HARTFORD, Conn. — The UConn men’s basketball staff contacted Liam McNeeley shortly after he decommitted from Indiana on March 7. The Huskies finished their regular season with a win at Providence two days later, then won the Big East Tournament and earned the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, which they won for the second consecutive year.

With much of the roster in flux, Friday’s addition of McNeeley puts the Huskies in a great spot to contend for a third in a row, back-to-back-to-back, as Dan Hurley and Co. push for what hasn’t been done since John Wooden’s UCLA teams won seven straight more than 50 years ago.

Here are five things to know about McNeeley, one of the highest-ranked recruits in program history:

Richardson, Texas

McNeeley grew up in Richardson, Texas, an inner suburb of Dallas with a population of about 120,000. He comes from a basketball family with his mother, Ashley, having played college hoops at Rice from 1994-96. His uncles Chad Elsey (SMU and Baylor, 1997-2001) and John Inde (SMU, 1998-2001) also played college ball with the family roots going all the way back to grandfather Chuck Elsey (TCU, 1971-73) and great-grandfather Gordon Elsey (Tulsa, 1949).

He wears the same jersey number, 30, that both his mom and his uncle Chad wore.

McNeeley played his freshman year of high school at J.J. Pearce High in Richardson before transferring to John Paul II, a Catholic prep school with a strong athletic history just 10 minutes north in Plano. A fan of the Dallas Mavericks, he takes inspiration from superstar Luka Doncic and looks up to legend Dirk Nowitzki.

According to his sophomore year profile on the John Paul II website, McNeeley is a fan of Star Wars and history class, something he and Hurley, a former history teacher while coaching at St. Benedict’s, might’ve bonded over.

McNeeley was on the national — and international — radar before ever transferring to powerhouse Montverde Academy in Florida.

Choosing top competition

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