STORRS, Conn. (AP) — In the days and weeks after Silas Demary Jr. arrived on the next stage of his basketball career, he sought out the one UConn men’s player who was navigating a similar path coming from another power conference school.
The year before Demary left Georgia to try to help the Huskies win their third national title in a four-year span, Tarris Reed Jr. made a jump from Michigan to UConn. Demary received support and assurances that they
both made the right decision and great things were ahead.
“He was somebody I leaned on a lot when I first got here asking him how were your first couple of weeks here, was it always this tough?” Demary said. “I was leaning on him a lot through the whole season.”
Reed only started one game during the 2024-25 season at UConn as he played behind Samson Johnson, who was part of two national championship teams. Demary had no such grace period. He started from the first game of the season, teaming with Dayton transfer Malachi Smith to handle the point guard duties.
“You are expected to do all these great things from the jump,” Reed said. “It is tough, they set the bar so high that you can’t reach it some days. Credit to Silas for hanging in. Talking to him that all you are going through right now is what I went through last year.”
Reed seems to be figuring things out at the perfect time. Since the start of the Big East Tournament, he is averaging 18.1 points and 11.7 rebounds per game. He opened the NCAA Tournament with a 31-point and 27-rebound game against Furman. He joined Elgin Baylor, Elvin Hayes and Zach Edey as the only players to enter the Final Four with at least 80 points and 50 rebounds.
“This is it,” Reed said. “I am going to go for it. The St. John’s game, I learned that we have to go out with honor - win, lose or draw, I am going down swinging. Every game that is my approach and our approach as a team.”
The last time UConn won the national championship the team also had two players (Cam Spencer and Hassan Diarra) who had transferred in from the power conferences
UConn coach Dan Hurley saw different situations with his latest power conference arrivals. Demary’s father, a former Arena League Football player, told Hurley that he expected his son to be coached hard by Hurley and his staff. If that was not the case, they would be talking again. It was a different vibe when Reed landed at UConn.
“He needed UConn with how hard we fight, the fire that I coach with, the fire that this program plays with,” Hurley said. “The intensity that we go about basketball here, he needed that injected into his veins. That was probably the knock on him, that he was incredibly talented but a little bit of an enigma in terms of what he was able to do in his first two years at Michigan.”
The 6-foot-4 Demary was looking for a program that could make a deep March Madness run and a coach that would help him realize his dream of playing in the NBA. With the Huskies looking to address the perimeter defensive issues that cost them multiple games during the 2024-25 season as well as a bigger guard, it seemed like the perfect match.
Hurley has said on multiple occasions that the arrival of Demary changed the UConn defense.
It was Demary who deflected Cayden Boozer’s pass late in the Elite Eight game that resulted in freshman Braylon Mullins hitting a ldeep 3-pointer that capped a 19-point comebackt and sent the Huskies to the Final Four.
“Going to a program where I knew that winning was a big part of it,” Demary said. “Making it to the tournament, being able to go deep into the tournament and somebody who is going to coach me hard and prepare me for the next level, UConn had everything I wanted and then some. The plan they had for me was perfect.”
Demary’s 220 assists are more than he had 70 games at Georgia. He is also posting career-high marks in field goal, 3-point and free throw shooting percentage.
The Huskies face Illinois in the first semifinal on Saturday. Demary had a quiet game in UConn’s 74-61 win over the Fighting Illini in Madison Square Garden during the regular season. With the rematch taking place on an even bigger stage, Demary can’t wait to realize one of his basketball dreams.
“It will be crazy,” Demary said. “Getting there I will be a little emotional being a kid, always dreaming about playing in the Final Four, being in March Madness. I think definitely it will be emotional, but just being happy and excited to be with this group of guys going in.”
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
