UConn’s Dan Hurley joined an exclusive list of men’s college basketball head coaches who have won back-to-back NCAA titles when the Huskies thumped Purdue in the national championship game Monday night. But then he was put in a situation few coaches on that list have ever been in — addressing rumors about leaving for another job.
After reports that Hurley was at the top of Kentucky’s list of candidates to replace John Calipari following Calipari’s shocking departure for Arkansas, the UConn coach and New Jersey native lightheartedly downplayed interest in the job at his postgame press conference Monday, citing his wife Andrea as a major reason.
“Oh my God, Kentucky or anywhere that’s going to take her further from New Jersey,” Hurley told reporters. “I mean, we just went to Rhode Island, which I had to drag her to, and then to Connecticut. I got her closer. And now further? I can’t afford a divorce right now, too. I just started making money. … The last thing I’m thinking about is another place.”
Hurley expanded on those comments during an appearance Wednesday on “The Herd” with Colin Cowherd. When Cowherd asked what Hurley would do if someone brought in a “Brinks truck” of money for Hurley to become the next coach of their school, Hurley said that would be “flattering” but not necessarily an automatic yes.
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“I’ve come a long way since being a high school coach 15 years ago, and I haven’t had to kind of work my way up the ladder and the business as a coach the way coaches did it back a long time ago,” Hurley said. “But I’ve got a long career of turning down jobs or more money to stay in places that I was happy at and that fit me and that would provide me the resources to, at that level, achieve the things you want to achieve.
“Right now at UConn, my relationship with [athletic director] Dave Benedict and what the place means to us — the opportunity to go for a three-peat right now, it’s the only thing that is obviously on anyone’s mind here. So I just can’t see that being a thing.”
While Hurley has not explicitly denied that he would go to Kentucky, it appears the school is currently focused on Baylor coach Scott Drew, another former national champion who Wildcats athletic director Mitch Barnhart and other officials will reportedly meet with on Wednesday.
Dan Hurley says priority is ‘going for a three-peat’ with UConn
But Hurley is currently enjoying his perch atop the sport, confidently shouting from the trophy podium Monday night that UConn, with six men’s basketball titles and 10 in women’s basketball since 1999, “has been running college basketball” for the past 25-30 years.
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Hurley earned the right to say that after his game plan neutralized 7-foot-4 Purdue star Zach Edey on the defensive side and took away his teammates’ ability to help him on the offensive end. Edey had 37 points and 10 rebounds, but Purdue, one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the nation last season, went just 1-for-7 from beyond the arc. On the other end of the court, UConn used its spacing ability to drag Edey out of the paint and give the Huskies’ guards easy buckets against their smaller Purdue counterparts.
Dan Hurley explains UConn’s gameplan for Zach Edey, Purdue
“Usually, I’d say going into like 95% of games, Colin, you’re trying to take away the other team’s best player, right?” Hurley explained to Cowherd. “But just studying Purdue’s season, what you were gonna open yourself up to was, he’s gonna score one-on-one a lot — the size, the skill, the strength, the experience, he was going to get his anyway. But then once you start doubling and bringing help and digging the ball out, now you open things up for the others to now put them over the top with the [offensive] production. So the mindset was keep [Huskies center Donovan] Clingan of foul trouble and just blanket the 3-point line and basically, make them one-dimensional.”
The plan worked, and now Hurley has a second consecutive national title — and nationwide recognition as one of the sport’s elite coaches — to show for it.
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