How UConn walk-on Emmett Hendry’s unique decision to join Huskies could set up for dream career

In his post-grad year at high school basketball powerhouse Montverde Academy in Florida, Emmett Hendry received a bunch of offers from low Division I schools to play college basketball.

But he chose UConn, where he would be a preferred walk-on and probably serve as nothing more than a practice player and an end-of-the-bench hype man.

Sure enough, Hendry found himself jumping up and down as confetti poured over him, and his teammates on college basketball’s biggest stage in Houston. The slender, 6-foot-3, 155-pound freshman who played a total of seven minutes all season was a national champion, and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

In the weeks after the game UConn had several players decide they were ready to take the next step in their careers and declare for the NBA Draft. There are some who may decide to come back and then others who transferred out of the program in search of a bigger role elsewhere. But Hendry isn’t looking for shots or a pro contract. He wants to be a coach one day, and it was his affinity for the Hurley family that brought him to Storrs.

A Brooklyn native, Hendry started attending Bob Hurley Sr.’s Hurley Family Foundation basketball camps in Jersey City, N.J., when he was in seventh grade.

Through an aunt and an uncle who worked at St. Anthony High in Jersey City, where Bob Sr. built his Hall of Fame career as a coach, Hendry had a foot in the door. After the school closed in 2017, Bob Sr. began welcoming former players and other basketball hopefuls back for open gyms and clinics. Hendry made the trip from Brooklyn to Jersey City three times a week for three years.

“That definitely played a role, staying with the Hurley family, because I love playing for Coach,” Hendry had said while sitting in the team’s locker room after cutting down the nets in Las Vegas and advancing to the Final Four. “I really feel like there’s a love for their players and a love for the game, too. Just a deep love for everyone getting better and for us, too, I really feel cared about by both coaches.”

Like his head coach, Dan Hurley, and his head coach’s father, Hendry fell in love with basketball in Jersey City.

Chasing legendary coaches, Hendry found himself at Montverde playing for Kevin Boyle, an eight-time national coach of the year who could be credited with assembling the greatest high school basketball team of all-time in 2019-20.

UConn’s Samson Johnson, left, and Emmett Hendry speak in the locker room ahead of the 2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final Four semifinal games at NRG Stadium on March 31, 2023 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

The shooting guard averaged 13 points per game to help Boyle’s 2021-22 post-grad team win its state prep school championship and compete in nationals. In the three years prior, Hendry attended Leman Manhattan Preparatory School in New York and averaged 15 points per game while shooting 56% overall and 94% from the foul line.

“When you play for such great coaches I feel like you learn a lot and it’s made me fall in love with basketball and definitely idolize those guys. Hopefully – I want to be them one day and do what they do. Because outside of basketball I’ve also learned so many life lessons from more coaches but those three guys in specific, big time coaches in the game of basketball,” Hendry said.

“If this is what he plans on doing, this is a pretty good training session,” Bob Sr. told The Courant. “Because you also have Kimani Young and Luke (Murray) and Tom Moore – he’s learning from some really, really good people. This will be great training ground for him.”

Hendry didn’t sit around at practices all season taking notes.

He was focused on practicing with the team, making passes down low where Adama Sanogo worked on his post finishes, or out to the perimeter where Jordan Hawkins continued to perfect his 3-point shot.

“But there will definitely be times where we’re running a play or we’re scouting the other team and they’ll say something about the hold or about scraping, or Coach will implement a play and I’ll just be like, ‘Wow, how do you think of that?’” Hendry said. “Sometimes it almost, like, deters me. I’m like, ‘Man, I gotta think about that stuff?’ Like, ‘You just came up with that? How do I do that?’”

He takes mental notes and has some things he remembers from practices stored away for future use.

When he imagines his own future, Hendry doesn’t know whose coaching style he’d model himself after.

Emmett Hendry celebrates after UConn defeated Gonzaga in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at T-Mobile Arena on March 25, 2023 in Las Vegas. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

“I’ve never thought about that,” he said. “I would say hopefully Coach Hurley, you know, but like all of our coaches are so great. I think Coach Murray is super detailed in the game – sometimes I feel like he’s a basketball genius with the stuff he knows – it’s very detailed when we’re doing the scout. Same thing with Coach Young and obviously Coach Moore is a (three-time) national champion. So like, all across the board you could pick little things out and it’s almost like if you’re making one coach it would just be like the best coach ever, probably.”

Before a game against Seton Hall at Gampel Pavilion in February, Hendry came out to the court early and got some shots up alongside fellow walk-on Andre Johnson from Bristol. In the corner, Hendry repeatedly caught passes from a manager and stepped back to his left.

With a smooth, right-handed shooting stroke, Hendry made at least 10 consecutive 3s.

Once the game began, he knew his role – the one he signed up for – and cheered and leaped and pumped his fists until his face turned a scarlet shade of red.

“I really wanted to go somewhere where I could develop my game. I want to be a coach, hopefully at UConn one day, and I wanted to be a part of an NCAA Tournament team. So I guess I kind of just sacrificed that, where I could’ve played at a low Division I school, but I really wanted to be here.

“It’s been everything I could ask for, for sure,” Hendry said. “And more. A lot more.”