STORRS — Dan Hurley pulled from his childhood after UConn’s Tuesday practice to find a comparison for new Husky center Oskar Giltay.
“He literally looks like He-Man,” Hurley said.
Hurley could only keep a straight face for a few seconds after making the comparison before exhaling into a laugh and doubling down on the resemblance.
“He looks like He-Man though, if you put a picture of him next to He-Man, and he’s like jacked,” Hurley said. “He’s got these wide shoulders.”
While living up to the title of “Most Powerful Man in the Universe” is certainly a tall task, the 25 pounds of added strength that Hurley said Giltay gained since last season can’t hurt. The sophomore was listed at 235 pounds on the Stanford roster last season and is now credited at 240 pounds by UConn, with an extra inch of height to boot.
Though the 6-foot-11 Belgium native would certainly qualify as one of the world’s most oversized action figures, the plastic-like toughness the newcomer displayed over the summer and as official practices began this week has not been lost on some of his returning teammates.
“Oskar is a workhorse,” point guard Silas Demary Jr. said. “Oskar comes in with his hard hat, works every day. Never takes a day off and he’s always looking and finding ways to get better.”
While expected 2026 starter Najai Hines fit the bill of a high-profile frontcourt addition, Hurley had to get more inventive in filling the second-string hole left by outgoing transfer Eric Reibe, who jumped ship for USC.
“We knew that second center at the minimum was going to be a guy that was going to be potentially unproven,” Hurley said. “There wasn’t a lot of options and out of those options, watching Oskar’s film, we thought that we absolutely had to get Oskar in here.”
Giltay has just five career starts under his belt but brings 32 games of ACC experience to Storrs after averaging 14.6 minutes per game for the Cardinal as a freshman. The well-regarded rim protector and offensive rebounder posted a 9.2% block rate and 13.3% offensive rebound rate, finishing the season ninth in the ACC with 39 blocks.
Giltay averaged 3.3 points and 4.1 rebounds per game on the year.
“I think his numbers, like his points per game and rebounds, were pretty low, but the analytics were very high,” Hurley said.
An uptick in minutes would assuredly help his per game averages. While Reibe averaged just 13.8 minutes per game last season as UConn’s backup center, that was with All-Big East First Team big man Tarris Reed Jr. swallowing up 27.3 mpg.
The year prior, when Reed came off the bench behind Samson Johnson as part of a two-headed monster, Reed averaged 19.9 mpg.
Hines averaged 18.0 mpg off the bench for Seton Hall as a freshman. Johnson’s 19.4 mpg in 2024-2025 was the low mark for average minutes by a starting UConn center across the past five seasons, meaning Hines is deservedly in line for increased minutes in his second collegiate season. Still, it seems that Giltay will see the floor plenty as the second half of the Huskies’ tandem at center.
Calling Giltay “more of a movement center” compared to Hines, Hurley noted Giltay’s ability to defend against ball screens defensively and get off ball screens quickly offensively to compliment Hines.
“Those guys battle every day,” Demary. “A lot of rim protection. Those guys don’t allow no easy layups; nothing easy in the rim. I think, today, Najai had a great block on [Jayden] Ross just protecting the rim. I know those two guys are always going to battle and protect the rim at all times.”
Both Giltay and Hines will have three more seasons of eligibility after this one with the NCAA’s newly adopted age-based eligibility model.
“The fact that him and Najai are both 19 years old, I mean is that scary?” Hurley said. “We, obviously as coaches, we see the upside.”