Dan Hurley is adding more talent to his squad for the 2025 season, trying to make up for the talent that left the Huskies for the NBA. The new blood will only be able to help in the next season, but the UConn coach is trying to three-peat with the young team he currently has. Except for the bad patch in Maui with three straight losses, the Huskies are 10-3 on the season. Next year, Eric Reibe is set to join the team, but is he up for the challenge of college hoops and maybe even bigger guys than him?

At 7 feet tall, you won’t see many players bigger than him, but recently faced with someone as tall as him, the German player seemed to be struggling. Going up against Cameron Boozer of Columbus (FL) High, the Bullis School senior finished the game with just 7 points and 4 rebounds, despite playing almost 28 minutes on the court. What’s worse, his future college coach, aka Hurley, was present in the audience but Reibe’s hopes of impressing him went down the drain.

Baruch College was packed as it witnessed Bullis lose in a 70-43 blowout, and a hesitant Reibe facing the 6’9″ Boozer, a Duke signee and the son of former NBA and Duke standout Carlos Boozer. Where Cam Boozer scored 18 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists, it was just a bad night for Reibe as NBA scouts from nearly 20 teams watched on. But Hurley was not discouraged.

The Huskies head hog, along with assistant Luke Murray, seemed to be cheering on Reibe on the sidelines. Hurley also said after the game, per ZAGSBLOG, “You’re gonna go play in these types of games against excellent teams, you’re gonna learn some things, areas where you gotta get better and have the ability to learn your whole senior year so that when you get to college, you have momentum.”

“For a guy his size at center, Eric’s got just tons of offensive skill, as a shooter, as a passer, as a guy who can score in the post. He’s gonna have a huge impact on us. He’s gonna get to campus, he’ll get stronger, he’ll get into the way that we do things, the level of urgency, and he’s gonna take off.”

As one anonymous scout said, Eric Reibe has got to get better at his game but he’s going to the right place for it. The player development at UConn was already something that had stood out to the senior himself when he was making his college decision. While Hurley’s talent for cultivating the crop is famous, only he knows how much his team has suffered as he tries to win back-to-back NCAA championships for the first time since John Wooden in the ’70s.

Dan Hurley wants to “replenish” his lost talent

One player that stood out to Eric Reibe in the previous Huskies class was Donovan Clingan, currently a Portland Trail Blazers center. Having played under Dan Hurley for the last two years, he decided to enter the NBA this season, a decision that his coach wholeheartedly supported. But just for perspective, other players to turn pro in the last two years include Jordan Hawkins, Andre Jackson Jr., Adama Sanogo, Stephon Castle, Cameron Spencer, and Tristen Newton.

The only returning veteran from last year to UConn is Alex Karaban, so the coach is understandably looking for some new talent. “It’s an awesome class,” Hurley said. “I mean, we just lost so much high-end talent [with seven guys going to the NBA over two years], with Braylon and Darius and big Eric and “Tassie” we’re really going to be able to replenish a lot of that high-end, early-entry talent that we lost in the last couple of years.”

Reibe is joining Jacob Furphy, described as a high-IQ wing by ESPN, and five-star guards Darius Adams and Braylon Mullins at UConn in 2025. Although the German lost to Furphy and Australia, 89-75, in the Albert Schweitzer Tournament in April, both are high quality players that Dan Hurley is excited to have join his team.