The UConn men’s basketball team’s quest for a seventh national championship, a third in five seasons, and a fourth trip to the Final Four over that same span begins with their first official practice on Monday.
Unless Dan Hurley decides to push it back to Tuesday.
Point is, the Huskies can officially begin practices on Monday, six weeks prior to their season-opener on Nov. 2 against Gardner-Webb in either Hartford or Storrs (more on that later). Up until now, over the summer and since returning to campus prior to Labor Day, UConn was limited to eight hours a week of workouts, with no more than four hours per week on the court.
On Monday (or possibly Tuesday, depending on Hurley’s discretion) that gets bumped up to 20 hours per week for the rest of the season.
It will be a busier (and earlier) preseason for the Huskies. The days of First Night celebrations are long gone, replaced by exhibition games (i.e., money-makers) against high-level opponents. And teams can now have three preseason exhibitions, up from two. UConn’s first will be Oct. 13 against Syracuse at Mohegan Sun Arena, followed by at Michigan State on Oct. 20 in East Lansing, Mich., then against Purdue (either in Hartford or Storrs) on Oct. 27.
Before that, there’s Big East Media Day on Oct. 1 at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan. This will be the first time in more than a decade that the annual gathering of coaches and key players for the upcoming season won’t be held at Madison Square Garden. Seems Harry Styles has a residency at MSG in October, and coupled with the Knicks and Rangers’ schedules, sneaking in a media day at the World’s Most Famous Arena proved too tricky a task.
Media day is also much earlier than normal this year, likely a preview of the future. Many other leagues have held and are holding their respective men’s and women’s basketball media days in early October, in no small part due to the proliferation of more, high-level exhibition games that start in early/mid-October. (And, in this case, Harry Styles’ MSG residency).
Finally, on Nov. 2, the games start to count. Both the UConn men and women open their season that day, and it was announced on Thursday that the UConn women’s season-opener against Cornell will be at Hartford’s PeoplesBank Arena. That means the UConn men’s opener against Gardner-Webb will be at Gampel Pavilion, right?
Not necessarily. Seems there could be some sort of split doubleheader in the works at Hartford, not unlike last Columbus Day’s exhibition doubleheader at Mohegan Sun against the Huskies’ counterparts from Boston College. That won’t be known for sure until UConn releases its venue sites and tip-off times for all home games, likely early next week.