The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
JEFF JACOBS
Hurley appreciates UConn women’s familiar excellence
Over the many years and the many titles and the many parades, the UConn women and their Hall of Fame coach have drawn an endless number of comparisons.
Comparisons to the Tennessee women, to the UCLA men, to Pat Summitt, to John Wooden, to high school boys teams, to North Carolina women’s soccer, to their male counterparts in Storrs, to the Boston Celtics, Montreal Canadiens and New York Yankees.
But not this comparison. No, not this one.
“It all kind of reminds of me when I watched my brother Bob back at Duke, playing with Christian Laettner and Grant Hill,” said the new UConn men’s coach Dan Hurley. “Just that level of excellence on the court and excitement off it.
“It brings me back …” Whoa, whoa.
You mean the Duke team that beat UConn on Laettner’s shot at the buzzer in overtime of the Elite Eight in the 1990 NCAA Tournament at the Meadowlands? You mean the Duke team that so got under everybody’s skin that Rod Sellers elbowed Laettner in the face and bounced his head off the floor in the 1991 Midwest Regional semifinal, making Sellers a state hero?
The Duke team that so broke UConn fans’ hearts and so boiled their blood that it took the school’s first national championship in 1999 and another Final Four victory in 2004 over Coach K to even be able to spit out the word “Duke”?
You mean the early ’90s Blue Devils that played so exquisitely? With so much confidence? With rock-star fanfare, with fans adoring them and everybody else praying for them to lose?
The new UConn coach may really be on to something here. The early ’90s Dookies and the UConn women. Love it. We’re just all going to have to take a deep breath, relax like Hurley does during his yoga sessions. Om. Ommmm. Yes, it’s a new day in Connecticut.
“Those 11 national championships, 11 consecutive Final Fours, 19 overall Final Fours,” Hurley said.
Quoting Hurley quoting the accomplishments doesn’t do the moment justice. He laughs after reciting each achievement.
“Obviously, I’m a huge basketball junkie,” Hurley said. “And to me, it’s like video games. You know how the kids play them and rack up those unbelievable numbers? You see a dynasty-like that, those are videogame numbers. As a coach, you watch them and their
efficiency at both ends of the court, their level of play, that’s the phenomenon.”
Hurley’s hours since he was introduced at a news conference Friday have been a nonstop tornado of meetings, phone calls and assessments. He allowed himself time Monday night to watch the UConn women’s 29-point rout of South Carolina in the Elite Eight in Albany.
“I texted Geno at the end of the game something like, ‘Wow, what an amazing display at both ends,’ ” Hurley said. “I didn’t know what else to say, to be honest.
“Chris Dailey had reached out to me, so I thanked her and wished her good luck (before the game). She sent back, ‘It’s going to be a tough one.’ For all coaches, the next game is always going to be tough. But to play at that level, against that quality of team, against the national player of the year (A’ja Wilson) and dominate like that. It’s something to watch.”
Hurley said he was introduced to Auriemma once or twice in the past. With the women in Albany and off to the Final Four in Columbus, he has not had a chance to meet with him in person since his hiring.
“As a high school coach, I paid to hear him speak at clinics a number of times, particularly when I was at St. Benedict’s,” Hurley said. “I might have gone up to him after a clinic to say I appreciated it.”
After playing at East Catholic, Geno’s son, Mike, spent 2008 playing at Hun School in New Jersey. Hurley coached at St. Benedict’s from 2001 to 2010 and helped build the Newark school into an elite national high school power. St. Benedict’s also had a prep team comprised of post-graduates and fifth-year players.
“So we’re having a practice, there’s 20 minutes left and Coach (Auriemma) walks in,” Hurley said. “His son was playing our prep team afterward. I remember him sitting in the bleachers watching us.
“I didn’t look over to see if he was disappointed in my practice plan. I certainly was aware that there was an all-time watching me work in only my fifth year as a high school coach.”
Auriemma, his women’s team, Duke, the entire of state of Connecticut will be watching now as Hurley tries to rebuild a program that dissolved into successive losing seasons. He knows the mission is considerable. He said he is not scared off by any potential NCAA discipline stemming from the firing of Kevin Ollie for “just cause.”
“I learned a lot from second time around with Rhode Island (in leaving Wagner) when I didn’t ask all the appropriate questions about APR and things,” Hurley said. “I did this time. I asked about the situation with the NCAA. I was comfortable with the answer I got from (director of athletics) Dave Benedict and President (Susan) Herbst. I understand it’s ongoing. I don’t think it will have a big impact on what I’m trying to put together.”
What Hurley is trying to put together, of course, is a return to the glory days of way back … oh wait, it was only four years ago when the men won their last national title. The women are hunting No. 12, and a national championship ridiculously has become the break-even point every year. None of this is lost on Hurley.
“My introduction to UConn basketball on both sides was the old Olympic Festival for incoming freshmen and returning sophomores,” Hurley said. “I was on the East team in (1991) coached by Mike Jarvis. I was teammates with Do- nyell Marshall. Rebecca Lobo was on the women’s East team.
“When UConn is playing in the women’s Final Four, for me as a coach, it has been appointment television, because of obviously the greatness, but what you can learn as a coach, or as a young coach, on both sides of the ball. Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, I mean, it’s a who’s who.”
Taurasi and Laettner? You know, maybe there’s something to that Duke comparison.