Husky Huddle (Episode 1): Hot Start Huskies for Fall Sports

Hey y’all! I’m Matt, one of the guests on “Husky Hud­dle,” a UConn sports cen­tered pod­cast for those who may be the most loy­al Husky fan. Or, you may not know much about the devel­op­ing sto­ry­lines this fall with dif­fer­ent Huskies sports teams. That’s where myself, fel­low guests Olivia, Kwasi, and our host Nick come in to play! From talks about UConn Foot­bal­l’s promis­ing start at home in East Hart­ford to under­rat­ed sto­ry­lines revolv­ing oth­er Husky sports teams, we’re the four to pro­vide you with your sports fill.

Fur­ther research/notes:

Chat Cast Notes

Intro

Nick: Hel­lo, every­body. This is Husky Hud­dle. My name is Nick, and I’m joined today by Olivia, Kwasi, and matt. Today we’re going to be touch­ing a lot on a few UConn sports, some, on cam­pus, some off cam­pus. It’s been a good fall for the Huskies. A lot of hot teams, a lot of good per­for­mances, and a lot of good sto­ry­lines. So get ready, strap in. We’re going to be talk­ing UConn sports, and we hope that you’re ready for today’s episode. All right, Matt, we’re going to start with UConn Foot­ball. Tell us a lit­tle bit about what Jim Mora’s team has been up to.

UConn Foot­ball

Matt: So they’re two and two to start the sea­son and at home at Rentschler Field, they’re 2–0. Recent, game against FAU. In those 421 rush­ing yards, there were two play­ers that had 156 rush­ing yards each, and that was run­ning back Durell Robin­son and run­ning back Mel Brown. With Jim Mora, UConn Foot­ball is devel­op­ing their tal­ent and build­ing their foun­da­tion that, poten­tial­ly lead to more suc­cess in the future. So that pos­es a ques­tion. Because of their recent suc­cess ear­ly on at home, would that poten­tial­ly lead to big­ger stu­dent turnout at foot­ball games? Do we think so?

Kwasi: No. If I’m being hon­est, when­ev­er I think about UConn Foot­ball, there’s oth­er sports that are all also D1 . But espe­cial­ly when it comes to foot­ball, peo­ple real­ly hold on to those ear­ly 2000’s teams of like, oh, that was the mec­ca of UConn Foot­ball. Those were the glo­ry days. And it just has­n’t real­ly been the same since 2009–2010. And in order to get back to that lev­el, they need to either join a cer­tain divi­sion of foot­ball, there’s rumors that they’re going to join the Big 12 There’s rumors that they’re going to go ahead and join the Big Ten, even. So, right now, they’re just, FBS, inde­pen­dent, and that does­n’t real­ly allow kids to want to com­mit to your school. The only school that real­ly works like that is Notre Dame. Peo­ple go to UConn for almost any oth­er sport on cam­pus, like, talk about oth­er sports that are doing just as well right now. For foot­ball, it’s like it’s get­ting bet­ter, or at least so I’ve heard it’s get­ting bet­ter, but, like, for the last, like, five to ten years, it just has­n’t been look­ing too hot.

Olivia: I think there’s a lot to be said, though, about how much Jim Mora changed it in his third sea­son now at UConn. He said back in July that he knows Con­necti­cut is such a pow­er­house for sports, and he does­n’t want the foot­ball pro­gram to be left behind. And I feel like he’s done a real­ly good job. We qual­i­fied for our first bowl game his first sea­son, but he’s done a lot since com­ing. And I feel like there is a lot to be said about what he’s done. And I think back to what Matt men­tioned ear­li­er, I think stu­dents are tend­ing to go more. I think it being in Hart­ford is prob­a­bly, like, one of the big­ger things that makes it more dif­fi­cult, because no one wants to ride a school bus to Hart­ford. But I feel like stu­dents are kind of get­ting more into it, espe­cial­ly if they are doing a lit­tle bit bet­ter, espe­cial­ly at home.

Kwasi: Have you guys been to foot­ball games at all or?

Nick: I went to their game against Mer­ri­mack. When they beat them, it was like 58 — 14 or some­thing like that. So it was a blowout. But even then, the stu­dent sec­tion was full for the first half, but emp­ty in the sec­ond half. So we’ll see what it takes for UConn to actu­al­ly fill out the stu­dent sec­tion. If they’re play­ing good and fans aren’t there, prob­a­bly not the best sign.

Kwasi: It’s just the fact that it’s like the entire, like, four years I’ve been here, it’s just like they haven’t been that good. And in order to get peo­ple to go to your foot­ball games, you have to show invest­ment. You have to spend mon­ey to get mon­ey, not that they’re spend­ing mon­ey on get­ting kids to come to col­lege. In order to get peo­ple to go to your foot­ball games, you need to be able to show that you care about foot­ball in that regard, the same way that they care about bas­ket­ball. It’s like bas­ket­ball gets packed out every sin­gle year, and it has been that way for three decades. And that’s just because every­one loves UConn Bas­ket­ball. And the UConn bas­ket­ball teams, both men and wom­en’s, are both so good. So it’s like, if I’m gonna go to a foot­ball game, I don’t want to see the team just go, like 6–9 over the course of the entire sea­son. You got­ta be able to just show that you care about foot­ball and show that the pro­gram cares. I see, like, a lit­tle bit of a turn­around for sure, but it’s like, it’s gonna take, like a cou­ple years for sure to be able to see that stuff actu­al­ly that come to fruition.

Nick: Yeah. Olivia kind of hint­ed at this ear­li­er. Ever since Jim Mora, took the head of the team a cou­ple years ago, the team has def­i­nite­ly been trend­ing in the right direc­tion. Said his first year, they qual­i­fied for a bowl game. That was their first time in quite a while. I’ll read you a few of these stats from their game against Mer­ri­mack when they did beat them, but they had 624 yards of total offense. That was a new school record. Their 56 first half points were a new FBS school record. It’s safe to say that the team is def­i­nite­ly pro­gress­ing in terms of its tal­ent, its play­mak­ing abil­i­ty. I think if the team has been talk­ing about join­ing the Big 12 or the Pac 12, I for­get exact­ly what con­fer­ence, the Big 12. If that were to hap­pen, I think it would def­i­nite­ly give the team some more direc­tion, give fans some­thing to cheer for. Prob­a­bly that’s kind of what hav­ing a con­fer­ence would do for foot­ball. So if that were to hap­pen, I think that’d be huge for the team. We’ll see where those talks go, but right now, they’ve kind of stalled.

Kwasi: They’ve had, like, NFL, like, guys get draft­ed these past, like, two, three years, so it’s not like that. I’m say­ing, like, it’s not gonna hap­pen even­tu­al­ly, but, like, one thing that it just, like, seems like it’s, like, for sure it’s not gonna hap­pen, like, at least now dur­ing my time at UConn any­way, and it’s just, like, stuff like that, like, kind of sucks, but, like, you know, it’s like, I’ve expe­ri­enced two bas­ket­ball cham­pi­onships. It’s just, like, stuff like that, like, hope­ful­ly changes with time. But for the time being, I do see a turn­around. I feel like we’ll get bet­ter, give it, like, pro­grams take, like, five years to build. I’d say, like, a sol­id, like, five to ten year plan. Even­tu­al­ly, there should be a lit­tle bit of a shift, and hope­ful­ly they join a con­fer­ence, like you guys are say­ing, and then that would, like, con­vince kids, like, out of high school to be like, oh, I want to go play in that conference.

Olivia: I think it’ll be inter­est­ing, too, to see, like you said, in the next 5–10 years, how the trends change along­side the bas­ket­ball team. Last year, UConn had over 50,000 appli­cants to UConn, which was the first time in school his­to­ry they don’t nor­mal­ly have that many. And across the nation, most uni­ver­si­ties are hav­ing less and less appli­cants, but we’re defy­ing nation­al aver­ages because of the bas­ket­ball team they’re accred­it­ing it to. So I’d be inter­est­ed to see how it changes with foot­ball, too. Cause I feel like that’s the only thing we’re miss­ing as a big state school. I feel like a lot of peo­ple com­pare us to Penn State in a lot of regards based on size and loca­tion. But I’m inter­est­ed to see if peo­ple want to come to UConn more because of the foot­ball, if we get bet­ter. Cause I feel like that’s one thing that holds peo­ple back. The bas­ket­bal­l’s great, but the foot­ball kind of sucks for a state school.

Kwasi: The fact that the bas­ket­ball teams can draw peo­ple almost any­where. Like, they have games at Madi­son Square, and they have games at, like, the XL Cen­ter. It’s like, it’s not real­ly a mat­ter of, “Oh, peo­ple aren’t inter­est­ed in foot­ball. So, like, we have to put the sta­di­um in Hart­ford.” It’s real­ly a thing of, like, need to show that, like, you care about foot­ball for us to be inter­est­ed in going to your games. It’s like I said, it’s def­i­nite­ly gonna be inter­est­ing. Like, do you guys think UConn Foot­ball is gonna get good, like, any­time soon­er at all?

Nick: I think they’ll get bet­ter. I don’t think they’ll be one of the con­sen­sus best teams in the nation. I don’t think they ever will be one of the con­sen­sus best teams in the nation. But that does­n’t mean they can’t be com­pet­i­tive and fun to watch.

UConn Vol­ley­ball

Kwasi: We could move on now. You guys should just, like, edu­cate me on UConn Vol­ley­ball, because I see that they have a 12–0, over­all record. It’s the best start in pro­gram his­to­ry. I per­son­al­ly don’t watch a lot of vol­ley­ball col­le­giate­ly any­way. Like, I watch Olympics, so obvi­ous­ly, like, beach vol­ley­ball and then, like, reg­u­lar vol­ley­ball. But, like, you guys just, like, tell me about, like, UConn Volleyball.

Nick: Yeah. If you don’t watch vol­ley­ball, you def­i­nite­ly should start watch­ing the Huskies, because right now, the team is 12–0. Head coach Ellen Her­man-Kim­ball has, led an all around Huskies team to the best start in pro­gram his­to­ry. Last year, the team went 8–22. So it’s been not only a turn­around, but a dra­mat­ic turn­around at that. From a team that was under 500 to a team that’s now unde­feat­ed. They’re unde­feat­ed in non-con­fer­ence play. They also have sev­en home wins, and the team has just been receiv­ing efforts all around the ros­ter. That includes stand­out junior Emma Werk­meis­ter, who is aver­ag­ing almost five points per set. That’s the best on her team and 25th in the coun­try. But in addi­tion to her, Doga Kut­lu, Audrey Rome, Tay­lor Pan­ell, McKen­na Brand, and Han­na Tyl­s­ka have all made name for them­selves. So it’s been a good year and a good start to the sea­son for the Huskies.

Matt: 12–0 over­all record is impres­sive in any feat. Do you believe that with sports like vol­ley­ball that have real­ly great sto­ry­lines that not many peo­ple know about unless you’re actu­al­ly involved with those teams. Do you think that it comes down to how well stu­dents know and how well these teams, I guess you could say, are like mar­ket­ed or pro­mot­ed to stu­dents? Because I’ve been see­ing a lot of Tik­Toks or like Insta­gram reels about the UConn Vol­ley­ball team where they go up to stu­dents and ask them ques­tions to win, like a Dunkin gift card.

Nick: I def­i­nite­ly think it helps. I per­son­al­ly work for UConn video ser­vices. I also see what UConn mar­ket­ing does and I know that they put an effort for every sin­gle one of their teams, so it’s pret­ty even. I think the issue is that some sports are just kind of niche com­pared to oth­ers. Bas­ket­ball is always going to be a big draw because it has a wide audi­ence and a wide demo­graph­ic of peo­ple who are inter­est­ed. Vol­ley­ball is also very pop­u­lar. What UConn Vol­ley­ball does have work­ing for them this year is that they opened their brand new UConn Vol­ley­ball cen­ter that used to be the Fre­itas ice forum on cam­pus. They took it, they ren­o­vat­ed it, got rid of the ice, and now it’s a brand new vol­ley­ball cen­ter. So the Huskies have a new home for their vol­ley­ball team. If you guys have ever seen it, it’s very nice. Over these first few weeks of it being open, it had a sell­out crowd in its open­ing week­end. Few sell­out crowds ever since then. So even though vol­ley­ball may not be get­ting the same eyes as these oth­er sports, it is still very pop­u­lar. Peo­ple are still com­ing out. So it’s been very encour­ag­ing to see. And I think that has to do with not only the team’s good start, but also their new home on campus

Kwasi: Just fur­ther the point that you lit­er­al­ly just made. It just kind of shows if you invest into any type of pro­gram, you’re going to start to see results. And that’s all that fans could ask for. That’s all that stu­dents could ask for. It’s just if you start to. Again, they just got a new vol­ley­ball cen­ter that could not nec­es­sar­i­ly attribute 100% to their great start to the sea­son, but there was some cor­re­la­tion there of once you show them that you care, once you show them, “Hey, let’s make your facil­i­ties bet­ter, let’s make sure that this is bet­ter.” It’s like, it goes to show that that could help improve the team in ways that are beyond play­er development.

Olivia: Yeah, it reminds me of the base­ball sta­di­um because they just recent­ly redid the Riz­za Per­for­mance Cen­ter, and it’s so nice. And the base­ball team’s been doing real­ly well. But going back to vol­ley­ball, some­thing I think that, ah, they do that’s real­ly cool, is they have the ath­letes hand out fly­ers on cam­pus, which I haven’t seen any oth­er sport do. And I feel like some­thing that’s so fun about col­lege is you have such close access to the stu­dent ath­letes, and they are like, some­times you see Paige Bueck­ers walk­ing on cam­pus, and that’s so cool. And obvi­ous­ly, unfor­tu­nate­ly, the vol­ley­ball play­ers just aren’t as well known. But I think it is cool to, like, have a direct ath­lete be like, “Hey, come watch our game.” And I think there’s a lot to be said about the stu­dent involve­ment that they have. So I think if they con­tin­ue their efforts like that and they’re prov­ing to us that they’re worth watch­ing, we should all, like, con­sid­er going more, espe­cial­ly with the new sta­di­um. It’s so nice.

Nick: The vol­ley­ball play­ers are super nice. I have seen those videos of them hand­ing out dunkin gift cards. So def­i­nite­ly check out a game. Head to the new UConn Vol­ley­ball cen­ter. The team has been play­ing great, like I said, not only Emma Werk­meis­ter, but the entire team, led by coach Ellen Her­man-Kim­ball has turned it around this year. They’ve been a fun team to watch.

UConn Men’s Soccer

Kwasi: Let’s just move on to UConn men’s soc­cer now. I’ve only been to one sports game, like, my entire, like, four years on cam­pus, and the one sports game I went to was a, UConn men’s soc­cer game. This year, they’ve start­ed out unde­feat­ed. Six wins, zero loss­es, two draws. UConn men’s soc­cer is some­thing that I know, like, per­son­al­ly, they’ve been, like, devel­op­ing some­thing like these past few years. That’s, like, dif­fer­ent play­ers going on to play in that MLS. They’re get­ting draft­ed and stuff like that. They go on to play in Europe. I’m not too sure when that sta­di­um was built, but there has been a mas­sive turnaround.

Nick: To answer your ques­tion, Kwasi, it looks like Joseph J. Mor­rone Sta­di­um was built in 1969. So it has been a while. Right. But you’re absolute­ly right. It seems that the tra­jec­to­ry of UConn men’s soc­cer has been in the past, it was a dom­i­nant pro­gram. It was very high on nation­al rank­ings, one of the most com­pet­i­tive teams in the nation. And then it kind of drift­ed back and was­n’t as com­pet­i­tive for a peri­od. But over these last cou­ple of years, the team has been reform­ing, rebuild­ing. A lot of that has to do with head coach Chris Gban­di who is in his third sea­son. When Gban­di inher­it­ed this team, it was a bit messy. He had a lot of play­ers who were with pre­vi­ous coach­ing reg­i­mens, so not exact­ly his team and his ros­ter, but he’s done an incred­i­ble job acquir­ing tal­ent and acquir­ing self­less play­ers who are will­ing to do what it takes to win. So this team is not dom­i­nat­ed by super­stars. It is very even up and down the ros­ter, and they’ve received con­tri­bu­tions from just about every­body. That includes junior Scott Testori, who in his third year is aver­ag­ing over half an assist per game and he has four total assists. Both of those are sec­ond the Big East and best on his team. Mean­while, play­ers like Sabri Han­ni and Eli Con­way have been extreme­ly good on the offen­sive side of the field. They both have two game win­ning goals apiece, which is 15th in the coun­try. They also both have nine points and four goals, which is fourth and third in the Big East, respec­tive­ly. And in goal Max Kerkvli­et, he has an 0.824 save per­cent­age, which is 12th in the coun­try. So play­ers like Guil­laume Vac­ter have also real­ly con­tributed on the defen­sive side of the ball. So every­body on the team is putting their best foot forward.

Kwasi: I do feel like that turn­around that we were talk­ing about ear­li­er, when it comes to UConn foot­ball, it’s like that’s what UConn soc­cer has already start­ed to progress into. They’ve already had their five to ten year turn­around of, okay, let’s redo this. Let’s devel­op new prac­tice tac­tics. Let’s make sure that we start to con­vince play­ers like, “Hey, UCon­n’s the place to be.” And it’s no mat­ter where you are in the coun­try, as long as you have real­ly, real­ly good stand­ing across the entire year of col­lege sports, peo­ple will want to come to your cam­pus to play sports there.

Olivia: But I think some­thing that UConn Ath­let­ic does that’s pret­ty neat is they have the bas­ket­ball team or the foot­ball team attend one anoth­er’s events, and they do that for the soc­cer games, too. If you ever see Paige and KK are always post­ing tik­toks at the wom­en’s soc­cer games. So I think that’s anoth­er draw, too. Is oth­er stu­dent ath­letes sup­port. So we should all sup­port because we love them. And they do a lot of tra­di­tions at men’s soc­cer games. Like, they have tra­di­tion night and they have all the sports teams come out. The UConn mar­ket­ing, they give out a lot of free stuff at men’s soc­cer games and at those, like, I don’t want to say, like, less­er watch sports but for lack of a bet­ter term, I’ll say that they do give away, like, nicer stuff. Like, at the hock­ey games, they kind of give away cheap fan­ny packs. Where­as at the soc­cer games, they give away nice t‑shirts and hats. So that’s anoth­er, like, draw to get stu­dents to go. So it’s not great atten­dance, but it’s def­i­nite­ly bet­ter than some of the female sports.

Matt: And, like, to that point about, like, oth­er stu­dent ath­letes sup­port­ing teams like the soc­cer team, it just reminds me of the sto­ry­lines from this past sum­mer about the Paris Olympics, where the men’s bas­ket­ball team for the Unit­ed States would go to, like, these, like, dif­fer­ent sport­ing events to, like, sup­port their, like, fel­low ath­letes. For me, it’s very pret­ty much a mir­ror image. I mean, obvi­ous­ly, like, the Olympics are a much grander scale, but even, like, at a col­lege lev­el, like, see­ing oth­er stu­dent ath­letes sup­port oth­er stu­dent ath­letes, I think just goes a long way. And it comes to show that even if a sport is niche, like soc­cer or vol­ley­ball, you could still, like, if you invest in a pro­gram, you could make it work.

Nick: It has been encour­ag­ing to see the efforts that have been made by not only the play­ers, but all UConn per­son­nel. That includes the mar­ket­ing depart­ment to put for­ward a good fan expe­ri­ence. Draw fans, draw play­ers to UConn, try to make the school seem, you know, as well round­ed and inclu­sive as it can. So it’s great see­ing ath­letes sup­port each oth­er. And there’s no bet­ter team to sup­port right now, maybe, oth­er than the vol­ley­ball team, than the 24th ranked UConn men’s soc­cer team. So from that, let’s kind of segue into the oth­er soc­cer team on cam­pus, the wom­en’s soc­cer team. They have a 6–1‑2 start to the sea­son, the sec­ond best over­all record in the Big East. So it’s been anoth­er hot start for anoth­er Husky team. What do you guys think?

UConn Wom­en’s Soccer

Kwasi: I’d say, like, if all these teams are start­ing off real­ly hot, like, all stu­dents should be try­ing their best to, like, just, like, go and watch, because, like, espe­cial­ly in the moments, like, espe­cial­ly when the team’s per­form­ing real­ly well, you want to be there and be a part of it, you know, when it comes to UConn wom­en’s soc­cer, I know for a fact that they get, like, a lot of peo­ple going to, like, the WSL, like, the wom­en’s Super League, like, both in Europe and in Amer­i­ca. I always think it’s real­ly cool just, like, see­ing, like, peo­ple that you go to school with be able to, like, go and, like, play pro­fes­sion­al­ly no mat­ter what the sport is. And I feel like peo­ple like, some­times take that for grant­ed. Just, like, stuff like that, I always find, like, real­ly inter­est­ing. So it’s like. So it’s like, to be able to go and watch a team that’s per­form­ing real­ly well right now. They’ve only lost one game so far out of their first nine. They real­ly, real­ly prob­a­bly have a lot of tal­ent that will go on to play pro­fes­sion­al­ly as well. So to be able to be a part of that and be able to go watch them before they start mak­ing their hun­dreds of thou­sands and mil­lions of dol­lars, I feel like that’s some­thing that you should go and wit­ness. Cause then you could tru­ly say, I was there before all this oth­er stuff happened.

Olivia: Yeah. Some­thing real­ly spe­cial that they do, too, is they give out a lot of, free tick­ets to youth girls soc­cer pro­grams. I’ve worked a cou­ple UConn games, and it’s real­ly nice to meet these fam­i­lies who come and bring their daugh­ters, and it’s just a good way for them to show, like, female ath­letes can do real­ly well. And like you said, a lot of them go on to play in the Super League. So it’s real­ly spe­cial, and that’s some­thing, I think, that UConn wom­en’s soc­cer does that’s impor­tant to send out the right mes­sage, and I feel like that helps bring up their atten­dance, too.

Matt: I mean, I think some­thing, too, that I’m notic­ing from a lot of these dif­fer­ent sports that, like the men’s soc­cer team, they give out free stuff, and for the wom­en’s soc­cer team, they give out tick­ets to youth soc­cer teams. I think each of these sports real­ly has some­thing spe­cial that they do to kind of draw an atten­dance, but also things like that, that kind of leave an impact on the UConn com­mu­ni­ty as a whole, whether it be stu­dents or fam­i­lies of peo­ple that sup­port UConn. So, def­i­nite­ly for, like, each of these sports teams, if they kind of just. If they keep stick­ing close to the vest and doing things like this, then I think it’ll real­ly go a long way, and it’ll con­tin­ue to prove that UConn has one of the best, ath­let­ic pro­grams in the nation.

Nick: The UConn sport­ing expe­ri­ence is def­i­nite­ly a spe­cial one, and that’s made spe­cial when you have play­ers like Chioma Okafor and Kait­lyn Mahoney, who have both per­formed excep­tion­al­ly well for the wom­en’s soc­cer team. Okafor, on offense, is aver­ag­ing 1.78 points per game. That’s the best on the team. That’s also first in the Big East Con­fer­ence and 29th in the coun­try. And in the goal, Kait­lyn Mahoney is aver­ag­ing 0.77 goals against per game. That’s third in the Big East. So again, kind of like the men’s soc­cer team, we’re see­ing con­tri­bu­tions on offense and also on defense and what has amount­ed to an all around, very well suit­ed and strong UConn wom­en’s soc­cer team.

UConn Field Hockey

Kwasi: Now, just like end­ing things off with UConn Field Hock­ey. 7–1 to start the sea­son, their best start since 2019. They’re ranked 11th in the coun­try right now. Just seems like, I always feel like field hock­ey is def­i­nite­ly an under­rat­ed sport. Like, peo­ple, like, com­pare it to lacrosse in a way. I don’t think the two are real­ly hand in hand the same. So would any­one wan­na just go off on field hock­ey for a lit­tle bit?

Nick: I’ve also nev­er been a huge fan of field hock­ey in the past. I am becom­ing one now because the Huskies have been so good. I’ve heard com­par­isons to ice hock­ey, but also soc­cer. When peo­ple are com­par­ing field hock­ey, real­ly, it is its own unique sport. It’s some­thing you just got­ta watch and try to learn and expe­ri­ence for your­self. It is impres­sive as hell, though, see­ing what some of these ath­letes can do, run­ning up and down the field, bent over, try­ing to basi­cal­ly, like, drib­ble a ball with the stick. It’s hard to do, not only in ice hock­ey, but these girls are run­ning around, run­ning into each oth­er. So for the UConn field hock­ey pro­gram to be ranked 11th in the nation is very impres­sive. Their 7–1 start to the sea­son is their best start since 2019. It’s kind of a trend we’ve seen in these oth­er sports guys, but it’s just anoth­er team that up and down the ros­ter has received contributions.

Matt: When you look at sports like field hock­ey, vol­ley­ball, soc­cer, there are always sev­er­al play­ers that serve as “glue play­ers” that work pret­ty much cohe­sive­ly to pro­duce what we see as wins and suc­cess. Like, again, these teams are start­ing off pret­ty hot, and a lot of it is accred­it­ed to how well these teams have chem­istry and how well they just work together.

Nick: I think one trend that I’ve kind of noticed through­out this dis­cus­sion is that we’ve kind of talked about how some pro­grams are, you know, quote on quote niche and may not get the same atten­tion or the same num­ber of eyes as oth­er sports. We’ve also dis­cussed that because these pro­grams are so well round­ed, they’ve been able to suc­ceed. So I think, you know, because these pro­grams maybe not, are not get­ting as much atten­tion, these ath­letes are still putting for­ward their best foot. They’re work­ing as a team. They’re not so wor­ried about star pow­er or, you know, name, image, like­ness, things like that. This is just a group of peo­ple who col­lec­tive­ly, like you said, Matt, have the goal of win­ning. I think it real­ly reflects the cul­ture that UConn instills in its ath­letes and in its stu­dents. It’s a win­ning men­tal­i­ty, and I think it’s a tes­ta­ment to the school as a whole.

Olivia: And I feel like col­lege is the last lev­el of sports that you play as a team. Once you go pro­fes­sion­al, it’s kind of like you’re your own, like, self agent and you play for your­self, espe­cial­ly, like, bas­ket­ball is the best exam­ple. You see Andre Jack­son, like, he plays for the UConn Huskies, and they’re play­ing as a team. They win as a nation­al cham­pi­onship as a team. But when you go to the NBA, like, you’re play­ing for your­self, and every­one’s kind of in it for the mon­ey. So I think, like you said, Nick, it’s a great tes­ta­ment to the cul­ture that we have at UConn, that it’s the last time you play for a com­mon cause and you play with each oth­er, and it’s not just about the indi­vid­ual athletes.

Final Thoughts + Outro

Kwasi: And just to end off, like, the entire dis­cus­sion, we had one trend that I’ve been kind of hit­ting on, and we’ve all talked about it as well. It’s just like when you, there’s the term got­ta spend mon­ey to make mon­ey. You got­ta, like, take the time to invest into stuff in order to see results. And it’s just like a lot of these pro­grams, like, the great starts that they’ve had or, like, the turn­arounds that we’re start­ing to see. It’s like they’ve all been, like, plant­i­ng the seeds for a very long time. Like, maybe, like, fruits of their labor. Like, actu­al­ly start­ing to show where, like, each of these teams, like, may noth­ing have been so great in the past, but now they’re all show­ing up, and that could be because of a lot of things. You could attribute it to the bas­ket­ball team win­ning and ath­letes being like, oh, hey, the bas­ket­ball pro­gram’s pret­ty good. Maybe I want to go play field hock­ey league, or maybe I want to go play vol­ley­ball there, stuff like that. So it’s being able to invest in dif­fer­ent types of things, build­ing a new hock­ey sta­di­um, pre­vent­ing a new vol­ley­ball are­na, being able to do all these things, to be able to get ath­letes to be will­ing to come to your school, to be able to get stu­dents to be will­ing to go to your games. That’s going to turn the pro­gram around. So I feel like the biggest thing that they could do now is just con­tin­ue what they’re doing. Make sure that they don’t just give up. They don’t set­tle for what they have now. Make sure you just keep on invest­ing, keep on show­ing that you care, because that’s all that stu­dents and fans could care about. They want to see effort. The pro­gram’s just like, oh, well, if nobody’s going to come see the games, why should we put in the effort? So I feel like they’re doing a real­ly good job right now, and I feel like with time, even­tu­al­ly they will see things get even bet­ter than they are right now.

Nick: All right, well, to wrap it up, in case you missed it, today, we dis­cussed the pro­gres­sion of UConn Ath­let­ics. It’s been an incred­i­bly hot start to the fall, not for just one UConn ath­let­ic team, but for pret­ty much all of them and for every­body in the Husky Hud­dle, I’m, Nick. I was joined today by Olivia, Kwasi, and Matt. Thank you for tun­ing in, and we’ll see you next time.

Kwasi: Shoutout UConn Jour­nal­ism for the pod­cast studio.

Matt: LET’S GOOOOO

Nick: Thank you.