FROM DOGS TO ’CATS?
We’ll soon find out if Kentucky glamour, and dollars, speak to Hurley
GLENDALE, Ariz. — If there is such a thing as a perfect marriage in sports, it’s Dan Hurley and Uconn. He has said as much in so many words throughout this NCAA Tournament.
Uconn, he told John Fanta for Fox Sports, can’t have an “empty suit” on the sidelines. The fan base demands a coach with his fire and passion and, of course, the results he delivered even before the Huskies took the floor to play Purdue for the national championship Monday night.
Now, what breaks up happy marriages in sports?
Money. No sense being naive here, we’ve all seen these things unfold. Money talks, especially when accompanied by henchmen like glory, history and fresh challenge.
So when the news broke Sunday night that the Kentucky job was open, that John Calipari was leaving for Arkansas, the logic followed that Hurley would be targeted to replace him.
By Monday morning, the reporting was starting to shift to Scott Drew, the Baylor coach, who reportedly has a good relationship with Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart. So maybe Uconn will dodge this bullet, or maybe already has. The way these things work, Kentucky probably sounded out potential candidates through the back channels and knew who was interested and who was not before Calipari started talking to Arkansas. These things move fast.
I got three emails Monday morning from betting organizations giving odds for the Kentucky job.
Betkentucky.com, a Kentuckybased sports book, had Hurley as the favorite (plus-200). Bookies.com listed Alabama’s Nate
Oats as the favorite (plus-350), Scott Drew next (plus-450) with Hurley a distant fifth. Betonline.ag had Drew the favorite at 1/1, with Hurley far down the list at 25/1, these odds obviously centered less on what Kentuckians would want and more on what’s likely to happen.
If Hurley told them, or tells them “thanks, but no thanks,” that’s another major victory for Uconn. It would mean that what
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Hurley has brought, on top of what was built by Jim Calhoun, has elevated the Uconn coaching job to the same level as Lexington.
In college basketball, Kentucky has long been considered the marquee job, the glamour job. Adolph Rupp made it so during his long reign, from 1930-72, and for the longest time even solid veteran coaches like Joe B. Hall or Eddie Sutton were just not glamorous enough, especially as the men’s game became too competitive for a handful of blue bloods to dominate.
So in 1989, Kentucky marshaled its cultural and economic forces and hired rock star Rick Pitino, lured the New York guy away from the Knicks. He restored Kentucky’s image on the court,
at least, won a title in 1996 and when he left for the Celtics, Tubby Smith followed him with another in ’98. But Kentucky fans are more restless than Connecticut fans, and eventually Calipari, the Pitino protege, was hired and that marriage lasted 15 years.
That’s the history of the Kentucky job. Hall of Famers are hired, and fired. Calipari hadn’t won the championship since 2012, hadn’t gotten to the Final Four since 2015, lost in the first round to St. Peter’s in 2022 and to Oakland last month.
Kentucky would have owed him $33 million if he was fired. Since he has reportedly found a landing spot, the school is off the hook to throw its entire football-funded SEC war chest at a successor.
Hurley represents what many others do not, program building, team building, and winning free, by all indications, of NCAA baggage. So it would be surprising, foolish actually, if Kentucky didn’t, or doesn’t sound him out.
Like Uconn in 2018, Kentucky needs a star. But at Kentucky, it needs to be the biggest star.
The job demands cutting edge. Hurley, with his blue print and formula for building and maintaining a program, is state of the art where Calipari’s way, loading and reloading with players expected to depart for the NBA after one year, was winning in the offseason, but underperforming in March. And Hurley has the personality to match. He is the industry’s hottest star right now, and no one else is close. Irresistible, if you’re Kentucky.
But it would also be a risk Hurley, 51, as intrigued by basketball history, tradition and new challenges as he is, might not want to take. He has said many times that he and his wife, Andrea, do not want to leave the northeast and their New Jersey roots. At Uconn, Hurley has a job, basically, for life. There will always be the desire and expectation to add more banners, but only an epic free-fall of fortunes, like the one that buried Kevin Ollie, could sour Uconn on Dan Hurley now. That won’t happen. You might even say Hurley’s bulletproof at Uconn.
When he coached what proved to be his last game at Rhode Island, Hurley was advised by Mike Krzyzewski that he had run his course at the Atlantic 10 school and needed to move up. He chose Uconn, despite its affiliate with the second-tier American Athletic Conference, over Pitt and the
ACC, betting he could elevate the Huskies back to the top. If Uconn had not left for the new Big East, he might not be here now.
But in the Big East, the true philosophical home for Hurley and Uconn, he has flourished. There was nothing more Hurley could do at URI, but there is plenty more he can do at Uconn, reload all over again, keep adding titles.
In coming to Storrs and winning, Hurley has made Uconn the glamour destination for basketball coaches. He doesn’t need to go to Kentucky for that. So it all comes back to that loud talker that can disrupt any celebration: Money.
Hurley makes $5 million per year at Uconn and added $1.2 million in bonuses before the championship game, worth another $500,000. But who knows how much Kentucky could throw at Hurley if its high-rollers really want him? Uconn could step up with more money and security, but could they match dollar for dollar, amenity for amenity? Probably not.
In the end, one must wonder if Dan Hurley would mess with happy. No matter how enamored Kentucky fans might be with what they have seen from afar, how much would they really buy into suffering those “excruciating losses” while a “culture is established?” The next Kentucky coach, especially if it were Hurley, will have to win a championship now, in this place, or the show will be over, quickly. The next coach there will have to be OK with expectations that aren’t just high, but unrealistic.
So here is some cautious optimism that Monday night was not to be Dan Hurley’s last game at Uconn. There seems so much more happiness and joy to come, and only one thing could mess it up. And we all know what that one thing is.