How Silas Demary Jr. Won Over Dan Hurley and UConn in One Night

INDIANAPOLIS — It took Dan Hurley within only a few hours of officially meeting Silas Demary Jr. to know he was the point guard the Huskies needed to get back to playing into April.

Demary, a transfer from Georgia who was one of the most touted point guards in the transfer portal, checked a lot of the basketball boxes that Hurley wanted. He was a bigger guard, like former UConn two-time champion Tristen Newton, and could make shots and run a team. But it wasn’t a workout or a film study that officially stamped the North Carolina native as the guy Hurley wanted to be his floor general.

Instead, it was a moment before dinner at the Capital Grille in Hartford, Conn., that sold him.

“He had only known us for a couple hours, and he had the staff and his family hold hands before we had the recruiting dinner and we prayed together before our meal, and we all held hands and he led the prayer,” Hurley said. “I think that’s when you knew that the guy has got some, like, special quality about him to do that at your recruiting dinner with people you don’t know at UConn. Impressive leader.”

UConn already had an established leader on the roster in Alex Karaban, one of the winningest players in men’s college basketball’s 21st century who Hurley called the team’s “babysitter” Friday. But point guard play had been the team’s biggest bugaboo in its disappointing 2025 campaign, struggling to replace two-time champion Newton. Getting the spot right was critical, and something the Huskies’ staff dove into immediately once their season ended in gutting fashion against Florida in the round of 32.

“Just knowing the vulnerabilities, the issues that we had with our ’25 team, that we needed size at point guard,” Hurley said. “We needed a ball hawk at point guard, we needed somebody that had some of the same traits as Tristen Newton at point guard, just the versatility, the three-way player, he rebounds, he plays both ends of the court.”

Demary checked those boxes at 6' 5" with high-major pedigree as a starter at Georgia, surging late in the season with the Bulldogs into one of the best guards in the SEC. How he fit in with the returning players and the culture of UConn was something they’d learn more on the visit, and Demary taking the lead at dinner was one of many examples in that 48-hour trip to Storrs that made it obvious he was the right man for the job.

“It felt like he was already on the team,” Solo Ball, one of Demary’s hosts on the visit, says. “That’s how I knew he was going to commit. It just felt like he was already a part of us. He was already within the Huskies brotherhood.”

Silas Demary Jr. looks to pass the ball against Georgetown guard Jeremiah Williams during a game this season. | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

It helped that a few Huskies had an existing relationship with Demary and knew what they were getting into. Forward Jaylin Stewart had spent a week on Demary’s team at the NBPA Top 100 camp in high school, and wing Jayden Ross spent a few days with him the previous year at Jayson Tatum’s camp in the summer. They both thought he’d fit into the UConn culture well, but things being that seamless on the visit was even better. Stewart remembers going to Hurley’s house with Demary even before that dinner and remarking about how well he fit in. They hung out, played pool in Hurley’s game room and strengthened the bonds that started forming back in high school. It was no surprise to them when Demary made things official and picked UConn on April 3.

“I definitely knew he was a Husky,” Stewart says.

The basketball fit has been as good as anyone could have hoped for. Demary hawks opposing ballhandlers, bullies his way to the rim off the dribble, sets up teammates and has made more than 40% of his threes. He made a monster early impression with his 21 points and seven assists against BYU in November, but has found ways to make critical contributions even when not putting up huge scoring numbers.

“He’s a jack-of-all-trades, man,” Ball says. “He could do pretty much everything on the court that you could think of. He can defend the best player, he can make plays for other people. I think that’s just want makes him so dangerous.”

Hurley has said that last year’s disappointing attempted three-peat team was “soft,” lacking the edge and physicality that his best teams in Storrs have had. Demary, whose father, Silas Sr., was an arena football player and whose body looks gridiron-ready in spite of his hoops exploits, brought that back in droves.

“He’s got a football player’s DNA in terms of his physicality and that warrior mentality, which is not always something with basketball players,” Hurley said. “Yeah, we needed that trait.”

It’s easy to take Demary’s contributions for granted on a team with so many faces of its March run. There’s Braylon Mullins, whose shot in the Elite Eight will live on regardless of how the Huskies’ season ends. Tarris Reed Jr., the Huskies’ star center, has been incredible all tournament. Karaban already has two rings, Ball and Stewart each own one. But make no mistake: UConn getting back to this moment on the doorstep of a potential third title in four years began in earnest during that official visit 367 days ago, when their future point guard walked through the door and immediately fit in with the Huskies’ established core. Being the new face on a team with three starters back is never easy, but Demary commanded the program from the jump in a way only special leaders do.

“He’s just a leader to be honest with you,” Stewart says. “Everything he does on and off the court, he makes the right decisions. It kind of trickles down to [everyone in] our program.”

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