Benedict discusses self-imposed sanctions

— The selfimposed sanctions on its men’s basketball program that UConn revealed publicly on Friday could mean an extra year on Dan Hurley’s contract.

At this point, the ball is in Hurley’s court.

“It’s something that Dan actually would want to trigger. It’s up to him,” athletic director David Benedict said on Saturday, prior to the Huskies’ bout with Tulane. “Those are conversations we’re having.”

Hurley’s contract is a six-year deal, worth about $3 million per year. However, with UConn under NCAA investigation at the time of his hire in March, a clause was included that would add an extra year to his deal if the program was hit with any sanctions.

While currently the only sanctions UConn is facing are self-imposed, they would still apparently trigger the extra year if Hurley agrees.

Benedict met with the media for about 10 minutes on Saturday. He said the next step in the process would be to meet with the NCAA Committee on Infractions, which would probably happen within the next 2-3 months — maybe longer. He couldn’t answer whether he believed the NCAA would agree that the self-imposed penalties were enough, or that the violations that occurred under Kevin Ollie’s watch merited stricter discipline.

He also couldn’t figure a guess on how much the NCAA investigation has affected the university’s public image.

“That would be hard to measure in totality. All I can say is that, if you look around the country and consider other programs that have had challenges, albeit maybe different than what we’re having to deal with right now, other universities have been through it, and have certainly rebounded well. This is something we’d prefer not to be dealing with right now, but we are, and we’re gonna handle it the best way we possibly can and move forward.”