Kaosi Chijioke had a breakout season for Hartford in 2024-25, averaging 13.3 points per game. Hartford athletics photo by Kathleen Brush

By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com

In 2021, the Hartford men’s basketball team made its first ever NCAA Tournament. A week later, the school announced a transition from Division I to Division III. It’s been a tumultuous four seasons since then.

The move from playing Baylor in Lucas Oil Stadium to simply being eligible to compete for a Conference of New England championship this year has been called both a precipitous fall and a rise above the morass that’s enveloped Division I basketball in recent years.

Regardless of your perspective on up or down, head coach Aaron Toomey and his Hawks team just wants to move forward. While it’s premature to talk about a second NCAA Tournament berth this season, winning championships is why Toomey took on this unique challenge.

“I had a couple other [head coaching] opportunities during the same cycle. It was a unique challenge here, but I was looking for a place I thought I could win a national championship. Hartford had a lot of challenges, but we have unique resources here and many things, from my experience, even the top teams [in Division III] didn’t have. Although it may take some time, this is a place where we can compete at a high level.”

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Toomey, an All-American guard, who won a title at Amherst, had been an up and coming coaching star for a while. After stints at his alma mater (where he filled in for Hall of Fame legend, Dave Hixon, during a sabbatical season), Vassar, and the University of Rochester, he was set up for success.

Almost nothing else was working in his favor. The transition announcement was met with animosity across the alumni network. Hartford faced multiple lawsuits, a lot of negative publicity, and a protracted fight from the former head coach that ended in a legal settlement.

When Toomey took over, he was basically building from scratch. Starting in the summer of 2023, Hartford retained exactly zero players from the season before and the new staff scrambled to even field a team.

“The admissions office was really helpful in the process,” recalls Toomey. “They allowed me to recruit throughout the summer and gave us, for lack of a better phrase, more or less rolling admissions so we could get a roster.”

Those guys were a mix of under-recruited freshmen and transfers, players who’d been overlooked for one reason or another and wanted playing time, something Hartford could offer.

“I didn’t want to go heavy on transfers so we could build a culture the way we wanted to, the way we needed to,” adds Toomey. “We brought in a fully fresh group with nobody saying ‘we didn’t do it that way before.’ I didn’t realize at the time, but it was a big blessing in disguise.”

There were two transfers in that first Toomey recruiting class and a whole bunch of freshmen. They managed to go 7-18 and provided a springboard for some of those players to get scholarships and opportunities at schools who were postseason eligible.

Toomey understood that as a positive part of growing a program. “One of our guys was able to get a really good Division II offer that helped pay for his schooling, which was a huge thing for him and his family. We’re happy to have been a part of that.”

The second year was a slight step back, with the Hawks going just 5-20, but the culture was being established and the players who were at Hartford for the long haul had begun to lock in.

“Our guys are best friends with each other; they like to be around each other. We’ve built a strong culture off the court that hopefully will lead to better performance on the court.” Adds Toomey, “They mean a lot to me, to come in to commit to a new coach and a new program. They stuck with it through those first two years, even though we didn’t have success, wins and losses, like we’d like.”

This season, though, Hartford boasts five third-year players, upperclass leadership who can take over some of the program development from Toomey.

“It was a unique situation, because it was always my voice. Now we have, going into our third year, juniors and seniors who can be a voice for our program. That’s huge. There are moments I can tell those guys, ‘you talk to the team.’”

It’s not going to be easy, the CNE boasts four teams with 18 or more wins last year. WNE went to the Sweet 16; Endicott returns almost its entire roster; and Johnson & Wales joins the conference.

“I don’t want to put a win number on it,” says Toomey, “but we’re older and more experienced and the early vibes are different. There’s a different mindset than in year one or year two and a lot of that is because there’s an end goal now, in trying to get to the tournament.”

I failed to clarify whether Toomey meant the NCAA Tournament or the conference, but given his background, expectations, and approach, it’s almost certainly the former. And Hartford will need to show some success to bring back the fans and alumni supporters who struggled with the transition.

“It’s really challenging. I understand it. From an alumni perspective you were part of Hartford when it was Division I, so when that changes, a lot changes in terms of how you view the school, the athletic department, and your specific team. Some [alumni] have been great and really supportive and helpful through this process for me; others we’re still in the process of getting them back involved.”

Toomey continues to put a positive spin on things.

“I know we have a really strong alumni group out there, based on when I first got here, how much they cared, how strong their feelings were about the transition. It told me they were frustrated, but it also told me that they cared.”

He’s also, perhaps, uniquely placed to understand mixed feelings about the direction of a beloved program. A lot of fellow Amherst alums were upset when Hall of Fame coach, Hixon, was not replaced by a former player. Toomey has been through the process of grieving and adjusting to a new reality on the other side as well.

“Winning cures a lot,” he said. “If we get to a point where we can win our conference and go to the NCAA Tournament and show that that experience at the Division III level is incredibly exciting and fun and cool, that can be really helpful, too.”

Education is the key. As Division III fans we understand the false perceptions of our level by those who lack exposure to it. Hartford winning games is important, but just as important is playing in games that matter for the postseason. That happens for the first time in Division III this year.

That carrot, the possibility of tournament play, definitely helped in recruiting and Toomey expects larger than typical contributions from his freshmen, who will benefit from the lessons learned by the veterans over a difficult transition period.

Toomey counts patience as his greatest lesson. “I learned a lot about when to really push. On the court you need a lot more patience; it’s all brand new to them and they didn’t have juniors and seniors who knew how this worked. Off the court, you can be a little more strict, instill and uphold the standards you want for the program.”

In the end, the only real measuring stick is success. The ball goes up this week and Hartford, along with 400-plus other programs, will have their eyes on Indianapolis. Everyone hopes that whatever has come before prepared them for what’s ahead, but there’s only one direction to go: forward.