Hurley vs. Cooley has that old Big East feel
STORRS — After he allowed more than 500 fans to get an early read on his 2019 UConn basketball team Saturday afternoon at Gampel Pavilion, Dan Hurley had me read Ed Cooley’s words to him about UConn’s 2020 inclusion into the Big East.
Here it goes in case you missed it from Thursday’s Big East basketball media day.
“I think we gave Connecticut new life,” said Cooley, the Providence coach. “We gave their fan base new life. I think they finally came to the conclusion that they are a basketballcentric school. They were pouring all their money into football and, in my opinion, it was going into a hole.
“A lot of people will be pissed at me for saying that, but when you’ve become a national brand in one sport and try to parlay it into something that isn’t — shame on you for making the decision up front.”
Hurley broke into a wry
smile. On game nights his face may twist into maniacal contortions, but on practice days he is much more prone to wry smiles.
“Wow, pontificating on us,” Hurley said. “I disagree with that. I don’t take offense to it, I guess. We recruited Akok Akok, James Bouknight and Jalen Gaffney and R.J. Cole and were in pretty good position to bring in a Top 15Top 10 recruiting class before, I guess, the Big East ‘saved’ us.
“Our basketball program was well on its way to doing what I’d done at Wagner and what I’d done at Rhode Island. I remember my years five and six in the state of Rhode Island, we were kind of the thing with our performance in March and winning our league and advancing in the NCAA Tournament. The Big East is certainly going to help UConn, and UConn is certainly getting its act together right now and we were way before we returned to the Big East.”
There’s a lot of truth in what Cooley said.
There also are some incorrect assessments.
I love all of it.
Every word.
It’s not the AAC’s fault, but even if Mike Tyson was playing point guard, Don King couldn’t have worked up rivalry hatred between East Carolina and UConn. Bob Diaco tried with UCF football and he became a national punchline.
But Providence and UConn? Cooley and Hurley? A misplaced comma could get it going.
Does the move to the Big East give Connecticut and Connecticut fans new life? Absolutely.
Did UConn come to the
conclusion it’s a basketballcentric school? As far as basketball, men and women, being the crown jewels, the answer is yes. It better be.
Yet as far as Cooley asserting that UConn had a national brand in basketball and tried to parlay it into something that wasn’t, and shame on them for making that decision up front?
That’s revisionist history. In the 1990s, former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese wanted UConn to make the jump to Division I. Miami was in the conference. So was Virginia Tech and West Virginia. The Big East was in the BCS and had two national football championships. The pot of college gold was at the end of the football rainbow and everyone knew it. Especially former AD Lew Perkins.
Only a decade ago UConn was being heralded as a football success story nationally. Five bowl appearances in seven years, including four in a row and a BCS Fiesta Bowl, coming out of IAA? Granted, we’re not talking national titles, but we are talking three seasons of popping into the Top 25.
So if Ed Cooley, an assistant at Big East Boston College 19972006 and head coach at Fairfield 20062011, had the requisite crystal ball and knew it definitely was all going to fall apart in Storrs, he should have done the state taxpayers a solid and given the governor a call. No one knew the conference landscape would so dramatically change.
“I won’t be making a response to Ed’s comments,” UConn athletic director Dave Benedict replied Saturday by text.
I didn’t ask Randy Edsall. I’m afraid he’d storm out of another press confer
ence.
If Cooley is speaking in the present tense, there is no defending UConn football and Edsall right now. The nightmare refuses to end. After getting skunked again Saturday by Tulane, the Huskies have lost 21 FBS games in a row, including 15 in the American. They’re going independent and we await eight open dates to be filled for next year. We also await some fun, any fun, and W’s to return to Rentschler Field.
None of that is Hurley’s problem, of course. On this day, he was satisfied to allow the fans to look “behind the curtain” at an open practice. He said he toned his act down — five on a scale of 1 to 10 — for public consumption. Freshmen Gaffney and Akok were held out of practice. Hurley said he hoped to have Gaffney, in a boot with an ankle injury, by next week. Akok was out after spraining his foot Friday at practice. It isn’t believed to be serious.
Akok and Gaffney, of course, are the caliber of players Hurley is trying to recruit. Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard said at Big East media day that he can’t use UConn’s geographical disadvantages anymore. “I can’t tell recruits, ‘You know what it’s like to play at Tulane, East Carolina and those places?’”
“We didn’t talk about it either,” Hurley said, jokingly.
“Look, people have talked about it in our business, the impact the American has had on UConn men’s basketball. What Ed said wasn’t a hidden secret. People were talking about it openly. We didn’t butt heads with Seton Hall on James Bouknight, Jalen Gaffney or Akok Akok. If we hypothetically got any verbal commitment recently, I don’t think we were recruiting against any Big East schools on that one.”
Coaches aren’t allowed to speak on commitments until they sign. Coveted recruit Andre Jackson recently picked UConn over Syracuse. Iowa, Maryland and UCLA were also in the mix.
“I don’t think we’re going to stray much from what we’re doing right now,” Hurley said. “I think some of the schools from other conferences that are coming into the Northeast and stealing players maybe UConn wasn’t getting because of the American is the real issue. I don’t think it’s going to have as big an impact on the Big East as an impact of schools from the Big Ten, the ACC poaching.”
In the meantime, Hurley and Cooley will continue to talk … and recruit. Hurley said the two have long since patched up any differences from a squabble during a timeout in a PCURI game.
“My first couple of years, we were bad,” Hurley said. “We’re trying to teach our guys how to fight. Media timeout. Instate rivalry. I thought Ed said something to one of our players. That’s not going to go over with me. That led to some of the theatrics. The crowd loved it.
“Me and Ed are close now. My last couple of years there and in the offseason when I had to make career decisions, Ed was an advisor for me. He gave me great advice. Once we get on the court it will be bitter. And my return, there will be no love lost with the fans. I’m pretty good for fans to hate because of my personality.”
Ah, the Big East.