Hassan Diarra has already accomplished more than the overwhelming majority of college basketball players will experience in their careers on campus.

The fifth-year senior point guard at the University of Connecticut won two national championships with the Huskies in back-to-back years (2023, 2024) and now he’s playing the biggest role of his college career on a UConn team that is aiming for a historic “three-peat.”

Diarra, who was born in Queens, New York, and raised Muslim, was also a champion in high school at Putnam (Conn.) Science Academy, where his team won the National Prep Championship in 2019 and 2020. Diarra was the top-ranked player in the state back then, and graduated as his school’s all-time leading scorer. Although his older brother Mamadou played his college ball at UConn (where he now works as the Director of Player Development for the men’s basketball program), Hassan decided to go to Texas A&M, where he spent two years before transferring to UConn.

In college, Diarra has been more of a role player than a star: In his first two seasons at Texas A&M and the following two seasons at UConn, he’s mostly been a backup, and his best single-season averages have been 6.2 points and 2.4 assists per game. Diarra was voted the Big East 6th Man Award last season as the conference’s best player off the bench.

In the early stages of this season, Diarra has been UConn’s starting point guard in seven of the team’s 12 games (through the December 18th schedule). He’s playing a career-high 24 minutes per game for a team that’s currently ranked 11th in the country, and his 8.0 points and 6.2 assists per game are also career bests. Diarra had a double-double with 12 points and 11 assists in the Huskies’ overtime win against Xavier on December 18th, the first double-double he’s had in college and the first time he’s had double-digit assists in a college game.

During UConn’s postseason run to its 2023 national title, Ramadan began during the NCAA Tournament. Four of the Huskies’ six tournament games were played during the Muslim holy month, and Diarra was one of three players on the team — including Adama Sanogo, the eventual Final Four Most Outstanding Player — who observed Ramadan and maintained the fast. In 2024, Ramadan fell earlier on the calendar and covered the entire NCAA Tournament, meaning all six of UConn’s games were played while Diarra and a couple other teammates were fasting. (In 2025, Ramadan begins during college basketball’s regular season and ends the same weekend as the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament.)

Diarra barely played in the 2023 tournament. The next year he served a greater, but still somewhat low-key supporting role on a star-studded team littered with future NBA players. Should UConn return to the tournament in 2025 and have a chance at a third straight national title, Diarra will be one of the team’s most important pieces. As the Huskies’ starting point guard, he’s currently fourth in minutes and leads the team in assists and steals. Observing the Ramadan fast will be a greater challenge if he’s playing more than he has in the past and carrying more responsibility.

After back-to-back years of reaching the mountaintop of college hoops, however, that journey will be at least somewhat familiar to the two-time champion.