FEATURE CREATURE

University of New England Men’s basketball season overview, what worked and what didn’t.

UNE Men’s basketball players share their views on what went well in then 2024-2025, and the effect of injuries on the season.

March 4, 2025

Jaelen Jackson

University Student

Coming off an 8-17 2023-2024 season, the team wished to not only improve in general next year, but more specifically, be better in conference play. The 2023 conference play brought a lot of struggles. UNE was only able to compile 3 wins and consequently didn’t make the playoffs.

The 2024-2025 season brought new hope as UNE had won their final three conference games of the 2023 schedule. Junior Jimmy Hulland, a guard for the basketball team and Business major (he/him) said “With the way we ended last year I felt like we had a great chance to make playoffs this year, especially with the new guys we had coming in.” 

With the addition of four new freshman and one sophomore recruit, the squad set out the achieve the goal of making the playoffs. A solid preseason helped fuel that hope. Sophomore Sports Leadership and Management and Data Science major Dalton Donovan (he/him) was one player that felt this way post pre-season, “I felt like at that point we were way further along than we were in the season prior.”  

The Midnight Madness game, a game played on midnight of the beginning of the collegiate Men’s basketball season, seemed to prove Donovan right as the Nor’easters were able to handle Thomas college convincingly winning the contest 90-78. Not only did this support Donovan’s claim about the pre-season, but the win also gave the team a significant bump in confidence.

Junior captain guard and Sports Leadership and Management major Connor Curcio said, “Coming off a rough season, that first win was huge for us. We felt a sort of pressure to go and get that one.” Unfortunately, this wave of momentum pretty much stopped there when it came to non-conference play for UNE.

Following these games were conference play, which the squad had their eyes set on regardless of their 2-5 record at the time. Opening with one of the conference favorites Suffolk at home but were unable to start off the way they wanted as Rams were able to hold UNE off 84-75.

We saw that hope resonate in the following game as UNE was able to put Hartford away 90-84 at Hartford. Senior guard and health sciences major Jack Pyzynski said “First Hartford game was a huge win for us, we had multiple guys step up in different ways and it put us at 1-1 with one more game before winter break.”

The Nor’easter’s following game was at Gordan. UNE was able to put Gordan away in overtime with the score being 107-95. Breakout game from Junior Jimmy Hulland with 24 points including 4 threes, paired with 7 rebounds, and 4 assists, as well as monstrous games from Senior Adam Lux who dropped 28, and Adrian Torres who had himself a night with 27 making 10/13 of his shot attempts. Going into winter break and two scheduled weeks off from practice, this game was a highlight of the season and set UNE up with a 2-1 conference record.

When asked about the season after returning from break, sophomore Kha Cao Rā James said, “I don’t know, I think we never really got the energy we had before going on break back” Post break, the Nor’easters would go on to lose three games in a row to Western New England, Endicott, and Rodger Williams, three of the four top teams in the conference.   

The initial three losses, coupled with the loss of Torres, widely considered as the best player on the team, as well as Hulland who just broke out before winter vacation, and James all due to ankle injuries, UNE quickly found themselves with a 3-4 conference record. This led to a major breakdown for the team, losing the next 11 games in a row. Only able to finally stop the bleeding when they played Hartford at home for the second time. Six more loses would follow in a row and were followed with a win against Curry then a loss against Rodger Williams. Ending the season 7-18 overall and 5-13 in conference.

Senior guard Zach Boulay said, “the injuries really threw us off, not just missing those guys, but the chemistry when they were able to come back wasn’t as strong as the beginning of the year.”