UConn junior forward DeAndre Daniels announced this week that he will take his talents — and his shiny new national championship ring — to the NBA in June’s Draft. While that decision is final, the course Daniels’ career will take from here is far from certain. He is projected around the bottom of the first round or the top the second. As with any early-departing youngster, you hope they properly weighed the opinions of experienced scouts and coaches before taking the leap.
Yet, with his UConn career officially in the rearview, we can start using the immaculate gift of hindsight to appreciate what a unique and impressive player he was while in Storrs.
Daniels’ route to success at UConn is interesting and unusual, because his freshman season was basically a wash. He played only 12 minutes a game, scoring a total of 94 points. For some sort of perspective, Omar Calhoun scored 122 points in just over 13 minutes per game this season. It’s difficult to find a former Husky in Daniels’ class that played so sparingly his first year on campus (Hilton Armstrong immediately comes to mind, but Armstrong did not leave early for the NBA).
It was in 2012, following the departure of the front court troika of Alex Oriakhi, Andre Drummond and Roscoe Smith, when Daniels began to blossom, given the opportunity to prove himself. His minutes bumped to 29.2/game under new head coach Kevin Ollie, and his scoring average improved to 12.1/game.
While his progress was noticeable, it wasn’t until late in his sophomore season when Daniels showed his true potential. During the last six games of the season, Daniels scored 17. 6 points and grabbed 8.3 rebounds per contest. There were whispers around UConn that Daniels might declare for the Draft after that season, however with no one paying attention to the Huskies during their NCAA Tournament ban, Daniels’ outburst to end the year had garnered little attention nationally.
Around UConn, it was a different story.
Daniels began this past season — his junior year — with sky-high expectations. Despite playing on “Shabazz Napier’s Team,” it was Daniels that many thought would surprise the scouts and writers who had slept through his coming-out party the March prior.
It took a while for Daniels to wake them up. He didn’t reach double-figure scoring until the third game of the season. He slogged his way through November and December before opening eyes with 23 points and 11 rebounds in a win at Memphis in mid-January. And he, again, turned his game up for the last six games of UConn’s season — these six all coming in the NCAA Tournament, culminating with Daniels and his teammates cutting down the nets and being crowned champions.
His tournament performance will undoubtedly be how Husky fans remember Daniels. His 27 point, 10 rebound showing in the Sweet Sixteen against Iowa State ranking only behind his Final Four masterpiece against Florida, where he outclassed larger, more heralded, opponents by scoring 20 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.
His laid-back demeanor often put Daniels in stark contrast with his gregarious teammates Shabazz Napier and Ryan Boatright. He also never played like a 6’9” college player — preferring to dwell around the perimeter rather than on the low block. But Daniels showed flashes of an intensity on the court that made him near unstoppable when his shot was falling. And his three-point shooting prowess makes him a wholly unique figure in UConn history.
There has never been a UConn player quite like DeAndre Daniels.
For fun (yes, we find this fun), name the only two UConn players standing 6’9” or higher to hit 40 or more three-pointers in a season. The answer: Donyell Marshall (41 in 1994) and Daniels (50 this season). If we cheat and throw in Caron Butler (30), Rudy Gay (28) and Stanley Robinson (28), they still don’t touch Daniels’ body of work from behind the arc this year.
While he shot a lot from deep (120 attempts), Daniels validated the attempts by hitting 41.7% of them — good for second on the team to Niels Giffey. His three-point shooting should help Daniels fit into the mold preferred by modern NBA general managers — tall guys who can hit open jumpers — but also makes Daniels a one-of-a-kind player in UConn history.
DeAndre Daniels had an impressive and unique collegiate career. As he embarks on his way to the next level, it’s worth pausing and taking a moment to appreciate that we may not see another like him come through Storrs in a long, long time.
