By CHARLIE PARENT & ADAM ZAGORIA
Dan Hurley and two-time defending champs UConn continued to reload, signing Saint Mary’s transfer Aidan Mahaney after he committed on Monday.
The 6-foot-3, All-WCC First-Team honoree, chose the Huskies over Kentucky, Creighton and Virginia.
“Aidan is one of the better guards in college basketball, and we are very excited to welcome him to Storrs,” head coach Dan Hurley said. “Aidan is coming from a terrific program at Saint Mary’s that has experienced a great deal of success, and we welcome his championship background. He can really shoot it and score, but we’re equally excited about what he can bring as a playmaker. We expect big things from him this year.”
Mahaney comes to Storrs as an elite scoring combo guard, averaging 13.9 points per game in each of the last two seasons at Saint Mary’s and accumulating 958 career points. He is a two-time First Team All-WCC selection, earning those laurels after both his freshman and sophomore campaigns. As a rookie he won the WCC Freshman of the Week honor 10 times. Mahaney is a career 37.5 percent 3-point shooter and has added 2.4 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game in his career.
“The coaching staff doesn’t rebuild at UConn, they reload,” he told ESPN. T”here is no tip-toeing around the fact that the program is going for it all again … One game at a time, obviously, but the goals at UConn are set the moment you walk into the facilities. National champs.”
The Huskies also signed class of 2024 five-star Liam McNeeley, and Michigan transfer Tarris Reed Jr.
“I think for us, we want to keep intact obviously as much as the roster as we can to obviously hold on to a championship culture with people that know what it’s all about,” Hurley told ZAGSBLOG during a Zoom last week to promote his partnership with Bai WonderWater.
“I see us like we have in the past just being strategic, looking for one or two additions to fortify some positions. We’re excited about some of the young players that we’ve got coming back. We’re excited about Hassan and Samson Johnson, two key players from last year’s team, coming back.”
He added: “There’s a lot of moving parts for us right now, but hopefully we’re not in total overhaul mode.”
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