It’s Dec. 28, 2022, in Hartford, Conn., and the streets are buzzing with UConn fans. Parking near the XL Center, the site of that night’s Huskies game against Villanova, is hard to come by more than two hours before tip-off. Fans in jerseys are pouring across streets and pooling around the entrances to see the show that is the 2022–23 men’s UConn Huskies.

More than two years before, Hurley had sent a message to the Big East early in the rebuild he had embarked on. “You better get us now, ’cause it—it’s coming.” Now, on this winter evening in Hartford, it feels like UConn has arrived: 13–0 on the season, No. 2 in the AP poll and winners of all 13 games by double digits. The Huskies had looked overwhelming in their run through the Phil Knight Invitational around Thanksgiving, then blew the doors off Florida and Oklahoma State in nonconference play.

This December matchup with Villanova doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy at the time: The Wildcats had come in struggling but actually hung around, leading early in the second half and putting on some late-game pressure before eventually succumbing to the undefeated Huskies. UConn looks beatable on this night, which hadn’t been a frequent occurrence to start the season. Postgame, a chipper Hurley says he believes UConn should have made 13 of its 30 threes rather than the nine it knocked down. Hit those, and the Huskies would’ve rolled to another blowout instead of sweating it out late.

“I thought we got really good threes,” Hurley laments.

There was no real cause for concern that night for Huskies fans, who largely left Hartford happy. But that game against Villanova perhaps finally showed a crack or two in the armor of this otherwise-dominant UConn team. What followed: six losses in UConn’s next eight games, dropping the Huskies from No. 2 to No. 24 in the AP poll and threatening to derail a season that once looked so promising. So how did UConn right the ship and put itself on the path to the Final Four?