Three weeks into retirement, Tom Moore is still getting used to life on the other side of UConn’s high-pressure basketball machine.
The former Huskies men’s basketball general manager and longtime assistant coach has been knocking out projects around the house, catching up with former players and colleagues, and even floating the possibility of a future role in broadcasting as a color commentator. After nearly four decades in coaching, he knows exactly what he gave up when he stepped away - including the rush that came with winning four national championships.
“It was like a drug,” Moore said of success at UConn, describing how hard it is to walk away cold turkey.
On Tuesday morning at the Golf Club of Avon, though, Moore found himself back in the middle of the sport’s biggest current conversation. He was at the annual Connecticut Basketball Coaches Breakfast, an event that benefits the V Foundation for cancer research, where the main topic was the Protect College Sports Act, or PSCA.
The bipartisan bill passed the U.S. Senate on Monday night and now heads to the House of Representatives.
The proposal aims to create common standards across college athletics and tackle some of the messiest issues in the NIL era and the transfer portal. That mattered to the coaches in the room, especially the Division I men’s coaches from Fairfield, Yale, Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac and Central Connecticut. UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma was there too, and so was Dan Hurley, who has been pushing for a one-time transfer rule that would let an athlete transfer once without penalty, with added exceptions for graduate students and players after a head coaching change.
Hurley said the sport needs structure badly.
“I look at it and, just speaking for myself, you’re thrilled that the players are being compensated as athletes finally, which is obviously a great thing. I’ve said this multiple times, just the transfer piece I think is so critical in terms of bringing stability to the sport because, again, it is a sport,” Hurley said.
“It’s a league. It’s a sport.
You need rules in place so that you have structure and competitive balance and you can actually run a sports organization without total chaos.
“So I’m excited at least about the bill from the standpoint of getting some rules in place, some level of structure, so that we can actually know the rules to our game. Because it’s hard to play a game if there are no rules and you don’t know what the rules are.”
The bill also raises the cap on player compensation, something that drew criticism from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who called it “exploitation” on his website. Auriemma wasn’t buying that label.
“I’d like to be 19 and making a million dollars and only have to work 20 hours a week. If that’s exploitation, I’d like to be exploited,” Auriemma said.
“…I don’t remember any of us saying they should be restricted. What should be restricted is bad players getting paid.
See, bad coaches don’t get paid; they get fired. Bad players, they get paid and you can’t fire them.”
Moore listened from the crowd while Hurley and Auriemma took the stage for about 15 minutes, mixing serious points with humor and some profanity, as expected. And while the bill is aimed at some of the issues that made his old job difficult, Moore also sees it as part of a transition that should make life easier for his successor, Charlie Stevens, who is joining the program from the San Antonio Spurs’ front office.
“He’ll be great,” Moore said. “He’s smart, hard-working, knows winning, wired into the grassroots culture, just sharp, and I think he’ll do great.
And I think, the way Dan sees the job now and what’s needed from the job now, it’s a little different than what it was even two or three years ago. We were really focused on our donors and donor outreach a couple years ago when this all hit, there were collectives being formed and stuff.
So that took up a lot of my time when I was doing that stuff, and I think now it’s a little bigger than that.
“As it’s shifted over to revenue share and some of the financial responsibilities fall on the athletic department, (the GM job is) a little bit more about analytics and recruiting and roster construction. So I think it’s the perfect timing for my skill set to go out and his skill set to come in.”
In Other News...
UConn Faces A Much Tougher Syracuse Test Than The Record Shows
UConn gets Syracuse at noon Saturday in a matchup that looks a lot different once you dig past the record. The Orange are bringing in Steve Angeli as the starting quarterback, and they will have another layer of skill talent available as well, with receivers Umari Hatcher and Justus Ross-Simmons already giving that offense options to work with.
Calvin Russell III is also expected to be part of the mix for the first time after a remarkably quick recovery from an Achilles injury. For a UConn defense that has to prepare on a short week, that adds another name to track and another way Syracuse can stress a secondary that may have spent most of the week game-planning for one version of the Orange and now has to account for a more varied attack. [Read more 🡒]
UConn Fans Got One Tough Update In A Busy Huskies News Day
A busy stretch of UConn news brought a mix of scheduling updates and an unfortunate injury note, starting with the basketball side. The Huskies announced that tickets for the home preseason games against Texas and Purdue will go on sale Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET, a reminder that the new hoops season is already coming into focus as fans start circling dates on the calendar.
On the football side, UConn also locked in its matchup with Temple for October 10 at 3:45 p.m. at Lincoln Financial Field, while the UConn Invitational golf tournament was trimmed to 36 holes because of rain and was set to finish Tuesday. The toughest update of the day, though, came from one of the program's former backs, as Cam Edwards now at Michigan State is dealing with a season-ending knee injury. [Read more 🡒]
UConn Faces A Familiar Problem In Jason Candles Biggest Test Yet
UConns home date with Syracuse on Saturday brings more than a Power 5 name onto the schedule. It also puts Jason Candle in a familiar football neighborhood, with connections across both sidelines and a test that comes with plenty of shared history. Syracuse is turning to Steve Angeli at quarterback, and the Orange are also expected to introduce freshman wide receiver Calvin Russell to college football in the same game.
The coaching overlap is just as notable for UConn. Candle and Syracuse defensive coordinator Vince Kehres worked together at Toledo, and UConn offensive coordinator Nunzio Campanile has Syracuse ties of his own, which gives the matchup an extra layer beyond the usual nonconference meeting. For Candle, it is the kind of game that can feel more personal than most, even before the ball is kicked off. [Read more 🡒]