Hurley urges changes following incident
Suggestions come after his exchange with students
STORRS – A day after Uconn’s loss at Creighton, after which the Bluejays’ students stormed the court to celebrate the program’s first-ever win over a top-ranked team, Huskies head coach Dan Hurley went viral.
A video made the rounds on social media showing Uconn’s fiery sixth-year head coach exchanging words with the Creighton student section as his team left the court.
In the video Hurley appears to say to a spectator, “If you reach over, I’ll knock you out,” referring to the railing that separated students from the tunnel.
Hurley acknowledged the incident promptly with a “meme” video that also went viral, depicting himself as the character Cersei from the “Game of Thrones” series, walking through a horde of people chanting “shame.” He captioned his post: “See you Saturday…”
“That’s not my focus, nor do I want to give much oxygen to it.
I would just say the Big East, in my opinion, should look at a safer passage to and from the court,” Hurley said Friday.
“If you’ve got to go out there before the game, halftime, back out, end of game, just to put the most vulgar, drunk individuals that are going to spew profanity-laced things, climbing railings to get at me… I think you’ve got to look at trying to create a safer passage.”
The student section chanted “F— Dan Hurley” several times throughout the game, even during the national anthem.
“Once you get to the arena floor, if folks wants to serenade me, if the student body wants to serenade me with ‘F Dan Hurley’ chants, if the university and the people there think that’s classy, then go for it,” Hurley said. “If fans want to honor the anthem there by several times screaming ‘F me,’ that’s the institution, that’s the arena, that’s the security.
“But I think the league, to avoid me in a confrontational situation, should probably look at just the to-and-from part. A canopy, something — you shouldn’t have to walk through a tunnel of that multiple times and then also have people in the back as well, behind the curtain, that you’re dealing with as you’re walking out there.
“But my video, that’s how I felt walking out onto the court. I felt like Cersei — minus the spitting; I don’t think anyone was spitting — but that’s how I felt walking onto the court.”
Hurley said he had a second “meme” he thought about posting that was “really, really good too.” It was a late-’80s, early-’90s reference, he said, but he was talked out of it by younger people in the program because “it wouldn’t have gotten the views.” He didn’t want to disclose what it was “in case something else happens.”
“If you’re like around my age, you’d love it,” he said. “Most of the people our age, we live in the real world. We’re not in the metaverse.”