Dom Amore: Transfer portal gives, takes and forces UConn men’s coach Dan Hurley to adapt to new reality

There is always a fine line between order and chaos. In college basketball it has become so fine a line that one needs only to refresh a Twitter page to drift back and forth.

The news has been coming at a bewildering clip for the UConn men’s basketball program. Rahsool Diggins, Jalen Gaffney, Akok Akok and Corey Floyd Jr. are out, Tristen Newton in, with presumably more to follow. The news of Floyd and Newton came down on Wednesday.

Someone asked me this week via social media whether this is the new normal, or some systemic issue with Dan Hurley’s program. The best answer I have is it is the new normal — after all, roughly 30 percent of Division I players are now in the portal — but that is a fair question for a coach and program that has been building its culture around player development.

Is that approach still viable in this new normal?

“Adapt or die,” Hurley said Wednesday night. “You’re going to have to blend, in the recruiting process, high-impact guys who are freshmen who are ready to go right away and help you win, and guys who need a little more development but have the talent to have a role here, and then being strategic with transfers.”

This is not a UConn crisis, it’s going on nearly everywhere, but Hurley faces new challenges as UConn comes off a second straight first-round NCAA Tournament loss. Can he mold a team and take another step upward in 2022-23 with a roster that will be at least half filled with newcomers, or players who have not played much in his system?

He will have to be a coach and GM, re-recruit his own players every year and find new ones who not only have the talent, but the makeup to accept his hard coaching when there may be softer options.

“You’ve got to adjust and be smart enough to adapt and try to build relationships a lot quicker,” Hurley said. “I got into coaching for relationships that build over time and grow over time and coaching a team that has that consistent continuity. But it’s a much different game than it was two or three years ago. I’m going to be agile and adjust.”

The UConn program has been down this road before but through very different climates. In 2012, after a disappointing first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament, UConn’s one-year ban from postseason play pending and the air rife with rumors of Jim Calhoun’s imminent retirement, several players transferred out or turned pro. Calhoun stayed until September, repairing the roster with a transfer, R.J. Evans, and late recruits, including Phil Nolan. That turned out alright; there was enough talent sticking it out.

In 2017, when transferring was becoming more and more fashionable, a wave of players defected from Kevin Ollie’s roster. That was a culture problem and Ollie never recovered from it. UConn’s patchwork team was 14-18 the next year and in came Hurley to rebuild from the ground up. He has laid out a year-by-year blueprint of what the rebuild would look like and has generally delivered on schedule. But then an offseason like this between Years 4 and Year 5 couldn’t have been on his bingo card. Remember, no players left during his first 2 1/2 years on the job.

But everything is a different in 2022 with transfers no longer having to sit out a year. Since no one goes to college to sit on the bench, players who don’t play or don’t like their role, are going to bail. And when a coach searches for talent in the portal, the players he has will see the writing on the wall and look for the exit. With the backlog of players getting the extra year due to COVID it has been even harder for young players, such as UConn’s freshmen last season, to stay patient.

Assuming there are no further departures, UConn’s needle still points toward order not chaos. It was no surprise when Diggins, Gaffney or Akok left. Their playing time last season indicated they didn’t have futures at UConn. Floyd, who reclassified and enrolled at UConn in lieu of a senior year in high school, redshirted as expected and would have gotten the chance to earn minutes next season if he stayed.

The other departures, Isaiah Whaley and Tyler Polley, whose eligibility ran out, and R.J. Cole and Tyrese Martin, who put in their four years or more and decided not to come back for the extra year, were anticipated, and planned for.

So where does it leave the Huskies? With junior Andre Jackson, sophomore Jordan Hawkins and Newton in the backcourt; junior Adama Sanogo, sophomore Samson Johnson, redshirt junior Richie Springs and freshmen Donovan Clingan and Alex Karaban in the front court and five scholarships to offer, four if Class of -2023 incoming guard Stephon Castle decides to reclassify to 2022. Hurley would like to add two more players who can help immediately, and with more than 1,300 in the portal, it’s become a like eBay. You can find almost any type of player you want or need. Hurley wanted a big point guard who can score and he landed the 6-foot-5 Newton who averaged 17.7 points, 5.0 assists and 4.8 rebounds for East Carolina, and had a 25-point game against UConn two years ago.

“I’m going to get this team and program so much better,” Hurley said. “We’re going to continue to get better seeds in the NCAA Tournament. We’ve got a core of big-time players in Adama, Andre, Jordan, Tristen coming in, the best perimeter group, when the ball goes up, we’ve ever had, with some outstanding front court players. We’re in a great place.”

Hurley has laid out his plans to play with four scorers around a big man, and a bench that will allow him to play eight or nine. But beware the portal. In this new world, missteps in the transfer market can derail a season and it doesn’t take much to push a program with UConn-size expectations across the thin line into chaos.

Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com