​NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 10: Stephon Castle #5 of the San Antonio Spurs in action against Josh Hart #3 of the New York Knicks in Game Four of the 2026 NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden. (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Stephon Castle’s lone season with the UConn men’s basketball program included plenty of stops in “Storrs South” – the Huskies played six games at Madison Square Garden and eight total games in New York. Castle was ultimately selected No. 4 overall by San Antonio in the 2024 NBA Draft and, because of a flying start to his professional career, returned to Madison Square Garden this past June, which was packed with a different but similarly revered group of fans. The Spurs and the New York Knicks faced off in the 2026 NBA Finals, with games three and four played in Manhattan, leaving Castle much less impressed with the World’s Most Famous Arena. “It was underwhelming in that first game,” Castle said in an interview with GQ Magazine. “They made it seem like it was going to be way crazier in there. …OKC was way louder than MSG.”Castle’s return to the Garden served as a much more significant milestone for New York sports fans, marking the first NBA Finals games played in the city since 1999. Nearly three decades of anticipation created historic demand as the series moved to New York for Game 3, with the get-in price hovering around $4,000, per ESPN, and notable celebrities ranging from Jay-Z to President Donald Trump converging upon midtown Manhattan. However, the New York crowd was subdued late as Castle, joined by his fellow youthful Spurs superstars Victor Wembanyama and Dylan Harper, pulled away late to secure a 115-111 win. The Garden remained quiet for much of Game 4 two days later as San Antonio surged to a commanding 29-point second-half lead, but later roared to life as OG Anunoby’s miraculous tip-in clinched the largest comeback in NBA Finals history just before the buzzer.Castle arrived in Storrs as a coveted five-star prospect ahead of the 2023-24 season but missed time early with a knee injury, watching Madison Square Garden matchups against Indiana, Texas and North Carolina from the sideline – UConn went 3-0 during this stretch, continuing an ongoing seven-game winning streak against non-conference opponents at MSG. The young guard blossomed into a major Huskies contributor by the time UConn returned to Manhattan for the Big East tournament, and Dan Hurley’s squad began its NCAA Tournament defense a few miles east at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Sign up for the Connecticut Briefing from CT Insider. Get the biggest headlines of the day from our network of journalists around the state.This article originally published at UConn’s Stephon Castle pans ‘underwhelming’ NBA Finals crowd at Madison Square Garden.