Stephon Castle didn’t exactly leave Madison Square Garden dazzled.
The former UConn guard, now with the San Antonio Spurs, was back in Manhattan this past June for the 2026 NBA Finals, and the scene he found inside the building didn’t match the hype that had been built around it. In an interview with GQ Magazine, Castle was blunt about what he heard in the first game.
“It was underwhelming in that first game,” Castle said in an interview with GQ Magazine. “They made it seem like it was going to be way crazier in there. ...OKC was way louder than MSG.”
That trip to the Garden carried real weight for New York basketball fans. It was the first time the NBA Finals had been played in the city since 1999, and the buildup was enormous. Game 3 brought nearly three decades of waiting to an end, with get-in prices around $4,000, per ESPN, and a crowd that included names as big as Jay-Z and President Donald Trump.
But the noise level didn’t always match the moment. Castle, along with fellow young Spurs stars Victor Wembanyama and Dylan Harper, helped San Antonio pull away late for a 115-111 win, and the building was quiet for much of the night.
Game 4 followed a similar script early, with the Spurs racing to a 29-point second-half lead. The Garden eventually found its voice, though, when OG Anunoby’s tip-in completed the largest comeback in NBA Finals history just before the buzzer.
Castle’s relationship with Madison Square Garden started long before that Finals run. During his lone season at UConn, he made several stops in what the Huskies have long called “Storrs South.” UConn played six games at the Garden and eight total games in New York while Castle was in the program.
He arrived in Storrs as a five-star recruit for the 2023-24 season, but a knee injury kept him out early. While sidelined, he watched UConn handle Indiana, Texas and North Carolina at Madison Square Garden, with the Huskies going 3-0 during that stretch and extending a seven-game winning streak against non-conference opponents at the venue.
By the time UConn returned to Manhattan for the Big East tournament, Castle had grown into a major part of Dan Hurley’s team. The Huskies then began their NCAA Tournament defense a few miles east at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
In Other News...
Alex Karaban Sees Something UConn Fans Will Love In This Team
Alex Karaban is still close enough to UConn to notice the little things, even after taking his first steps into the NBA with the Sacramento Kings. On a recent podcast, the former Huskies standout talked about his transition from Storrs to the pro game and weighed in on the team he left behind, offering an encouraging read on a roster that looks very much like a Dan Hurley team in the making.
What stood out to Karaban was the energy around this group, along with the way a younger roster can sometimes pull closer together when the season starts to get difficult. He also pointed to the kind of nonconference path Hurley has lined up, the sort of early test that can harden a team before league play begins. Karaban said his own preseason schedule will probably keep him from getting back to UConn games this season, but his eye on the Huskies remains sharp. [Read more 🡒]
UConn Now Faces A Much Clearer Syracuse Quarterback Test
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Angelis early-season passing has come with turnovers, and that gives UConn a clear starting point for its defensive prep. The Huskies also have a useful edge on the sideline, with offensive coordinator Nunzio Campanile bringing recent Syracuse experience from last season, a detail that could shape the way UConn approaches the game plan even as the deeper quarterback question still hangs over the Orange. [Read more 🡒]
UConn Let A Winnable Road Game Slip Away Again
UConn had plenty of reason to feel good early in another road test, jumping out to a 14-0 lead and putting itself in position to control the game. But once again the Huskies could not make that start stick, and the offense never found enough rhythm after halftime as the game turned into one of those frustrating nights where small mistakes kept piling up.
The defense had to navigate a heavy workload against a secondary made up mostly of inexperienced players, and the opponent kept finding ways to stress that group even after its starting quarterback went down. On offense, Bowers continued to be the steady presence in the run game through the first four games, but UConn's late drives kept stalling, and the missed chances in the final stretch left the Huskies with another road loss they will have to sort through. [Read more 🡒]