The UConn Fast Break - 11/3/2021

Nobody else covers the Huskies like this. We've got hockey, soccer, hoops, and football in this edition!

November 03, 2021

Welcome to this week’s Fast Break, and thank you for being a subscriber. Read to the end to find out how you can make $2 million.

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“All Aboard!” #IceBus

With so much excitement surrounding the return of Big East hoops to Hartford/Storrs, it can be easy to forget that another exciting sport has started its season.

You are forgiven if you missed the start of UConn hockey, but don’t worry we’ll catch you up and there’s plenty of season left. Attending college hockey live is an absolute blast and very much worth your time, so go check out a game!

After starting the season 7-0, UConn women’s hockey is 8-1 following a win over Vermont. Chris MacKenzie’s team finished seventh in the league last year and fifth the year before. Next up for them is a game at BU on November 6th before a four-game home stretch that includes games against Brown, Maine, and Providence. They’ll also have The Nutmeg Classic over Thanksgiving weekend against Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac, and Yale.

UConn men’s hockey won two in a row last week, re-entering the national top-20 conversation and holding strong on the expectations of being the best Husky team in the program’s Hockey East tenure.

Mike Cavanaugh’s squad is loaded with exciting forward talent, including returning All-American Jonny Evans, sophomore Ryan Tverberg, who currently leads the team in points, and senior Jachym Kondalik, who recently became the program’s Hockey East-era assist leader.

The #IceBus will be in Maine this weekend before a big set of games next weekend, against Boston College at home and at Providence. They’ll have played seven straight road games before hosting BC at XL Friday night. The game will be televised but if you can make it there, the atmosphere in Hartford is likely to be electric.

Give these teams the support they deserve! Also, be sure to follow the work of Daniel Connolly, the only reporter in the world doing dedicated coverage of this program across The UConn Blog and The UConn Hockey Hub.

Weekly Rewind

With one week until opening night for UConn men’s basketball, we’ve got all the info you need for the upcoming season, including previews for St. Bonaventure, West Virginia, and the buy games on the Huskies’ schedule, with more to come!

Chasing Perfection - The double-edged sword that is the team’s exceptional depth this season.

UConn Women’s Basketball Weekly - How UConn women’s basketball hopes to play positionless basketball this season.

UConn men’s hockey takes down Dartmouth - The Huskies traveled to Dartmouth and returned with a convincing victory.

UConn football rumored to be in talks with Conference USA - On Thursday night, The Athletic reported that UConn was in negotiations to join Conference USA. Follow-up reports from Yahoo, Hearst, and A Dime Back suggest that The Athletic’s use of the term “negotiations” was a mischaracterization. Since then, we’ve found out the MAC is poaching two C-USA schools.

UConn women’s soccer upsets No. 21 Georgetown - UConn women’s soccer needed a win to clinch a spot in the Big East conference tournament and topped the Hoyas with an excellent goal.

UConn football to play series with USF - UConn will be playing another former foe from the American Athletic Conference.

UConn football future opponents - UConn football is now halfway through its two weeks off before the Huskies head south to take on Clemson.

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Highlights

UConn women’s soccer headed down to Washington, DC to face No. 21 Georgetown on the final day of the regular season, with the Huskies needing a win to secure a spot in the Big East Tournament.

In the 58th minute, Lucy Cappadona put the ball in the back of the net with a tap-in, but this was a tremendous team play for the only goal in the upset.

Memory Lane

2007 was one of the wildest college football seasons in recent memory. It started with Appalachian State taking down No. 5 Michigan in the Big House. Then 13 AP Top-5 teams lost to unranked opponents during the regular season. Over the final nine weeks, the no. 2 team in the country lost seven times.

USF was one of those schools, losing to unranked Rutgers 30-27 in Piscataway on October 18. Nine days later, the 11th-ranked Bulls traveled to Rentschler Field for a 3:30 p.m. matchup with the Huskies on ABC, their first game on network television.

The hosts went up 16-0 in the first half and when the final whistle sounded, UConn had its first win over a ranked opponent, 22-15.

ESPN’s Gamecast for the contest is here, while some highlights are below.

The Huskies would go on to lose three of their final four games that year, but the 2007 UConn football team showed the country that it could make a splash in this crazy world. The USF win earned the Huskies their first national ranking.

Great Pic

Chase Bradley scored his first career goal against No. 20 Northeastern in a 5-3 win for the Huskies. Photographer Ian Bethune caught a few action shots of Bradley during the game.

Parting Thoughts

UConn football coaching search

Nobody expected UConn would be looking for a new football coach in September. Two months later, is the picture any clearer?

Athletic director David Benedict needs to find someone willing to take over a program that appears to be spiraling. Calls to downgrade the program to FCS or cut it are ill-informed, but the program is in definite need of rehabilitation.

A star assistant from a power program is not going to be the right guy for this job. The Huskies tried that with Bob Diaco; someone with a similar profile is probably less likely to work out this time around.

UConn is looking for a quality candidate with head coaching experience who is willing to overlook some of those structural and career-pathing challenges and accept the reported salary of up to $2 million that the school may be willing to offer, as Benedict told Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports.

This is about as much as Temple pays its head coach, according to USA Today, and would be middle-of-the-pack for the AAC or Mountain West. It’s more than the current salary of coaches at schools like Tulane, Memphis, UAB, Colorado State, and Boise State.

This is not an impossible task, but it is clear that Benedict needs to take a more creative approach to this hire than the last time he filled this vacancy. This isn’t the same UConn football program as it was ten or even five years ago.

Some dudes have popped up in the rumor mill lately that are interesting but probably not likely. I doubt the hire will be a flashy name, but it needs to be someone who is comfortable with many styles of play, who can handle the intricacies of an oddball FBS independent, and is willing to inject some character into a program that is in desperate need of it.

All of that being said, it’s definitely not the worst way to make $2 million. We’re still allowed to have reasonable standards when it comes to the quality of this hire. The success of the independence experiment depends on it.

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