com­ing in too. KK Arnold, name to watch, could have some trou­ble get­ting on the floor with the amount of depth in the back­court, but she will help with the min­utes that she puts in.

John: So, Strat­ton, back on the top­ic of Paige, it’s pret­ty clear that she’s essen­tial to the suc­cess of this ros­ter. As some­one who’s seen her at her peak, what are some of your expec­ta­tions out of her for this season?

Strat­ton: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think that she’s going to have to car­ry the team in the way that she did her first sea­son and then when she came back. But, I mean, with a team that’s now sort of used to play­ing with­out her and not hav­ing to real­ly rely on her to get points, I think that she can dri­ve the offense. Look to be a lit­tle less ball-dom­i­nant with Nika Muhl there to sort of give her some nice pass­es, spread the ball, and then be more of a sec­ondary ball han­dler and focus more on. I mean, while she is great when she’s able to make her team­mates bet­ter, it’s also, I mean, she’s a world-class scor­er, so I think that that’s going to help her a lot.

Kaleb: And last­ly, I mean, the com­pe­ti­tion in wom­en’s col­lege bas­ket­ball has been ramp­ing up, espe­cial­ly over the last year with teams in a non-con­fer­ence sched­ule like Mary­land, UCLA. What do you think a game that’s been cir­cled on their sched­ule going into this year?

Strat­ton: Yeah, I mean even though you lose Aaliyah Boston, it has to be South Car­oli­na at UConn or I think it’s in South Car­oli­na in Feb­ru­ary. Ever since Paige Beck­ers hit that buzzer beat­er or hit that clutch over­time shot again against South Car­oli­na back in her fresh­man year, South Car­oli­na has won like, I think, three straight. So that is a game that every­one’s going to have cir­cled on their cal­en­dars and UCon­n’s real­ly going to be lick­ing their chops at a vul­ner­a­ble South Car­oli­na team that’s los­ing a fair bit.

Evan: All right, just a small pre­view of the UConn wom­en’s bas­ket­ball sea­son from the Dai­ly Cam­pus sports edi­tor, Strat­ton Stave. Strat­ton, thanks for com­ing on again.

Strat­ton: Yeah, thanks for hav­ing me.

Men’s Bas­ket­ball:

Evan: Speak­er 1 (02:56)
All right, onto the reign­ing nation­al cham­pi­ons, men’s bas­ket­ball. Obvi­ous­ly, they had the dom­i­nant nation­al run last year, get the Nat­ty. They’re obvi­ous­ly look­ing to con­tin­ue some of their dom­i­nance. They’re cur­rent­ly run­ning one of the most sophis­ti­cat­ed offen­sive schemes in the coun­try, mul­ti­ple dif­fer­ent stuff and obvi­ous­ly, they’re going to be built on some hard-nose, clas­sic Dan Hur­ley defense. But obvi­ous­ly, it’s going to be a chal­lenge. They go in here, they lose some of their more pro­duc­tive play­ers, obvi­ous­ly Adama Sono­go, they got Jor­dan <Hawkins> who’s out there with the Pel­i­cans and then Andre <Jack­son> obvi­ous­ly on that new look Bucks ros­ter with Dami­an Lil­lard and they’re com­ing back with some peo­ple though, too. I mean we got Tris­ten New­ton who’s going to be tak­ing on more of a lead­er­ship role, a bit of a chal­lenge for him. Obvi­ous­ly, he’s more of a soft-spo­ken play­er, but you can see what he can do on the court. But who do you guys real­ly like off this ros­ter right now?

John: I mean, the return of some sopho­more guys, you got Kara­ban and Clin­gan, two guys who are going to do a lot of work for you, younger tal­ent­ed play­ers. Clin­gan, obvi­ous­ly a dom­i­nant guy in the paint, a huge guy, I mean huge play­er, does a lot with the ball, can do a lot off the ball. Kara­ban gets it done no mat­ter where inside, out­side, I mean there’s a lot of work to be done. Even though they did very well last year, still got to stay up on things, but they also picked up a lot of guys in this new recruit­ing class.

Kaleb: Yeah that was the main thing I was going to say. I think this recruit­ing class is real­ly going to be the key to going back-to-back. I mean you don’t see back-to-back nat­tys typ­i­cal­ly ever. Usu­al­ly after a nat­ty, their best play­ers go away to the NBA, go pro. But I think we brought in some guys like Stephon Cas­tle and Solomon Ball, who can relieve that scor­ing that we had last year from, you’d say, Jor­dan Hawkins. And I think we might even have a high­er ceil­ing than we did last year, which is crazy to say. But these recruits, five-star, four-star recruits, are some of the best in the nation.

Evan: Yeah, I mean, obvi­ous­ly Coach Hur­ley has said that every­one will have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ly play on this ros­ter, but it’s going to be tough when you got guys like Cam Spencer com­ing in here, shot 43.4% from three last sea­son in the Big Ten. I mean, that’s pret­ty incred­i­ble. He def­i­nite­ly has the great­ness, the tough­ness to play in a con­fer­ence like the Big East. You’re going up against teams like Creighton or Mar­quette, top teams in the nation, not even just in the Big East. But he’s going to be imme­di­ate­ly able to replace a scor­ing hole left by Jor­dan Hawkins and Adama Sanogo, but how do you guys think that he’s going to adjust to this new role in the Big East?

John: I mean, I think for the most part, it’s going to be a pret­ty grad­ual increase in his pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. I mean, we’re going to look at him com­ing over through the trans­fer por­tal, but I real­ly think he’s going to make an imme­di­ate impact on this team. UConn is def­i­nite­ly a high-scor­ing team. You look all through­out our run in the nat­ty last year. Crazy score dif­fer­en­tials for most of the games. I think this is some­one who’s real­ly going to add a big offen­sive hotspot to the team.

Kaleb: I mean, I think it’s hon­est­ly been an easy tran­si­tion. When you have a good enough defense like UConn does to relieve that pres­sure off the offense, it makes it pret­ty easy to just slide into a role, espe­cial­ly as a sniper. It’ll make it pret­ty sim­ple for him to suc­ceed and give him a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow as a player.

Foot­ball

Evan: All right, mov­ing on to foot­ball, man, it’s dis­ap­point­ment in Storrs. They’re com­ing into a sea­son and expect­ed to rebound off a pret­ty incred­i­ble sea­son in Jim Mora’s first year in Storrs, six wins, but now they are 0–4 as of this record­ing. What do you think is wrong with this team, guys?

Kaleb: It comes down to the offense. It’s as sim­ple as that. Our defense last year was great. This year def­i­nite­ly lacked a lit­tle bit of the ener­gy last year, but still has shown some pos­i­tives and shown that they can com­pete. But our offense is killing them. We can’t score and it’s just tir­ing these guys out and at some point, the defense can’t let up for­ev­er. They’re going to get points dropped in their head. It’s as sim­ple as that.

John: Yeah. No, I def­i­nite­ly agree. I mean, this defense is kind of what kept us in games for a while the past cou­ple of sea­sons, but now it kind of seems like they’re not able to make up for what the offense has been lack­ing. I mean, it’s tough because we’re in a sit­u­a­tion where UConn has­n’t real­ly had a sol­id quar­ter­back sit­u­a­tion these past cou­ple years, and it’s been bounc­ing around whether there’s been an injury or just replace­ments. But I think that’s some­thing that’s real­ly hurt this team, is just not hav­ing one a real sol­id offen­sive leader and just the lack of con­sis­ten­cy through­out per­son­nel. I think once that may be some­thing that can be han­dled, there may be a turn­around, whether the lev­el of play or just the over­all feel between the team. But, I mean, after this Duke loss, it was just brutal.

Evan: Yeah, I mean, even stay­ing on the top­ic of that Duke loss, I mean, they lost Jack­son Mitchell ear­ly to the tar­get­ing inci­dent. Coach Mora was furi­ous in that postgame press con­fer­ence. But even more even look­ing away from the defense, which has I mean, you can’t real­ly blame them as much, espe­cial­ly when they’re get­ting tired dur­ing these games. But look­ing at the offense, how ner­vous should some­one like Nick Charl­ton be after this loss? He’s been under fire con­sis­tent­ly from the fan base.

John:
I mean, I’m not so sure if it’s offen­sive schem­ing or if it’s per­son­nel. Like I said. I mean, I know it’s been a ques­tion for a while now, and obvi­ous­ly, a lot of peo­ple in any of the UConn rooms should kind of be a lit­tle con­cerned with how this sea­son’s been going. I mean, it’s been real­ly, real­ly bad, espe­cial­ly after the expec­ta­tion from last year. But at this point, you can’t real­ly ful­ly blame coach­ing. We haven’t had, like I said, a sol­id quar­ter­back sit­u­a­tion. The offense has­n’t been able to get it done on the field. Play call­ing has been a lit­tle ques­tion­able, but for the most part, you have to have the play­ers that are going to be able to exe­cute, and if they’re not able to do it, sure, you can get rid of the coach­es, but is that real­ly going to change anything?

Kaleb: Yeah, I think we do lack the per­son­nel, but I do think coach­ing has played a big part. I mean, even last year we did win six games, but it was­n’t because of our offense, and espe­cial­ly it was­n’t because of our cre­ativ­i­ty in the past. Our run game led every­thing, and I think that real­ly comes down to how good your run­ning backs and how good your line can hold up. I think our offense, espe­cial­ly in the past game, is lack­ing a lot of cre­ativ­i­ty, and it’s just some­thing I mean, at this point, you’re owing four. I feel like some­thing needs to get changed. I feel like some sort of cre­ativ­i­ty needs to be involved. It’s been very stale, very bor­ing, and I think Charl­ton is def­i­nite­ly on the hot seat right now because of that.

Evan: Yeah, and I mean, going into Sat­ur­day’s game 12:00, Utah State, what are the chances of this first win com­ing on Sat­ur­day against an Aggies team that real­ly fought with JMU? Obvi­ous­ly, they start­ed off pret­ty slow in the first half, but they real­ly were com­pet­i­tive in that sec­ond half. I mean, they’ve shown the abil­i­ty to 100% com­pete and be com­pet­i­tive in these types of games, even on the road.

John: I’m not so sure what the game is going to end up look­ing like, but at col­lege foot­ball, there’s always a chance for these teams to win, but UConn real­ly needs to come out fight­ing strong. And I know you touched on it before, Evan, but the whole Jack­son Mitchell tar­get­ing inci­dent, that’s real­ly some­thing that this defense espe­cial­ly can use to kind of fuel them­selves in this game. They real­ly need a spark, and that’s a sit­u­a­tion. I mean, you have ACC peo­ple mak­ing calls down dur­ing the game, telling you to review plays more. You have a play­er removed from the game because of it. I mean, that’s some­thing that’s got to get you fired up. And I real­ly hope they bring that ener­gy to the game.

Kaleb: Yeah, I mean, I think, like you said, every it’s col­lege foot­ball, every­one has a fight­er’s chance 100%. But as of right now, we’re def­i­nite­ly not the favorite. And I def­i­nite­ly say it looks slim for a win. I think we need to, again, pull up some more offen­sive con­sis­ten­cy, pull out some more cre­ative plays, do some­thing dif­fer­ent that these guys haven’t seen before. Last year we did play them very close, but we’re also miss­ing some key play­ers like that. And our run game was effi­cient that last year in that first game we played them, and we haven’t seen that much this year. And I think it’s going to take some park like that because Utah State has shown they can put up points. They put up 70 a cou­ple of weeks ago, and we haven’t seen that from this UConn team. So it’s some­thing that’s def­i­nite­ly going to be needed.

Out­ro

Evan: And that’s a wrap on all things UConn sports. I’m Evan.

Kaleb: I’m Kaleb.

John: I’m John.

Evan: And we’ll catch you next week for some of the biggest sports sto­ry­lines in Storrs!

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