GLENDALE, Ariz. — In the summer season of 2022, Connecticut coach Dan Hurley determined he was going to undertake a brand new offensive system and a brand new means of educating set performs. Hurley opted to go along with a soccer method. He got here up with a glossary of phrases for various alignments and actions.

He offers a made-up instance: “14 jet zoom pitch twin.”

The 14 is for the alignment — a one-four low — and then the Huskies stack actions on prime of one another. In this case, a jet, then a zoom, then a pitch, then a twin.

“It’s like learning a language,” Hurley says.

The new offense, heavy on off-ball screening and motion, gained the Huskies a nationwide title in 2023. Then final summer season, Hurley basically ripped up the UConn dictionary and got here up with a brand new glossary of phrases.

“We do that because of paranoia,” says assistant coach Luke Murray, who acts as the program’s offensive coordinator.

It’s in all probability not essential, as a result of UConn’s choreographed units depart opponents’ heads spinning already. Defending UConn is like making an attempt to multitask inside a classroom stuffed with screaming youngsters. An instance from Saturday’s semifinal in opposition to Alabama:

The play begins when UConn’s finest shooter, Cam Spencer, catches the ball and passes to the wing, then will get a chin display set for him by Donovan Clingan and heads towards the basket. He then loops round and units a again display for Alex Karaban. This is the place the confusion for Alabama’s protection begins. Alabama’s Aaron Estrada and Rylan Griffen virtually change.

Grant Nelson, defending Clingan, is standing in the center of the lane, sagging off Clingan and trying to play the position of air visitors controller. His head is popping proper and left, maintaining a tally of what’s taking place behind him. With the two Alabama guards confused on the change, Spencer turns to his proper and units the first of two stagger screens meant for Tristen Newton. Newton rejects the display and cuts to the basket. This really offers Griffen the probability to get again in place, however then comes one other display from Clingan. And Griffen is toast. Spencer curls and will get a free-throw line jumper. Ideally, Nelson would offer assist, however he was caught in his management middle in the paint and scared to completely abandon Clingan rolling to the rim.

It takes three or 4 viewings to determine precisely what’s taking place. Now think about making an attempt to defend all of that in real-time.

“I’ve been studying the top offenses in the country in-depth for the past five years, and UConn’s combination of off-ball screening and ball movement within their sets and the number of sets that they run makes it the most complex offense that I’ve seen in that time,” says Jordan Sperber, a former video coordinator at New Mexico State who has develop into the X’s-and-O’s czar of college basketball, documenting all of it in his weekly Hoops Vision e-newsletter. Sperber made a UConn offense video final month titled “Why This Offense is Basketball Poetry.”

“Their halfcourt offense is picturesque,” Xavier coach Sean Miller says.

Last week, Philadelphia 76ers wing Nicolas Batum tweeted that he’s unfamiliar with watching college basketball, however “the way UConn is playing is the way basketball should be taught and played. Especially at that age.”

Bob Hurley Sr., the father of Dan and a training legend himself, says all of his teaching buddies again east rave to him how enjoyable this group is to observe.

Dan Hurley has lengthy had a repute for teaching powerful groups who play laborious. But an offensive savant? Typically his defenses have been all the time higher than his offenses. Not till his eleventh season as a college head coach did Hurley have a top-50 offense. And final season, when the Huskies completed third, was Hurley’s first time with a top-20 offense. This yr’s Huskies enter Monday night time’s nationwide championship recreation in opposition to Purdue as the most efficient offense in college basketball. It looks like he’s on the verge of a dynasty.

How did this occur?

When Hurley took over Connecticut in 2018, the Huskies have been in the American Athletic Conference. The finest groups in the league have been Houston and Wichita State. Those groups had large, bodily frontlines, so Hurley tried to match them. At Rhode Island, Hurley had performed lots of four-and-around-one with a heavy dose of ball-screen offense. He carried the ball-screen ideas over to UConn, however now he had two posts on the ground. Spacing was an issue.

Hurley needed to go to a extra trendy method with 4 perimeter gamers, and he introduced on Murray to assist him with the offense. Murray had been with Hurley in his first season as a college head coach at Wagner in 2010-11. Hurley tried to make up for a expertise hole that season by milking the shot clock. If you research all of his groups, it’s that first Wagner group that’s in all probability most identifiable to his final two UConn squads. The power of that roster was its capturing, and Hurley ran lots of floppy motion to free shooters. Wagner completed 18th that season in help charge. Hurley wouldn’t have one other group end in the prime 100 in help charge till final yr’s group completed eighth. (This yr’s group is fifth.)

Murray rejoined Hurley in April 2021, however they couldn’t institute the plan immediately as a result of Hurley felt loyalty to senior ahead Isaiah Whaley. Also, level guard RJ Cole was finest working out of ball screens, so UConn performed a standard two-big lineup and leaned on the pick-and-roll.

But in the summer season of 2022, the plan was put in place. The Huskies had an elite shooter in Jordan Hawkins, who was good as a marksman they may run off screens and use his gravity to open others. Then in addition they had the supreme stretch 4 in Karaban, a freshman who graduated early and confirmed up at semester break throughout the 2021-22 season.

“It was really clear that we were going to move to a much more of an off-ball screening identity,” Murray says.

Hurley and Murray studied European groups, stealing totally different ideas and packages that they may use.

“It’s not like a replica necessarily,” Murray says. “It’s just piecing together what makes the most sense for the group that we have.”

The aim is to place stress on the protection, stacking a number of actions that create indecision for the protection. Most set performs are choreographed. While the Huskies generally appeared patterned, their offense is sort of a choose-your-own-adventure story.

“If you make a decision to reject the screen, now that sets off a chain of events with two or three other off-ball scenarios,” Murray explains. “That’s something that we really work on hard, because good defensive teams a lot of times can do a good job at taking teams out of set plays. But I think the randomness of the way that we cut, the randomness of the way that we screen and the versatility of our guys as passers and movers and screeners and shooters really makes it hard.”

Murray says that the Huskies take lots of delight in their protection, which ranks fourth nationally, however he estimates practices are a 65-35 cut up between offense and protection.

“You can have the greatest concepts in the world, but guys have to be able to execute them with intelligence, and with a knack for timing and spacing and really having a great understanding of how they’re being defended,” Murray says. “That’s one of the things that we try to emphasize a lot in game prep. Most scouting is based on what the other team is running. For us, we talk a lot about the way that the other team is guarding us.”

Because the Huskies set so many off-ball screens, lots of groups change continuously. Early in the season that switching gave UConn some points. While accidents performed a component in UConn’s loss at Kansas, KU’s switching protection additionally stymied the Huskies in their first lack of the season.

They spent lots of observe time early repping what to do in opposition to these switches. When Clingan was damage, they began constructing extra slicing into their units, particularly once they would go to five-out offense with Karaban at middle.

“They got really good against anybody that switches with their slipping and their false actions,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott says. “If you shoot under a screen, or make a mistake on a late switch, they’ll break out of it and try to make you pay.”

It’s particularly tough to cease when Clingan has the ball up prime or in the nook, pulling the rim-protector away. Clingan is nice at studying the protection and he simply sees over the protection due to his top. This is when again cuts are lethal.

The infinite slicing places the protection in a panic.

“If you cut and you don’t get the ball, you open it up for someone else,” Karaban says.

The Huskies can also punish switches with the drive. If an enormous man switches onto Newton, which occurs in the play beneath, he is aware of it’s time to assault.

Clingan can be able to executing dribble handoffs, and his sheer dimension makes these actions virtually inconceivable to defend as a result of it’s laborious to get round him. And if Clingan’s man decides to change, the Huskies will ship him to the put up and attempt to feed him the ball there.

A number of final yr’s offense was built round Hawkins operating round infinite screens and then a late duck-in for Adama Sanogo. The plan this yr was to principally replicate what labored final yr apart from extra pick-and-roll for Clingan and backup middle Samson Johnson. Finding a alternative for Hawkins turned a necessity. The Huskies landed Spencer, who shot 43.4 p.c on 3s final season at Rutgers, however the Huskies discovered he was able to being greater than only a knockdown shooter.

Defending final yr’s group was like making an attempt to determine calculus. This season it’s like making an attempt to resolve trigonometry. Spencer can deal with the ball in the pick-and-roll and then is superior shifting with out the ball. He has the highest offensive score in college basketball. Karaban may also fly off screens and is a terrific cutter. And they’re not all the time coming from the identical spots.

“They can run the same action and flip-flop players, which I don’t think is as common as everybody would think,” Miller says.

“What this coaching staff does better than anybody is just put you in position to be successful,” Spencer says. “They’re gonna help you play to your strengths and help you grow your weaknesses. There are times to go off script, and Coach Hurley will let you know when those times are, but you don’t have to with this team, honestly. We’re so unselfish, and the ball will find you. And if it doesn’t, then too bad; it’s not your night.”

That line of considering is why UConn’s shot choice is so good. It’s additionally why the Huskies rank 328th in adjusted tempo, as a result of many halfcourt possessions can go deep into the shot clock.

“When they’re in the halfcourt, they’re very patient and they execute,” Miller says. “But when you talk about what makes them great, I think it’s the combination of how elite they are in transition and running their sets. I don’t think there’s anybody in college basketball that’s more dangerous in the open court.”

This is the different space the place Hurley needed to develop into elite. He likes to strike quick off missed pictures, not wanting his gamers to search for a play name from the sideline, however reasonably transfer it up the ground shortly and hunt transition 3s. The Huskies are the seventh-most efficient transition group in college basketball and rank fifth in halfcourt effectivity, per Synergy. They are the solely group in the nation to rank in the prime 10 in each.

Those numbers are solely reflective of first-chance alternatives and don’t worth second-chance and third-chance alternatives, and UConn ranks thirteenth in offensive rebounding charge.

“Your work starts when they shoot the shot,” McDermott says, “because they’re coming on the offensive glass.”

It’s exhausting to face, as a result of there’s by no means a second to loosen up in opposition to the Huskies. It’s why they’ve now gained 11 straight video games by double-digits in the NCAA Tournament. Alabama hung round for 35 minutes on Saturday, however then Spencer hit that free-throw line jumper, then got here one other intricate, 20-second set that arrange a Karaban 3-pointer, then got here a pick-and-roll dunk for Clingan, then Spencer curled round a Clingan display, engaged his defender and handed him the ball for a dunk — one other stunning play design that eradicated the assist.

The (Crimson) Tide broke, as the Huskies scored on seven of their remaining 9 possessions.

Every recreation appears inevitable, and Miller says the scary half out loud for the remainder of college basketball.

“(Hurley) has grown and evolved,” Miller says. “He’s become more sophisticated, and certainly more sure of himself.”

And that advanced offensive method has him on the brink of back-to-back titles. And who is aware of what number of extra.

(Top photograph of Cam Spencer: Elsa / Getty Images)