The time is now Coach Dan Hurley and UConn need to win an NCAA Tournament game
Casual fans of UConn men’s basketball may be surprised to know that Dan Hurley has won in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. In fact, he did so recently, in consecutive seasons.
In 2017, Hurley guided upstart, 11th-seeded Rhode Island to a firstround win over Creighton, the team that would soon become his personal Waterloo. Hurley has called it perhaps the most important win of his career, setting the stage for his future success. Two days later, URI lost a heartbreaker to third-seeded Oregon, squandering an 11-point secondhalf lead and a four-point edge with just over two minutes left.
The following season, with rumors of Hurley’s potential departure to UConn swirling, the seventh-seeded Rams copped a first-round, overtime win over Oklahoma before being vastly out-manned and out-sized two days later by Duke.
Winning an NCAA Tournament game at URI is something to be celebrated. In fact, the Rams hadn’t won a game in the Big Dance since 1999, the days of Lamar Odom.
Winning an NCAA Tournament game at UConn is something that’s expected. In fact, winning multiple games is the expectation from a program that’s won more national titles (four) than any other men’s program over the past 25 years.
“Some programs go into these tournaments carrying more pressure,” Hurley said last week. “When you play and coach at UConn, the trick is to try to get your players really joyful and really excited to play, and not carry the history and tradition of playing great in these tournaments as an extra burden. That’s something that we probably have to manage more than the people that we play against that don’t have that type of history and tradition.”
UConn hasn’t won an NCAA tourney game since 2016, a first-round win over Colorado under Kevin Ollie, whom Hurley would replace two years later. Hurley has brought the Huskies back from their lowest point in decades, getting to three straight NCAA Tournaments for the first time since 2004-06. But after being bounced from the opening round the past two seasons, it’s time for the Huskies to make some tournament noise.
And Hurley knows it. Certainly, every top program has had an early NCAA tourney ouster. It happened to Jim Calhoun twice (2008, 2012). John Calipari and Kentucky missed the tourney altogether in 2021, then got bounced by Saint Peter’s in the first round last season. No. 1 overall seed Virginia got blown out by 16-seeded UMBC in 2018. The Cavaliers responded by winning the national championship in 2019.
UConn’s consecutive NCAA tournament losses have some similarities. In both games, the Huskies were the higher seed. And in both, they let their opponent’s best player go off.
In 2021, 10th-seeded Maryland popped the seventh-seeded Huskies behind 23 points from Eric Ayala. Last March, 13th-seeded New Mexico State shocked fifth-seeded UConn behind a 37-point performance from Teddy Allen.
As if to add insult to injury, New Mexico State canceled its entire season last month after numerous scandals,
“It’s my job to keep everybody loose. Not so loose that we don’t play with the intensity, but not so uptight that we don’t have the joy.”
— UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley
including ugly hazing allegations and a player involved with an on-campus shooting.
Back in October, when the promise of a new season was just over a week away, Hurley harked back on the 2021-22 campaign.
“We had the type of season that earned us a five-seed in the NCAA tournament, which was the best seed we’ve had here (since 2011),” he told CT Insider. “Two things can be true: I think we had a successful year until that point, (and) I’ve got to find a way to get the program over the hump. I’ve got to go from a team that’s having a really strong, successful regular season to getting on a run in March.”
But what about when Hurley hears the Huskies’ name called on Selection Sunday for a third straight season? Will the pressure start to mount?
“It may creep in at that point,” Hurley said in October. “Or, let me change that — it’ll definitely creep in at that point. Not being successful is something, from the psychological standpoint, we as coaches are going to be keenly aware of, that push-andpull, where you’re going into the moment: ‘Do I keep it too lose, because I’m worried about the team being too tight? Am I afraid that my team’s not going to be as intense, and maybe it’s too loose?’ ”
Now, that time is here.
“It can’t become an anchor for us to carry into ... the NCAA Tournament,” Hurley said last week. “It’s my job to keep everybody loose. Not so loose that we don’t play with the intensity, but not so uptight that we don’t have the joy.”
So how is Hurley doing that? “I’m working on it,” he said, with a laugh.
But he noted that this year’s Huskies seem much looser than last year’s bunch, which seemed tight from the opening tip of that New Mexico State game. Andre Jackson keeps things loose with his effervescent personality and energy. Jordan Hawkins is booming with self-confidence. Even transfers like Nahiem Alleyne and Hassan Diarra have hit game-winning shots in big games at their previous programs.
“This is a unique place to coach,” Hurley continued. “That’s one of the challenges of playing here. But, I think this group has the type of attitude and the confidence ... I think these guys will shoot their shots, and not maybe been as uptight as we’ve been in the NCAA’s.”