DAN HURLEY DOES NOT LOSE WELL AND SHOULD PONDER HIS SAVAGE OUTBURSTS
UConn fell in the NCAA tournament for the first time in three seasons and, of course, the head coach went bonkers and blamed the officials when Florida and Walter Clayton Jr. were the actual standouts
Stop shrieking. Start thinking. As someone who didn’t win a national championship for the first time in three seasons, Dan Hurley should ask what’s next in his churning life. Will he stay at Connecticut and keep losing his mind when his team fails in the tournament? Will he romp to the NBA, maybe to the New York Knicks, a team across the Hudson River from his hometown with nothing in common concerning the Lakers in Los Angeles?
Until then, his mind should mellow and he’ll stop telling the world about his craziness. Hurley’s self-acknowledged lunacy helped his team to the first back-to-back titles in 17 years of college basketball. He will not win a third, with a 77-75 loss to a Florida squad that might replace the Huskies in the trophy case. We watched closely to see how he’d respond after his first loss in 14 tournament games. As he walked through the tunnel in Raleigh, the fans should have covered their ears.
“I hope they don't f— you like they f—ed us. I hope they don't do that to you, Baylor,” Hurley said of the officials.
Really? Did John Wooden go out that way? Did Mike Krzyzewski go out that way? The final minutes featured the Gators hitting every big shot, two from Walter Clayton Jr., who reminded us of Steph Curry in drilling two three-pointers. The refs didn’t blow the result. Florida was better and should advance to the Final Four. Hurley thought Alex Karaban was robbed when he attempted a late layup. “There was a lot of contact there,” he said.
What, was the NCAA piling up on Hurley? In truth, he could have looked at Bill Murray — his son is a UConn assistant coach — and laughed magnificently about winning twice. The sport is mindless, amid NIL payments and transfer portals. Did he actually think his team could win again, as UCLA did once upon a time? If he was serious enough about his NBA visit with the Lakers last June, he should listen if the Knicks fire Tom Thibodeau. Hurley would be wise enough to rest players, after Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges have complained about their coach’s problematic refusal to reduce playing minutes. If this is the job he wants, it might be there — unlike the Lakers, after he refused a $70 million offer. Did he ever regret turning down the position? “No, not for a second,” he said.
Yet, after describing himself to officials this season as “the best coach in the f—ing sport,” Hurley stands to correct himself. Jon Scheyer would be best if he wins at Duke. Todd Golden would be best if his wins at Florida. Kelvin Sampson would be best if he wins at Houston. Bruce Pearl would be best if he wins at Auburn. Oddly, Hurley claims he isn’t aware about video cameras focusing on him, which is why he says he makes outlandish comments. “I’m embarrassed,” he said of his mouth.
The best of Hurley came when he spoke of his players, with tears. “Just love them. Yeah, this year has been a been a battle. We've battled, and, you know, we've had to battle and battle and battle, and at times I don't think we liked each other a whole lot with some of the things we had to go through together,” he said. “But I don't think I'll ever love the team more than how hard they fought for what we were trying to accomplish and for the honor they played with today.”
He credited Clayton, who sent UConn back to Storrs. “I thought we played with the heart of championship program, the program has come back to back,” Hurley said. “And for a team to end what we really wanted to do, you're gonna have to put us down. And obviously a worthy opponent like that, there's honor in the way we went out. We played in a manner that gave us a real chance to win. Credit Clayton. He made some NBA-level 3s off the dribble to beat us. It took that for somebody to put us down in this tournament after winning obviously a bunch in a row. We were not going out like suckers in this one.”
Florida is a No. 1 seed. The program carries on despite sex discrimination claims by multiple women against Golden, including students on campus. In January, the school’s Title IX coordinator said there was “no evidence to indicate that sexual harassment, as defined by Title IX, occurred within a university program or activity.” Hurley deals with a March loss. Golden deals with innuendo.
“The last several months have been a challenge for my family and me while this process dragged on,” Golden said in a statement. “We asked for the public to allow this process to work through to its conclusion and not rush to judgement based on allegations. The (athletic department) and so many at the university have been tremendously supportive — my family and I are extremely grateful.”
He might win the championship. Said Hurley: “The bigs, it reminds me of kind of what we had with (Adama) Sanogo and (Donovan) Clingan and Samson Johnson these last couple years where they just keep trotting out big, skilled, tenacious two-way players that are all over the glass. They've got a lot of depth on the perimeter, and they're old. I mean, they've got a lot of great pieces.”
Enough to beat Duke? “When it was kind of nut-cutting time, our players stepped up and made big plays,” Golden said. “We all know the reality, if you're going to make a deep run in March, you've got to catch some breaks, and you've got to win some games like this to be able to push through and stay alive. Theoretically, beating a team like UConn, that's used to winning this time of year, in the fashion that we did should be really good for us moving forward.”
Afterward, Golden hugged Hurley, who started to cry. What’s ahead for the former two-time champ? “There's a lot of rewiring and things I've got to do in the offseason because you just get caught up in this tidal wave of success that we've had,” Hurley said. “You lose perspective. You struggle with the ego at times because you've been on this incredible run. It will be nice to get to a normal offseason and just get back to myself as a coach ... and just focus on the upcoming season and make better decisions with all aspects of coaching.”
If the Knicks call, answer the phone. We can’t allow one tournament loss to become two losses and lead to four or five. Eardrums ache in March.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.