UConn basketball secures huge NBA Global Academy prospect's commitment
10/29/2024 10:04 PM
The two-time defending national champions are reloading. The UConn Huskies’ men’s basketball team snagged another commitment on Tuesday night when Australian-born Jacob Furphy announced he will take his talents to Storrs in the 2025-26 season.
Furphy is a 6’6 wing who participated in the NBA Global Academy and was part of the Australia Youth National Team. He played for Team Australia over the summer, averaging 16.8 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists in the FIBA U18 Asia Cup.
The 18-year-old lefty is known as a shooter and distributor, who should fit seamlessly into head coach Dan Hurley‘s intricate offense. Per NJ.com’s Adam Zagoria, Furphy has drawn comparisons to Joe Ingles, another Australia-born player, now of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
"I pride myself on my basketball IQ, which allows me to make great reads out of the pick and roll and create for myself and teammates, as well as my competitive nature to help impact winning," Furphy said, according to Zagoria. "I'm also a confident shooter which helps space the floor."
Though Furphy also considered Illinois, UConn fans were able to read the tea leaves that their newest recruit may be on the way when Zagoria reported last week that the Huskies were done “recruiting American players” for 2025. Such wording made it clear they expected to still be in play for Furphy.
The 2025 UConn recruiting class is positively stacked
Even before landing Furphy, who will come to the UConn basketball program as a 19-year-old with plenty of international experience, the Huskies’ 2025 recruiting class was already among the best in the country.
On the heels of consecutive titles, Hurley and his staff have landed four recruits in the past month alone. The other three are all ranked in the top 25 of ESPN’s top 100 recruiting rankings.
"I think that this recruiting class for us in '25 is to bring in high-end talent, players that potentially will be early-entry level players that we can bring in to this class that we identify that way in '25 and '26,” Hurley said at Big East media day last week. “We've just lost seven NBA players over the course of two years, which is a lot, so we gotta replenish that high-end, NBA talent, so Kimani [Young] and Luke [Murray], know what they've been tasked with."
While the Huskies seem loaded for 2025-26, their current team isn’t looking so bad either. UConn enters this season ranked third in the AP poll and as the unanimous pick to win the Big East, led by All-Big East preseason first teamer Alex Karaban and five-star freshman Liam McNeely.
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