Hours after Alex Karaban's return, Dan Hurley's UConn loses Aidan Mahaney to Big West program

Despite getting sharpshooter Alex Karaban back, the UConn Huskies are losing a vital piece of their program from the 2024-2025 season. Veteran guard Aidan Mahaney has confirmed that he is moving on from the Huskies to join the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos in the 2025-2026 campaign.

The news was confirmed by Omar Samhan of ESPN on Tuesday. This will be Mahaney's third team in his collegiate hoops tenure after he spent his first two years with the Saint Mary Gaels, where he made an immediate impact by being named to the First-team All-WCC twice.

This is a huge blow for coach Dan Hurley's Huskies, as prior to the 2024-2025 season, they already lost several of their key cogs that helped them to their national title berths, such as Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle. They will now look to the transfer portal this offseason for potential transferees, as well as the influx of high school prospects they are looking at.

For Mahaney, this allows him to start anew in a new team in a new conference. This season, the Lafayette, California native posted career-low averages of 4.5 points and 1.3 assists in just 12.3 minutes per contest at UConn. His best campaign with the Gaels saw him average 13.9 markers, 2.6 rebounds, and 2.6 assists a game, which was in his sophomore year.

Mahaney will be joining a Gauchos squad that plays in the Big West conference, where they finished last season with an overall record of 21-13 and 11-9 during conference play. On the other hand, the Huskies ended the year with 24-11 and 14-6 during Big East conference play.

Alex Karaban opts to stay with the UConn Huskies

Despite losing out on a floor general in Aidan Mahaney, the UConn Huskies received good news earlier on Tuesday when fourth-year forward Alex Karaban announced that he is staying with the team. This bolsters the Huskies' 2025-2026 campaign, given that they are coming off a spoiled national championship defense season.

In his junior stint of collegiate hoops, Karaban averaged 14.3 markers, 5.3 boards, 2.8 dimes, and 1.5 steals per contest for the Huskies. Karaban was also an integral component of the Huskies' national title berths in 2023 and in 2024, which were their first-ever back-to-back national championships.

About the author

Koby del Rosario is a college sports journalist at Sportskeeda who took up BS in Advertising Management at De La Salle University, one of the big "four" universities in the Philippines. Koby has over four years of experience with Complex PH, M2.0 Communications, The LaSallian, Daily Tribune, and Time Attack Manila.

Koby's favorite college team would have to be the North Carolina Tar Heels. Apart from being MJ's alma mater, Koby has always been fond of the Jordan silhouettes that release in the school's colors (being a sneakerhead himself).

His past favorite college players would have to be Russell Westbrook (UCLA) and Markelle Fultz (Washington). With Russ, his 1-2 punch with Kevin Love during their UCLA days was something Koby marveled at as Russ became his favorite player to watch post-Kobe.

Besides playing basketball, Koby enjoys nightlife, collecting sneakers, and playing video games. Apart from hosting parties and taking pictures for parties/bars/clubs, Koby is learning to DJ as a hobby with all sorts of house and hip-hop as the main genres.

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Edited by Dipayan Moitra