NORTHBOROUGH, Mass. – Before UConn began its 2023 NCAA Tournament run, an idea was pitched in a group chat full of Alex Karaban’s friends from back home in Central Massachusetts. If the Huskies won, the whole group would test its limit in a spicy challenge at Buffalo Wild Wings.
One by one, each of his buddies emphasized the idea –a handshake agreement over iMessage.
UConn, with Karaban starting as a redshirt freshman, won it all. His friends followed through.
“So then we were like, ‘Alex, we’ll do it again,’” said Nick Alco*ck, who’s been close friends with Karaban since they were three years old. “He won again and we were like, ‘No! Please!”
The second debt hasn’t yet been paid off – Karaban has had quite a busy summer since becoming a two-time national champion, entering and later withdrawing from the NBA Draft, taking a lead role on a new group at UConn looking to three-peat. They talked about completing the spicy challenge on Sunday after a few of them helped run Karaban’s basketball camp for about 75 kids at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough, but couldn’t pull it together.
Had to make a stop at Camp Karaban this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/PtzfNadDRl
— Joe Arruda (@joearruda9) August 11, 2024
It was the second camp appearance in as many days for Karaban, who just wrapped up the second summer session at UConn and has a few weeks before returning for the fall semester. He also helped Andre Drummond, now a Philadelphia 76er as he enters his 13th NBA season, at his Celebrity Sports Academy camp in Middletown Saturday.
“He asked me to show up so I had to show up, he’s an NBA all-star, he’s a legend,” Karaban said Sunday. “And I thought it would be good prep for what is to come today.”
Always prepared, always ready.
It showed as the Huskies’ versatile forward displayed his shooting form, refused to lose to a child in a game of knockout and later took off to find a Sharpie because the pen he was handed to sign a basketball couldn’t get the job done. He even threw down off two feet after a group of kids dared him to dunk – that was after he sent a handful of balls into the gallery under the basket attempting half court shots.
Karaban only played his freshman season at Algonquin after starring as an eighth grader on varsity at St. Peter-Marian, a private school in Worcester, yet his name has become legend in the town.
“We do camps all year round at the high school and we have kids all the time asking, ‘Where’s Alex? Did he play here? Did he go here?’” said Nick Redden, who was a senior captain on Karaban’s team that year and has since returned to Algonquin as an assistant coach.
“It’s been big for our community seeing someone from our hometown shining in the bright lights.”
Mr. Central Mass.
While Karaban engaged the kids in a question and answer session just before pizza arrived for lunch, Alco*ck pointed across the way at the center of the bleachers, reminiscing.
“From here over it was all students, it was so fun,” he said, smiling as he remembered the crowds that would show up for just a regular game.
“What he did for the school and the community, he built it up,” said former Algonquin coach Brian Doherty, who is now a UConn season ticket holder. “I was a varsity coach for 12 years and he was my fifth year. When he came in, the excitement in the community was crazy. The gym, this place was, on both sides, packed. You couldn’t get in here.”
He still had a few inches to grow and hadn’t started growing the Karabeard, which came in during the 2022-23 season at UConn and stayed – partially because of superstition, partially because people liked the look. But it was clear: Karaban was levels above the competition.
“He’s almost unguardable,” Doherty told the Worcester Telegram in Dec. 2018 after Karaban scored 26 points in his first game at Algonquin.
“The Alex Karaban Show” was a headline the next month on WickedLocal.com, when Karaban had 36 points and 20 rebounds in what was described as a “video game-like performance” to avenge a previous loss against Catholic Memorial.
He was named Central Massachusetts Division I Player of the Year and Doherty advised him to move on, to find stronger competition so that he could make it to the next level. So Karaban went to New Hampton School in New Hampshire for two years and was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year, then graduated from IMG Academy in Florida before enrolling early at UConn and redshirting the spring semester of the 2021-22 season.
“He has put such an excitement in the community, a lot of kids forget that he only played one year here,” Doherty said. “Of course I would’ve loved him to come back, I had to actually tell him, ‘You gotta go. You need to play bigger, stronger kids.’ He agreed. But throughout the years he’s stayed exactly the same.”
Alco*ck’s dad was the coach when he played with Karaban on town and travel teams growing up, rarely losing a game – “It was so unfair,” he said.
“It was so easy because he was taller than everyone else. People wanted to play him at center but my dad was like, ‘I’m not playing him as a center, he’s more skilled than that.’ So we played him out on the perimeter and he would just drive by kids,” Alco*ck said. “He did the classic: miss his shot, get the rebound, miss his shot, get the rebound. He stat-padded the hell out of it, it was so funny.”
On the court, the IQ and the unselfishness that has allowed him to fit so well in Dan Hurley’s system at UConn was all there once Karaban grew out of his stat-padding phase.
Off of it, he walks and talks like any other kid from central Mass. He’s maintained the same group of friends and added some more.
Alco*ck remembers walking around New York City with his dad, Karaban, Cam Spencer and Stephon Castle after UConn won the Big East Tournament last March. Passersby pulled out their phones and took videos, recognizing the two players who have since been drafted to the NBA and a third, Karaban, who should get there soon.
“I’m like, dude, this is the same kid that I’ve always known,” Alco*ck said. “It’s the same kid that stands on my couch when he’s at my house. People see this side of him that’s shy and quiet, and he is pretty shy and quiet, but when you get to know him he’s so loud, so obnoxious and so funny.”
His time
Once they finally scarf down and sweat out another plate of wings, Karaban’s friends will need to think of another deal for a potential three-peat. Maybe, for superstitious reasons, another trip to Buffalo Wild Wings has to be in the cards.
“Every year it’s just got to get better and better and better,” Alco*ck said.
Karaban’s time at UConn has had a similar trajectory.
Entering Year Three as the only returning starter from both championship teams, he has a chance to make history as a leader of the group. Still, before every game, he’ll exchange the same text messages with Doherty.
“One time I forgot, I thought the game was the next night, and they lost,” Doherty said, unsure which one of UConn’s 11 losses in the last two seasons he was responsible for. “Ever since that I said we’re never doing that again. I will always text him before a game. It made me so mad and angry, like a month later I texted him ‘Hey good luck, go get ‘em tonight,’ that’s what I say every time, and he goes, ‘Coach, it’s tomorrow night.’”
Since turning down guaranteed money in the NBA Draft, Karaban has gotten stronger and worked on his shot-creating ability as he looks to improve his stock. His jump shot, the most obvious strength of his game, looked better than it ever has when the Huskies hosted an open practice on Aug. 3.
“That’s how I’m supposed to shoot,” he said. “When no one’s guarding you, you have to be automatic. The coaches have talked to me about being a 45% 3-point shooter this season and that’s been my goal so far.”
So far, Karaban’s college career has checked a ton of boxes.
He’s thrown first pitches, visited the White House (a second trip is being scheduled), hit a ton of clutch shots and cut down six different nets. He’s compared ice cream flavors to teammates on ESPN College GameDay, co-hosted podcasts and had a sandwich named after him –the “King Karaban” – at the Vin Bin in Southborough.
His community has been with him the whole way.
“It’s unbelievable,” Redden said. “It almost feels like I’m playing. I’m living it through him.”
“We always were under the mindset that he was underappreciated and undervalued,” Alco*ck said. “Now he’s starting to get the projected All-American, all of that stuff. It’s exciting that now it’s his turn… No one works harder than him, so he’ll be ready for it.”
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