Consider, The Fast Break premium membership

Hello, readers… What a year!

Last March, we launched a premium subscription for The Fast Break newsletter. Since then, we covered the heck out of that year’s Big East Tournament. We were on-site for four out of six NCAA Tournament games and also covered the Huskies at the White House, as well as the NBA Combine, Summer League, and Draft.

Before basketball season started, we alerted you to the seriousness of Solo Ball, who would later be thrust into a starting role in the third game of his freshman year. We highlighted the opportunity ahead for Samson Johnson and how schools tried to recruit him away from Storrs.

We profiled the new roles coming for returning players like Alex Karaban and Tristen Newton and surveyed the significant role that the freshmen could play in the Huskies’ success.

We also had an early read on the only transfer addition to the roster. After Cam Spencer committed, we podcasted, wrote up a scouting report, and identified the role he’d be playing in the lineup. Cam’s hunger, savvy, and significant upcoming role were apparent to any readers of our preseason coverage.

We had the tremendous pleasure of interviewing Tristen Newton’s cousin, Green Bay Packers RB (and former UTEP hooper) Aaron Jones!

Once basketball started, we were on-site for preseason practices, First Night, all home games, and all of the big games besides Gonzaga in Seattle, thanks to our reader support. We did not have anyone in Omaha and didn’t send a writer to DC or Chicago — we’re managing a budget here!

We’ve been to every game at Madison Square Garden, and road conference games against Seton Hall, Villanova, and St. John’s. Our photo/video guy Ian Bethune was on hand for the Kansas game.

Cincinnati-based writer Patrick Martin, who co-hosts our podcast and video show, covered the Xavier and Butler road games and contributed season-long hoops analysis for The UConn Blog.

Former CT Post beat writer William Paxton has been the primary writer of our Notes & Quotes piece, a day-after download of every game. He’s been to most home games and will be at the season finale at Providence. We have video from most post-game press conferences with Dan Hurley and the players.

We’ve had features from Russ Steinberg, formerly of SB Nation, as well as Clayton Trutor, a historian and author who’s exploring UConn basketball history, and Ryan Cassidy, who covers all of the Big East. We looked at how the lineup was shaking out in the early part of the season before it reached its current stasis.

We’ve started the Rapid Recap, a quick update that arrives in your inbox right after the game. It’s for people who missed it, had a few too many beverages during, or simply want some additional context after watching. It includes a look at efficiency metrics, win probability, and the full box scores. We’re also regularly podcasting, with the help of Dan Madigan, editor at The UConn Blog.

I share the names of the people involved to underline how it takes a village to do this work. Don’t get me wrong. Unlike Rick Pitino, we’re having an enjoyable experience, but it’s also work.

In addition to the aforementioned writers, we have multiple editors overseeing articles, newsletters, video, and audio to get all of this out and keep improving it. It takes a lot of late nights, early mornings, and weird days, but I’m thankful to work with such a great team on this fun and exciting project.

There are multiple other writers and guests I hope to have involved in the future. Hopefully, you’ve also enjoyed the video show we launched in partnership with 22Threads and the visionary @ItsMediocreDan.

A few of our writers, including myself, Daniel Connolly, Megan Gauer, and Madigan, wrote articles for the SLAM special issue commemorating UConn’s men’s and women’s basketball championships.

We have done all of this across the season without pushing the premium membership very hard. Since the season started, we’ve kept most of our articles, podcasts, and videos available to everyone.

Across the season, some features, podcasts, and road recaps were paywalled for premium subscribers, but the bulk of our premium content will be coming out during the postseason and off-season once the games matter most and after we can provide reflection as well as unique coverage of the team’s roster changes, pro progress, recruiting, etc.

We’re expecting a huge postseason for the Huskies and an exciting run through the NBA Draft process as well, with up to five players participating. This summer we’ll hit the recruiting circuit hard, aiming to hone in on the next Husky commits.

In order to keep raising the bar for coverage of this team, and pay good sports media people to make good sports media, we’re doing one membership push now through the Big East Tournament.

Please subscribe and tell your friends! This will always be a free newsletter, with a premium offering for the Huskies’ most dedicated fans!

Please consider supporting The UConn Fast Break, the leading independent, digital-first, credentialed coverage of UConn men’s basketball, most of which is free. Our team has been working on this for years, and we’re excited to keep doing it for decades. No private equity group or media conglomeration can slow us down.

If you’ve made it this far, I’d like to sincerely thank you for caring. We hope to continue pursuing our mission of independent, straightforward coverage of UConn athletics for sports fans who care.

We’re not into clickbait. We’re not trying to win social media. We’re not looking to move up to a bigger job in a few years.

We just like sports and covering the local squads.

Hopefully, this is something you’d be willing to support for the price of one coffee per month.