NEW YORK — The University of Connecticut’s basketball team won the men’s NCAA title last year to be crowned the best men’s team in the country. A year later, the Huskies are again hungry for another championship.

The team has reached the Final Four, which starts on Saturday, and the lineup features three practicing Muslims who have had to deal with more than just scoring points and potential injuries over the past few weeks.

Samson Johnson, Hassan Diarra and Youssouf Singare have spent the past few weeks fasting all day — in accordance with their Muslim beliefs during the holy month of Ramadan — while having to find the mental and physical energy to compete with the nation’s best basketball players.

READ: Some Muslim Soccer Players Dealing With ‘Ramadan Bans’

The UConn players have often broke the fast during games, which coincides with sundown, by taking a drink of water.

"It's really difficult, because when you wake up at, like, 4 a.m., after eating, you can't eat until sundown," Singare, a 6-foot-10 freshman, told The Connecticut Post on the eve of the tournament. "It's really hard to not drink, to not eat before the game.”

Ramadan — the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar — is a period observed by Muslims worldwide. Generally lasting for 29 or 30 days, Ramadan holds profound significance for those of the Islamic faith, serving as a time for spiritual reflection, self-discipline and a heightened devotion to God.

During last year's March Madness, Johnson, Diarra and Adama Sanogo all observed Ramadan — although Sanogo was the only one who played major minutes. This year, Johnson, Diarra and Singare have played a major role.

UConn, a No. 1 seed, plays No. 4 Alabama on Saturday. Should UConn win, the team would face the winner of the Purdue-NC State game, which will also be played on Saturday. The championship game will be played on April 8 at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

All three players said they wake up around 5 a.m. to eat before their fast begins. Most of them opt for steak as their morning meal in order to give them strength throughout the day.

Diarra has said it’s not the lack of food that impacts him most but the inability to drink water during games.

“It can be very, very, very hard at times,” he said during last year’s tournament. “The hardest part is not being able to drink or hydrate yourself throughout the game, throughout the practices. It can be challenging at times, but we find a way to push through it and get it done.”

Following the team’s 2023 championship run, some are asking whether this UConn team is even better.

“This year, the Huskies won both the conference regular-season and tournament titles in dominating fashion,” observed Connecticut Post writer David Borges. “They've also gone great swaths of time between losses: Two months between their second and third losses of the season, and we're working on about six weeks since the Huskies' lone loss of 2024.”

In fact, Ramadan doesn’t seem to have had any impact on a team that has been putting up some impressive March Madness statistics.

The Huskies, for example, have trailed for just 28 seconds throughout the entire tournament by 2 points to San Diego State. They have won 10 consecutive tournament games by double-digits going back to last season’s title run. During that streak, UConn has trailed only once in the second half — by just 2 points — for a mere 17 seconds against Iona.

The team has also been 3-for-17 in 3-point shooting against Illinois in its 77-52 win in the Elite Eight, going on a 30-0 run against the Big 10 champions. The Huskies were 3-for-22 from beyond the arc against Northwestern and still led by as many as 30 points.

Under coach Dan Hurley, the team may have some new players, but has used the same system that earned it success last season. A combination of defense, rebounding and passing the ball has made UConn a contender once again.

“The bulletproof thing has been out there like I'm saying we’re unbeatable, but that's not what I'm saying,” Hurley told reporters. “I’m saying when your defense is elite, which ours is, and your offense is elite, which ours is, and the rebounding margins show that we're an elite rebounding team and we generally play harder than our opponent. We share the ball and have depth.”

UConn faces Alabama, a school with a 6-foot-9 first-year forward named Mo Dioubate. Not only has he been putting up big numbers — Dioubate is also observing Ramadan.

Asked if his fasting had been on his mind during the Crimson Tide’s win against Grand Canyon in the second round, Dioubate asked, "I got lost in the game. The game came to me.”

Dioubate, who scored nine of his team’s last 17 points off the bench in that game, is joined by teammate Mohamed Wague in their daily fasting ritual.

“They're guys that give effort no matter what,” teammate Nick Pringle said after that victory. “They haven’t eaten since this morning. With five minutes left in the game, that was the first time they ate. So they played the whole game not even eating, high on energy, getting us going. We really feed off of them a lot.”

On the other side of the bracket, surprise side NC State, a No. 11 seed, reached the Final Four and features junior forward Mohamed Diarra, who is also Muslim.

Like the other players balancing Ramadan with basketball, Diarra wakes up at 5:30 a.m. and eats breakfast while getting liquid IVs before the sun comes up. Once the sun sets, he downs a glucose gel, a banana and plenty of fluids.

“He has stayed true to his religion. He’s stayed true to our basketball team,” said NC State head coach Kevin Keatts. “We’re talking about a young man that gives us everything every time he steps on the court.”

Clemente Lisi is the executive editor of Religion Unplugged. He previously served as deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and a longtime reporter at The New York Post. Follow him on X @ClementeLisi.