They stood inside the Werth Family Champions Center on that summer day five years ago, arms entwined, all smiles, wide-eyed yet focused on a future of hope and promise.
Alterique Gilbert, the diminutive point guard with McDonald’s All-America pedigree. Juwan Durham, the versatile, 6-foot-11 forward. Vance Jackson, the 6-8 sharpshooter from the West Coast; Mamadou Diarra, the 6-8 rebounder from New York City. Christian Vital, the gritty guard with a permanent chip on his shoulder.
That was the nickname that UConn’s 2016 recruiting class gave itself. And for a while, they were considered one of the top five classes in the nation.
“I believe,” Durham said on July 7, 2016, “that it’s the best (recruiting class) in the country.”
Ultimately, they wound up ranked No. 8, per 247Sports.com’s composite rankings. That was still the highest-ranked UConn class since 2009 and by far the highest of Kevin Ollie’s six-year coaching tenure. The program hasn’t had a higher-ranked class since.
Whatever its ranking, the talented quintet was ready to lead UConn to continued glory. Then, fate intervened.
Injuries, inconsistent play, clashes with the coaching staff, “it wasn’t the right fit” … but mostly injuries drastically shifted the Top Five’s course. Less than a year after that July afternoon, two of the players had left the program, and two others had suffered season-ending injuries, one of them ultimately career-ending.
Only Vital, the least-ballyhooed of the group, wound up spending his entire, four-year collegiate playing career at UConn. And while his grit, determination and that chip on his shoulder ultimately endeared him to a second coach and the UConn fan base, Vital’s four years in Storrs yielded zero postseason appearances.
“Going into things, you always want it to be one way,” Durham told Hearst Connecticut Media earlier this week. “Sometimes, it doesn’t work out that way. I appreciate the experience I had at UConn. I thought we were gonna do great things, but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way for us.”
Fast-forward five years later and the Top Five is scattered all over the basketball landscape. Vital is the only one to have gone pro so far, playing briefly in Germany last year before earning a spot with the G-League’s Memphis Hustle before being cut.
Durham, after spending the past four years at Notre Dame, is going pro. It appears so is Gilbert, who played at Wichita State last season after four injury-marred years at UConn.
Diarra is beginning his third season on UConn’s coaching staff, his second as a graduate assistant, after his chronic knee condition forced him to stop playing.
“I don’t regret the decision at all,” Diarra said. “I wholeheartedly believe I made the best decision of my life.”
But the Top Five isn’t quite done playing college ball. Jackson is taking advantage of the NCAA’s decision to allow current student-athletes one extra year of eligibility because of the COVID-19 disruption. He will play at East Carolina this season, his fourth different program. He’s completing somewhat of a full-circle: ECU plays in the American Athletic Conference, the same league UConn was in when Jackson enrolled five years ago.
The Top Five plays on.
“We definitely thought things would go differently,” Diarra admitted. “We all expected to finish off here, get UConn back to where it belonged. But life didn’t work out that way. My injuries, Alterique’s injuries, Juwan. Everybody’s situation didn’t go as planned. But at the end of the day, we’re all here, we’re all good, we’re all fighting and continuing to try to be great.”
‘WE SHOULD HAVE JUST RIDDEN IT OUT’
Maybe it was evident from the first day of UConn’s official practices on Oct. 1, 2016 that it wasn’t going to work out for Jackson in Storrs. While the rest of the team finished up practice early that afternoon, Jackson was back in the training room, recovering from exhaustion.
Jackson wound up hitting nearly 40 percent of his 3-pointers, averaged 8.1 points per game and even made the AAC all-rookie team that season. But the Los Angeles native never seemed comfortable in Storrs, and by the end of March, announced he was transferring.
“We didn’t see things the same way — Vance, and me, and the coach — on how to utilize his skills,” Jackson’s father, Vance Sr., told Hearst Media at the time. “We wanted the best opportunity to utilize those skills, and it didn’t happen here.”
He transferred to New Mexico, where Jackson averaged 12.1 ppg over two seasons. After graduating in 2020, he went to Arkansas last season to play as a grad transfer. Despite a good start, his minutes started dwindling towards the end.
“I don’t know what really happened,” Jackson Sr. told Hearst Media last week. “I don’t know if it was political. I know they had a lot of Arkansas boys on the team that got playing time. They just kind of weeded Vance out.”
Now, Jackson finds himself at ECU, which lost top scorer Jayden Gardner to transfer and where Jackson will be “used as a mismatch” and will “have the keys to the car,” according to his pop.
Still, there are regrets.
“Vance and I were talking the other day, and I said, ‘Man, if I could take everything back, you would have just stayed (at UConn),” Jackson Sr. said. “I would have talked you into staying, riding it out. But, you know, it was the first time for both of us, which way Kevin (Ollie’s situation) was going, the picture on the wall, trying to read it. We should have just ridden it out. He’d probably already be in the position to make it.”
‘I THINK I SHOULD HAVE SAT OUT’
A week after Jackson announced he was leaving UConn, Durham made a similar decision, as part of a mass exodus that also included Steve Enoch and incoming commit Makai Ashton-Langford.
Durham had torn the ACL in his left knee in October, 2015, and missed his entire season at Tampa (Fla.) Prep.
“At UConn, I felt kind of rushed to get back on the court and playing,” Durham said. “I should have taken more time to rehab my knees. Other than that, my time at UConn was phenomenal. I liked the people there, I liked the coaching staff, I liked the team. It just felt like it wasn’t the right fit for me.”
Durham transferred to Notre Dame, where he played three seasons and averaged 10.7 ppg this past season. He could have played another collegiate season this year, but instead is ready to go pro, be it NBA, G-League or, most likely, playing overseas. He’s been working out in Las Vegas with other pro prospects.
Similar to Jackson, Durham looks back at his time at UConn with a tinge of regret.
“Not to blame the school or anything, it was a mutual decision for me to play that year, but when I look back, I think I should have just sat out and worked on my strength and got used to the speed of the college game.”
Indeed, injuries largely define the story of the Top Five. As a high school sophomore, Gilbert dislocated his left shoulder during an AAU game. In the Jordan Brand Classic in April, 2016, he suffered a subluxation of the same shoulder, and this time opted for surgery.
Then, in a game at Loyola Marymount in November, 2016, Gilbert re-injured the shoulder once again, this time ending his freshman season. Injuries cut short nearly his entire sophomore season, as well, and continued to dog him the rest of his UConn career. Midway through his senior year, Gilbert was no longer a starter.
He transferred last season to Wichita State and helped the Shockers win the AAC regular season title. Gilbert entered his name in the transfer portal to play again this season. But Ricky Moore, the former UConn coach largely responsible for recruiting Gilbert, said on a Hearst Connecticut Media podcast last week that Gilbert is focusing on turning pro. (Attempts to reach Gilbert were unsuccessful).
A CURRENT (AND FUTURE?) COACH
No one was more affected by injuries than Mamadou Diarra.
The Putnam Science Academy product played just 33 games over two seasons at UConn. His chronic knee issues ultimately caused him to end his playing career in June, 2019, and he joined Dan Hurley’s staff as a student assistant coach.
“In a situation like that, there’s always a point of grief,” Diarra said. “It’s tough to hear that your playing career has to end, in my case, premature. It was definitely a tough time, but ultimately, I knew the decision to be made was to capitalize on the opportunity that Coach Hurley and the staff provided. So, my biggest thing was that I was putting myself and my family in the best position possible. Even though I felt like I wanted to continue (playing), it was just something I had to do.”
The past two seasons, Diarra has been a graduate assistant coach, a role that includes a little of everything: assisting with drills in practice, helping with recruiting visits, aiding with video editing, making sure players are staying on top of things off the court.
“Just helping in every area that the program needs me to,” added Diarra, who’s also working on his Master’s degree in communications.
He still plays a little, even helping UConn’s student managers to victories over opposing schools’ managers in a few games two years ago (“if we had a couple of more games, we would have probably been the top team in the country,” he noted), but ultimately, the knee pain crops up again.
Ask Diarra if he wants to remain in coaching after this season and he answers before the question is finished.
“I’m definitely hoping. This next year, just learn as much as possible, continue to grow, and hopefully there’s an opportunity available this time next year.”
A NEW STORY
Some time next week, UConn’s current crop of incoming freshmen, the 2021 recruiting class, will be formally introduced to the media. Jordan Hawkins, Samson Johnson and Rahsool Diggins. No fancy nicknames, just the 14th-ranked class in the nation, per 247Sports.
It’s the Huskies’ highest rated class since ... you guessed it, 2016.
All three have their dreams set on someday playing in the NBA. All three are looking to help UConn return to glory.
Hopefully, their journey is a little more straightforward, a little more successful, than the Top Five’s.
“I feel like all of us have our own story,” said Mamadou Diarra. “Things didn’t go as we planned here, but we’re still going every day, still playing. I’m happy to see (Jackson) in a good place, happy to see Alterique, Christian Vital … Juwan, all the guys. They’re still my guys to this day.”
david.borges@hearstmediact.com
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UConn's 'Top Five' recruiting class five years later: 'Things didn't go as planned' - New Haven Register
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