The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Dan Hurley not dejected after being ejected
JEFF JACOBS
STORRS — UConn’s formal response to the NCAA’s notice of allegations was released after sunset Friday, nearly two hours after Dan Hurley’s informal response to questions about his sideline comportment.
Yet if you think even for a moment the two matters are unrelated, you are missing the point as badly as referee Marques Pettigrew missed it Wednesday in Tulsa.
They have everything to do with each other.
They both are about cleaning up the mess Kevin Ollie left behind.
Slowly, methodically, sometimes emotionally, occasionally erratically, they are about Hurley accepting the rubble and rebuilding the UConn basketball program. Even if it means losing a scholarship and losing his cool.
In firing Ollie with cause this past March, UConn has done everything in its power to place as much blame on KO and as little as possible on itself. Ollie wants his $10 million. UConn wants to give him nothing. That will be decided by an arbitrator. Part of this saga also is threading the needle with the NCAA. UConn wanted to establish violations significant enough that, in its words, represent Ollie’s “increasingly cavalier attitude” toward compliance, with nothing being so severe that it would also leave itself vulnerable to harsh sanctions.
UConn hit on a potential gold mine of savings. The NCAA has alleged Ollie provided false or misleading information in denying he arranged FaceTime calls with Ray Allen and Rudy Gay with recruit Hamidou Diallo, and also denying knowledge that some of his players worked out with Derek Hamilton, a professional trainer and friend. The NCAA has listed that allegation as a major Level I offense. UConn’s response: It agrees. Yep, the coverup’s far worse than the crime. Again.
So shortly before 5:30 p.m. Friday, UConn released its self-imposed penalties. Surrendering a scholarship for the 2019-20 season, really, is the meat of it. The rest is piddling stuff.
“We have been preparing for this eventuality and will make the necessary adjustAdmitting
ments to move forward,” Hurley said in a statement.
Losing a scholarship when you are desperately trying to find big men who will rebound and guards who can score at all three levels is not insignificant. Especially if, as UConn contends, that it neither knew or should have known about Ollie’s violations.
Is it enough for the NCAA? We’ll see.
This is what we know. Hurley signed on for all it in March. Not some of it. All of it.
He has known from the start that dropping a scholarship was in play. He has known from the start he is inheriting a flawed team. He has known from the start that Jalen Adams will look for help that isn’t there on too many nights. He has known from the start it will take a few years to recruit the players he wants, to implement the hard-nosed game he demands. He knows expectations are through the roof.
All this is about cleaning up Ollie’s mess.
“We are not a good team right now,” Hurley said at one point after practice.
“I’ve got a big job here,” he said at another. “In the bigger picture, I’ve got to get this program back to the level it needs to be at. The reality is we’re pretty far away from that.”
Hurley said he picked up his phone Thursday and picked the brains of what he calls a small group of mentors. Current coaches and former coaches, he said, men smarter and more accomplished.
Let’s hope those mentors reminded Hurley that the appearance of leadership sometimes matters as much as leadership.
Get this part right. The officiating crew that worked the Huskies’ game at Tulsa on Wednesday night screwed up. AAC commissioner Mike Aresco all but said so in calling the double ejections of Hurley and Frank Haith “regrettable.” Aresco also said there would be no punishment for the officials, so his words do ring a tad hollow.
Pettigrew stepped in and did everything a cop, parent, teacher and, yes, basketball official shouldn’t do. He meted out discipline without adequately assessing the situation.
After some jawing between Hurley and Haith, both coaches were assessed a technical foul by Pat Adams. Hurley had been barking about an officiating point when Haith started barking, too. He called out Hurley’s name. That surprised Hurley and initiated words between the two, some hand gesticulations, but they never were closer than 10 feet of each other.
Coaches would rather receive bench warnings, but I have no problem with the first T. Nothing good comes of a coach yapping at another team’s coaches and players. Wasn’t crazy about Hurley exchanging words with injured Florida State star Phil Cofer in Newark or with Haith. I remain firm on that point.
At any rate, Hurley stepped toward Haith and reached out to shake Haith’s hand and instead Pettigrew reached out and slapped them with another T. Maybe Pettigrew panicked and thought they were going after each other in anger. Who knows? The notion they should be penalized for stepping out of the coach’s box is absurd. You want nasty? Ed Cooley and Hurley nearly got into it in 2013 at a ProvidenceRhode Island game. This wasn’t ugly.
Jim Calhoun said something interesting the other day. He said referees are becoming accountants, enforcing every rule and running to the video monitor. He said they are losing the feel of the game. Pettigrew certainly did. Yet as this incident dies down, Hurley must also remember he is representing the state’s flagship university. He’s the leader of a program. You can’t be a madman.
“When you’re not competing at the top of the league it’s very frustrating for the players and coaches,” Hurley said. “Plus, you’re trying to instill this fighter’s mindset into a team. Listen, you’re going to see a more animated Dan Hurley in year one and two than you will see in year three, four, five and six once we established ourselves as what we need to be at UConn. There will be nights I’m fighting for every single call, because I want my team to fight for every single thing on the court.
“I don’t know if there’s a perfect art with dealing with referees. I haven’t seen the book written. When you’re coaching a team that isn’t where you want it to be, you feel this pressure where every single call to you feels like the end of the world because every possession is so critical because your margins are so thin in terms of winning and losing.”
Hurley said he rated himself only a four out of 10 in animation in Tulsa. When a team is flat, he said, it can knock a little fight out of the coach, too. No, he joked, he didn’t go back in locker room after his ejection and punch out the television screen.
“When you have lost that competitive edge at times, when you lack a fiery leader on the court, it’s got to come from somewhere,” Hurley said. “That’s got to come from me until we can develop that, nurture that, recruit that into the program.”
Yes, Dan Hurley has to clean up Ollie’s mess. All of it. Huge job. He just can’t make too much of a roaring mess of it himself on the sidelines. It will do him no favors.