Cooley, Hurley feisty foes in the past
Dan Hurley is as feisty and emotional as any coach in the country. The man was ejected from two games within his first two months as UConn’s head coach.
Ed Cooley is an outgoing, gregarious type, but the Providence coach isn’t about to back down from anybody.
Put them on opposing sidelines and things could get interesting. It was supposed to happen on Thursday, when UConn and Providence were due to meet for the first time in seven years as Big East rivals, but that has been postponed. Still, Hurley and Cooley promise to provide great theater for years to come.
In fact, they already have.
In his six seasons as Rhode Island’s coach from 2012-2018, Hurley faced Cooley’s Friars each December in a heated intrastate rivalry. Cooley won the first five meetings, with Hurley finally snagging one in his final season in Kingston.
Emotions always ran high in those games, but never more so than on Dec. 5, 2013 at URI’s Ryan Center, when the two coaches engaged in a spirited shouting match and had to be separated by their respective assistants.
With just under four minutes to play in a tightly-contested game, URI’s Xavier Munford hit a 3-pointer to bring the Rams to within a point (47-46). Cooley called a timeout, and as PC guard Josh Fortune headed to the Friar huddle, he seemed to give URI’s E.C. Matthews a little bump. Matthews objected and appeared to shout some words towards Cooley & Co. Cooley seemed to respond, suggesting Matthews head to his own huddle.
Well, in Dan Hurley’s
book, opposing coaches don’t need to have any words for his players. Not surprisingly, he sprung to Matthews’ defense, saying something along the line of “Don’t talk to my players!” Cooley responded with something like, “Don’t come at me!”, and the fireworks ensued.
“I’m sitting there at the table, all of a sudden I look up and it’s like, ‘Why are both of our coaches at halfcourt? What is going on here?’,” recalled former URI sports information director Mike Laprey, who now holds the same job at Boston College. “Assistant coaches were trying to hold them back on both sides, they’re pointing at each other.”
Cooley doesn’t recall the details of how it all started.
“I just remember afterwards we looked at each other saying, ‘What the hell are we doing?’,” Cooley said in a recent Hearst Connecticut Media podcast. “We joke about it now, honestly. It’s all good. It’s just part of the game.”
Indeed, after the timeout, the coaches met on the sidelines at midcourt and shook hands, Hurley patting his own chest and saying, “My bad.”
In fact, the coaches are pretty close. They used to live right around the corner from each other in East Greenwich, R.I. and would see each other at the gym, the grocery store, at church. Their wives used to work out together frequently.
“We’d have some open, honest discussions,” Cooley noted. “The perception was that we didn’t get along. That was just the games. Off the court, we’ve had some great conversations, and I’m really proud of his development as a coach and what he’s done with that program.”
Cooley has been open and honest about not exactly welcoming UConn back to the Big East with open arms. At Big East Media Day in October, 2019, he rued how competitive UConn would be on the recruiting trail and said the league had given UConn “new life.”
His opinion hasn’t changed.
“I’m very happy for Connecticut, but it still remains the truth. If they were happy in the league they were in, they would have never left.”
“They have an incredible brand, a national brand,” Cooley continued, “so why would I be happy going head-to-head with them if I didn’t have to? It’s not an insult, it’s the truth. The Big East is a natural fit for them. It’s where they belong, it’s where they started. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. It takes away from what we’re trying to do and makes it that much more competitive for a school like Seton Hall and Providence College.”
“There’s nothing wrong with stating the obvious. It’s just how it was said, I think people may have taken that sideways.”
Although Cooley was born and raised in Providence, he has Connecticut connections. He was head coach at Fairfield for five seasons (2006-11), posting a 92-69 overall record before being hired by PC.
“They allowed me to come home,” Cooley said of the Stags program. “They allowed me to grow and develop, because I don’t think I could have left the bench at Boston College as an assistant and come and be the coach at Providence. I had to learn, I had to grow, I had to fail, I had to learn how to manage at a really early age. I had to learn to make tough decisions. As an assistant, you can suggest all you want. As the head coach, you’d better have some answers.”
Cooley still returns to Connecticut numerous times each year to visit his former neighbor, play golf at Great River Golf Club in Milford or Race Brook C.C. in Orange.
As much as Cooley likes and respects Dan Hurley, there’s another UConn coach who’s had a much greater impact on his life: Geno Auriemma.
“I look up to him as a mentor,” Cooley said. “He’s a wonderful person.”
The two met through NIKE coaches’ trips and Big East meetings several years ago in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
“He’s a guy’s guy,” Cooley continued. “Very authentic, very charismatic, really funny. My kinda guy. Hilarious, very astute. And my wife loves him. My wife is like, ‘Wow, he knows how to speak to women.’ I told my wife, ‘I think he should. He’s had a lot of practice with them.’”
MURPHY’S LAW: TRANSFER, OFTEN
In this day and age of transfers (there were over 900 in college basketball this past season) and a “grass-is-always-greener” mentality, it’s common to see players attend multiple high schools and college.
It’s rare to find anyone who’s attended as many high schools and colleges as Ryan Murphy.
Murphy was born in Calabasas, Calif., but moved to Westport when he was 15 and played his freshman and sophomore seasons at Fairfield Prep. He played his junior year at Wilbraham & Monson Academy in Massachusetts, then moved back out to California when his father, Greg (who played at the University of Bridgeport) was transferred back out west for his job. Ryan played his senior year at Calabasas High. So, that’s four different high schools. OK.
For college, Murphy first went to UNC-Charlotte, where he redshirted his first season then averaged 6.7 points over 19 games the following year. He then transferred to New Mexico Junior College, averaging 18.5 ppg and attracting the attention of Pitt.
Murphy transferred to Pitt in May, 2019, and spent last season with the Panthers, averaging 7.6 points in 30 games. This past spring, he left Pitt for Tulane as a grad transfer, intent on playing for coach Ron Hunter’s team in his final season of collegiate eligibility.
But just last week, Murphy announced that he had transferred once again, this time to Duquesne. He is now on the Dukes’ roster and apparently eligible to play right away.
So, including a junior college and a college for whom Murphy never played, that’s five different colleges in five years for Ryan Murphy. And nine different schools in nine years overall.