When the NCAA tournament begins in nine days, UConn will try to become the first men’s team since Richard Nixon to win three straight national titles. You might expect blazing optimism from Dan Hurley, but this season has been topsy-turvy. Hurley, 52, is a generationally accomplished coach who admits to being a brash braggart, a doom-and-gloomer, and an eccentric — and there is a method to his madness.
This is not a participation-trophy coach: Dan Hurley is a human furnace of intensity, focused on wringing every ounce of potential from his roster.
Dan Hurley: “It’s a zero-sum game. The one that wins is gonna have temporary relief. The one that loses is going into a hell hole of suffering. I mean, that for me is— is— is how I look at these sports competitions.”
He also has rituals: burning sage the night before the season opener, spritzes of holy water, and bags of garlic bulbs. In November he was on his hands and knees placing offerings under the home bleachers, appeasing the basketball gods.
Jon Wertheim called the season “blank” so far.
Dan Hurley: “Unlike the last two. (laugh)”
Jon Wertheim: “Meaning what?”
Dan Hurley: “Just, I mean, at times very frustrating. You know, gratifying, relief, suffering, relief, suffering (laugh).”
The suffering began early. On the team’s first road trip to the Maui Invitational — a chance for three games and some island R&R, unless you’re Dan Hurley — he was ejected after an emphatic reaction to a blown call in overtime. UConn lost that game and two more in successive nights. Hurley was irate and inconsolable.
Jon Wertheim: He recalled a conversation with Geno Auriemma after that meltdown.
Dan Hurley: “You know, ‘If the only outcome that makes you a successful coach or a successful season is whether you hang up the national championship banner, then you should get out immediately.'”
Jon Wertheim: “That register?”
Dan Hurley: “Not at the moment, because I think in the back of my mind, I was saying, ‘Well, what the hell else am I in this for?’ (laugh) But then he stayed at practice and he kept coaching me from the sideline like, barking at me (laugh) a little bit. ‘Hey, hey, Dan, you know the joy of relationships with your players. The joy of getting the most out of your team. If you’re only in it for the championship pursuit and none of that other stuff means anything to you anymore and it’s just banners and rings, then you, you should get out. Because it ain’t gonna happen every year, Buddy.'”
UConn steadied to win eight straight after Maui, but this season has been marked by inexplicable lapses. That makes Hurley wistful for the dominant, back-to-back title runs, when opponents never came within 13 points in any tournament game. He shared how his championship teams operated.
Dan Hurley: “Most colleges are stealing ball screen, offensive ideas from the NBA. Whereas, for us it was taking off-ball movement, less dribbling, more passing, more cutting, more screening that would represent more of a European professional model.”
Jon Wertheim: “The other guys can borrow from the Lakers and the Celtics. You’re goin’ to Turkish league.”
Dan Hurley: “We’re goin’ to Turkey. We’re goin’ (laugh) to Israel. We’re goin’– (laugh) we’re goin’ to France, England. We’re goin’– we’re goin’ all over the place.”
Hurley showed his playsheet from the championship win over Purdue, every play with multiple options. It’s five-man chess, and Hurley views himself as a grandmaster.
Basketball runs in the family. His father, Bob Sr., was a Hall of Fame high school coach who won 28 state titles. His older brother, Bobby, was an iconic Duke player who won back-to-back national championships. Dan, however, struggled as a point guard at Seton Hall.
Dan Hurley: “You know, just how I failed to play up to, live up to, succeed up to, you know, the Hurley standard in basketball was, it caused a lotta pain.”
Fans sometimes chanted “Bobby’s better,” and the pressure led to performance struggles. In December 1993 he left the Seton Hall team after two games to get his mind right. He rejoined, but the joy of playing had been drained. Coaching offered a second chance.
Dan Hurley: “I gotta make up for what I didn’t achieve as a player, and I gotta make up for that right now as a coach. ‘Cause the— my career eats away at me still.”
Jon Wertheim: “Still?”
Dan Hurley: “It bothers me. If I see a picture of myself with a Seton Hall uniform or a clip, there’s an embarrassment about— how that went.”
With UConn success, Hurley finally feels worthy of the family name.
Dan Hurley: “It’s not me versus my dad as a coach or, you know, what I’ve accomplished relative to Bob in basketball now. It’s just this— this— this bucket that we’re all just gonna contribute to and— and we’ll see if we’re one of the best basketball families of all-time.”
Jon Wertheim: “That’s what the goal is now?”
Dan Hurley: “For me, and that’s been a shift and it probably didn’t happen for me until I had my moment.”
Hurley was courted by the Los Angeles Lakers last summer but declined, feeling he’s better built for the college game. He also knows not to bring work agony home. His wife, Andrea, whom he married in 1997, keeps him grounded.
Andrea Hurley: “Oh, no. Don’t come home like that. Please, like I’m not in the mood.”
Andrea: “Because he’ll get himself so down, and he’ll get in such a funk, that if I get in a funk with him, we’re gonna be no good. So I have to almost kind of, like, I don’t wanna say shame him. But, like this is ridiculous. It’s a stupid game and snap out of it.”
Andrea doesn’t know basketball terms and refuses to rehash games at home, which Hurley says is essential for their marriage. She designed a private basement sanctuary where he clears his head each morning. There he prays, meditates, paints, and indulges a superhero affinity — down to themed socks and underwear — and even keeps a referee figurine on a shelf.
Not all of Hurley’s rough edges have been zenned. In January he harangued a ref on camera and later admitted embarrassment.
Dan Hurley: “I’m complex— um. Now listen, I had no idea that— if I knew the camera was on me, there’s no way I woulda said it. But I’m embarrassed. So yeah, when I get into it— at sometimes I will say or do anything that I think may give me some type of an advantage either with an official or with firing my team up—or with carrying myself with—with a confidence and a swagger that—is gonna give my team the ability to—to play better. (laugh)”
College basketball has changed dramatically with the transfer portal and NIL deals. Hurley estimates “fifty percent of my roster or more” is at least considering the portal, with some already knowing where they’ll go and what their NIL deals might be. That volatility has turned the sport into a year-to-year proposition.
Still, Hurley is committed to this team, which passed 20 wins again, and approaches March with guarded optimism.
Jon Wertheim: “Can you win three in a row?”
Dan Hurley: “Yeah. There’s a path to it.”
Jon Wertheim: “Can this be a successful season if you don’t win a third straight title?”
Dan Hurley: “Brrr. Geno, Geno, Geno, Geno (laughs). I, I, not, not, no, not totally, because I didn’t put together a team that could do it. So once you’ve done it, anytime that you don’t do it, you know, deep inside you’re, you’re not gonna look at those years the same way. There’s gonna be a feeling of failure that comes with that.”
Jon Wertheim: “Even if you leave it all out on the floor? If you don’t hang a third banner?”
Dan Hurley: “Fail. Fail. I mean, it’s fail. I could live with it. It won’t be this off season of, of pain and suffering and, you know, it’s just killing you the whole summer and off season. That’s why I’ll be able to live with it, but it, it will still be a failure.”