UConn men’s basketball starts its regular season on the same night as the women’s team, tipping off against Gardner-Webb at 9 p.m. after Geno’s squad hosts Cornell at PeoplesBank Arena at 5 p.m. on Monday night. Both games will be televised on NBC Sports and Peacock.
For Dan Hurley’s Huskies, three exhibition wins have spurred further confidence in the roster and its postseason potential. This team was already favored to win the Big East, picked to have the league’s player of the year and rookie of the year, and expected to earn at least a top-two tournament seed.
The Final Four hype is rising as the Huskies head to Boston for their second game, a national championship rematch against Michigan on Friday night. They’ll face five top-13 KenPom teams and two more top-30 teams before Christmas.
But it starts with Gardner-Webb in Hartford. The Runnin’ Bulldogs have been one of the worst teams in Division 1 hoops, going 4-29 last year with a 361 KenPom finish. They are expected to be among the bottom-tier teams in the Big South, a league that has been dominated by High Point and Winthrop over the last few years.
Jeremy Luther’s team returns three key rotation players in his third season at the helm: guards Ace Talbert and Jacob Hudson, last season's third- and fifth-leading scorers, and rotation wing Jamias Ferere. They’ve also added three Division 2 transfers, including shooting guards DJ Daniel and Seth Brown, who were both strong scorers at that level.
They have a pair of transfer forwards from Vermont and Buffalo, Mikhail Pocknett and Jackson Skipper, who are experienced but didn’t see a lot of time in their previous stops.
They don’t have a lot of experienced size and will likely be using a smaller lineup. Na’jai Hines and Oskar Giltay should feast in a matchup like this, while the Husky perimeter defense should hold this team down as well.
The Huskies were fully healthy for the first time in their third exhibition against Purdue. All systems were humming in that demolition of the Boilermakers. UConn should dominate here and also get a chance to test out different lineups and depth as it pulls ahead big in the second half.
