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Dom Amore: Dan Hurley, Huskies, can enjoy Final Four hype, but must also be able to manage it
At the Final Four, UConn coach Dan Hurley must build a cocoon. Players can step out and enjoy the hoopla, then step back in and seal it up.
www.courant.com
The challenge for a coach is to create a cocoon within the chaos of an event like this, a quiet at the center of the hype storm. Allow players to step out and enjoy the experience, but get them to step back in and close the doors behind them.
“Very similar to Jim [Calhoun], Dan’s been very loose with them,” said assistant coach Tom Moore, who was with Calhoun’s first Final Four team at UConn in 1999. “But he knows, like Coach Calhoun, to apply the hammer to them. He allowed them Saturday, Sunday into Monday to sort of enjoy the dopamine that comes from social media and all of that, but he was back at it hard on Tuesday and today.”
Though he has been to many Final Fours as a spectator, Hurley couldn’t fully comprehend the coming avalanche of attention. He consulted Calhoun, Geno Auriemma, Jay Wright, Tom Izzo among others who have been through it.
“All of my mentors tried to get me ready for this,” Hurley said. “I was smart enough to get great advice from people on what to expect. You don’t expect the [number] of media demands, and just the exhilaration of how big this is. It’s different than you expect.”
“For me, it’s just trying to keep these guys in that balance between the edge that you need to have as a team so that you don’t get complacent,” Dan Hurley said. “But not making them uptight and nervous. That’s the balance all these great coaches have talked to me about. Don’t allow your team to be happy (just) to be here, but they deserve to feel good about it because it’s really hard to get here.”
