Around this time over the last two years, in the lead-up to college basketball season, Dan Hurley would be talking about Jayden Ross and how he’d been the best player in preseason practices, that he was flashing NBA ability and taking off like a rocket ship.

It felt, at times, like the UConn head coach was trying to speak Ross’ emergence into existence.

Hurley already made a similar comment this offseason when, back in August, he said the senior wing “has had maybe the best summer out of anybody.” This time after how he played last year, that emergence coming over the last 10 games of the regular season and throughout the NCAA Tournament, it was fully believable.

Now the question around Ross is: Will he start?

And the answer is still to be determined.

“There’s always competition,” Ross said last week at Big East Media Day, where he was suited up representing the Huskies at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square alongside Braylon Mullins. Point guard Silas Demary Jr., the league’s preseason player of the year, had to stay back due to an illness.

“Obviously everybody wants to kind of have that role on the team, have that starting position, and I think it’s a healthy thing,” he said.

His top competition for that position is highly talented freshman Colben Landrew, the Big East Preseason Freshman of the Year who was a consensus five-star recruit and a Naismith High School All-American last season. He’s already been mentioned as a potential one-and-done, 2027 NBA Draft candidate.

“We can both go at it every day and it gets you both better. Both competing at the highest level every day, trying to just be as consistent as you can to try to earn that spot,” Ross said. “Obviously I want to be able to start, this is my senior year, but I think either one of us would be deserving. And, at the end of the day, we’re both gonna do what we can to help the team.”

Ross has seen a steady increase in production over his first three years at UConn, going from 4.4 minutes per game as a freshman during the 2023 national championship season, to 11.4 minutes as a sophomore and 17.4 last year, when he averaged a career high 4.6 points and 2.5 rebounds per game. He shot 50.4% from the field and 39.1% from beyond the arc, the second-highest 3-point percentage on the team after Malachi Smith.

He proved during the NCAA Tournament that he can be an infusion of energy, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Much of the focus this offseason was developing on the offensive end, where he’s been limited to mostly shots at the rim and open 3-pointers.

As one of two four-year Huskies in the building – the only healthy one as long as Solo Ball is recovering from wrist surgery – the experience could be valued as a reason for starting Ross. UConn is already set to have at least three sophomores in its first five in Mullins, Duke transfer Nik Khamenia and Seton Hall transfer Na’jai Hines, and it would have one of the youngest high-major starting lineups in the nation with Landrew in as an 18-year-old freshman.

“Colben’s a stud. He’s like, not a baby, doesn’t act like a baby, but he’s a young guy,” Hurley said. “He’s gonna be an 18-year-old in some battles with some 23-, 24-year-olds potentially, so we need him to grow up fast. But the guy’s skill level, his feel, his just all-around ability for basketball, it’s high-level. You don’t know exactly what the timeline’s gonna look like, but he’s got a lot of talent.”

Precedent would suggest Ross as the starter, though no two situations are ever the same.

Hurley has rewarded loyalty in the past, like starting Samson Johnson over Tarris Reed Jr. at center in 2024-25, though Reed ended up playing more minutes (by a fraction) and had a bit more production. But he hasn’t shied from starting freshmen, either, with Liam McNeeley in the lineup that same year and Stephon Castle the year prior, though they didn’t have a four-year senior standing in the way.

“Colb’s got big-time talent, big-time ability and just a lot of confidence… The thing that keeps freshmen from having the biggest impact they could possibly have would be motor, doing it every possession, being a relentless competitor and then obviously a lot of defense,” Hurley said in September. “Because no matter how talented a freshman is at the offensive end, if they sink you on defense it’s hard to win with them. But he’s learning, he’s competitive, just, he’s a stud.”

The exhibition games, beginning Oct. 13 with Syracuse at Mohegan Sun Arena, should provide a clearer picture.