STORRS, Conn. — Dan Hurley is determined to never have a team play defense like UConn did last season again.

By KenPom ratings, last year’s team was 75th in the nation in defensive efficiency – worst since Hurley took over the Huskies in 2018-19. This year, with a roster build similar to the 2022-23 national title team, defense will be what decides who stays on the court.

And Jaylin Stewart, determined to break through this offseason, hasn’t taken that lightly.

The 6-foot-7 junior, seemingly in competition with freshman Braylon Mullins for a starting spot on the wing, has been in the gym once or twice a day, following a schedule similar to captain Alex Karaban’s. He’s added 15 pounds of muscle and showed off his improvement on both ends of the court in the team’s second open practice this month.

“Jaylin put down the headset and the controller and screen-sucking his phone and he’s in the gym at the rate that you need to be in the gym at. Instead of being a gamer or an influencer, he wants to be a baller and he’s in the gym like Alex,” Hurley said. “He’s got a different maturity. He’s ready to take the next step in his career.”

Stewart couldn’t quite crack the rotation as a freshman on UConn’s loaded 2024 championship team, though he made a name for himself with some big moments in the Big East Tournament. Last year his minutes went from 8.9 to 17.8 per game and he showed flashes, but he still wasn’t consistent enough on both ends of the floor to be the player Hurley and the team needed.

Rather than run for more playing time in a system that might better fit his skillset, Stewart says he never considered leaving.

It wasn’t a week after UConn’s NCAA tournament loss to Florida before the Seattle native reaffirmed his commitment with an Instagram post captioned: “Let’s run it back!!”

“Right after we lost I had the urge to get right back to where we started,” he said. “It was a no-brainer for me. I even told my family, don’t even tell me who’s trying to offer me money and all that, I don’t want to know.”

“A lot of stuff swirls around the kids here, but he’s just a UConn guy through and through,” Hurley said. “I say this a lot about our players – he’s one of the best guys, human beings, you’ll ever be around. A total loyalty guy. There was no hard-line negotiating. He loves UConn, he loves the program, he loves Connecticut, he loves Storrs, he loves being a Husky. And I think he’s got self-awareness, like he knows that it wasn’t necessarily us holding him back, but more things that he needed to do, which he’s addressed and now he looks like a different guy.”

After one of his best games last season, the gut-wrenching loss at Villanova when he had to guard big Eric Dixon, the nation’s leading scorer at the time, Stewart said he felt like himself. As one of the only Huskies who could score in the first half, he had freedom with the ball and played like the skilled offensive player he was known to be as a four-star high school recruit.

Hurley has spoken about allowing players to have more off-script opportunities within UConn’s offense this year, which plays right to Stewart’s strengths.

“My play-style is kind of off-script,” Stewart said. “Shooting a lot of shots that people usually don’t take, honestly. So I think I’ve gotten a little more comfortable just taking my shots and playing within the offense.”

“He’s a versatile piece,” Hurley added. “You could start him anywhere on the two or three spots on the perimeter with the right handler, basketball has become pretty positionless. He just gives you a lot of options. Offensively he’s taken the next step because his game is sharp, but if we just get him now to make a similar defensive commitment, it’s gonna be hard to keep a guy with his size and athleticism and offensive talent off the court.”

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