{"id":74115,"date":"2025-08-11T07:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/74115\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T07:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T07:19:12","slug":"ncaa-analyst-reveals-the-huskies-x-factor-ahead-of-crucial-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/74115\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA analyst reveals the Huskies&#8217; X-factor ahead of crucial season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">After seeing their three-peat dreams ruined by the Florida Gators in the Sweet 16 of the 2025 NCAA tournament, the UConn Huskies men\u2019s basketball team is eager to bounce back and challenge for the national championship again.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">With the defending champions Gators, the renewed Duke Blue Devils, the dangerous Kansas Jayhawks and more, Dan Hurley\u2019s team won\u2019t have the easiest path to another championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">They have Alex Karaban returning for another season after withdrawing from the NBA draft, which is major for the team\u2019s championship quest. UConn\u2019s project has been built brick by brick, and that factor can make them favorites entering the 2025-26 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NCAA analyst names X-factor for UConn\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bolavip.com\/en\/college-basketball\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" class=\"break-word font-articleLinkText text-articleLinkText hover:text-articleLinkTextHover hover:bg-articleLinkTextHoverBg cursor-pointer border-solid border-b-articleLinkTextHover\">College basketball<\/a> analyst Rob Dawson broke down how Dan Hurley can take the Huskies back to the Final Four this upcoming season:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/BUS_20250810_BUS_469802_dan-hurley-1024x576_2b21b022.webp&#038;width=1024&#038;height=576.webp\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" alt=\"Head coach Dan Hurley of the Connecticut Huskies looks on in the second half of a semifinal game against the Creighton Bluejays during the Big East Men's Basketball Tournament at Madison Square Garden on March 14, 2025 in New York City. The Bluejays won 71-62.\" class=\"h-auto\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-center mt-5 text-[14px] leading-[20px] font-normal\">Head coach Dan Hurley of the Connecticut Huskies.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">\u201cThe X factor for me for this group is on the defensive end of the floor,\u201d Dawson said, via \u201cThe Field of 68.\u201d \u201cThey got much better at the end of last season than they were at the start of last season. \u2026 I think that they will improve not having Sampson Johnson out there, he was a liability on the glass and was not the best on-ball defender we\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"mb-[20px] md:mb-[30px] break-word\">\u201cAllowing Tarris Reed to play more minutes will help them on that end of the floor. That\u2019s my big question: what will this team be defensively? Because I think if you are a top 50-ish defense on KenPom, you can make the Final Four. If they\u2019re a top-20 defense on KenPom, that\u2019s a very different conversation that we\u2019re having.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph\" class=\"break-word\">UConn enters the new season eager to reclaim its spot among the best teams in college basketball.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"leading-none\" href=\"https:\/\/bolavip.com\/en\/staff\/ecova\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/28922ba4-b8a7-4602-9c17-69523f2714ee.webp.webp\" alt=\"ernesto cova\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"rounded-full\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[14px] leading-[20px] min-h-[72px] md:min-h-[52px] mt-[10px] font-authorSignatureDescription hidden md:block\">Ernesto Cova is a bilingual (English-Spanish) sports writer with over eight years of experience covering major leagues such as the NBA, NFL, MLB, College Basketball, and international soccer. He rejoined Bolavip US as a collaborator after initially contributing to the platform since its inception in 2020, where he also served as a sub-editor in 2023. Ernesto specializes in daily sports news, producing 100% original content that includes trade rumors, player and team rankings, and more. Before returning to Bolavip US, he contributed to Fadeaway World and The Cold Wire, with a primary focus on the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After seeing their three-peat dreams ruined by the Florida Gators in the Sweet 16 of the 2025 NCAA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99,15857],"class_list":{"0":"post-74115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uconn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}