"Six years ago, back when it was still “coming,” this would have been almost impossible to conceive.
UConn, stuck then in the sterile, conglomerate killjoy that was the American Athletic Conference, had seen the light go out of its basketball blueblood eyes, which were glazing over as they witnessed conference losses to the likes of Tulsa and SMU. They watched on, as these random, listless, basketball-apathetic vagabonds somehow became equals. Nothing made sense anymore.
Dan Hurley remembers “waking up in weird places, weird states,” as he told The Athletic in 2023. “Not exactly rivalry matchups like Providence and Villanova. We were in Tulsa.”
UConn men’s basketball wasn’t the program it had been from the mid-to-late 90s through 2014, the tough-as-nails northeast upstart that built itself brick-by-brick into a perennial basketball power, validated by not one, not two, but four national championships.
It had been rudely exiled and shut out of a major conference by realignment, cast aside as if its hoops dominance meant nothing, left to fend for itself on those cold, dark winter nights in Tulsa and Wichita, its future unknown, dangerously teetering on the verge of irrelevance."
Hurley had been hired to revive the program, and it seemed like he was the perfect fit. You could squint and see a younger version of Jim Calhoun roaming the sidelines, barking at everyone in sight, willing his teams to victory almost by toughness, intensity and force of personality alone.
It hasn’t been easy, but no one could have ever predicted how it would turn out.
www.courant.com
UConn, stuck then in the sterile, conglomerate killjoy that was the American Athletic Conference, had seen the light go out of its basketball blueblood eyes, which were glazing over as they witnessed conference losses to the likes of Tulsa and SMU. They watched on, as these random, listless, basketball-apathetic vagabonds somehow became equals. Nothing made sense anymore.
Dan Hurley remembers “waking up in weird places, weird states,” as he told The Athletic in 2023. “Not exactly rivalry matchups like Providence and Villanova. We were in Tulsa.”
UConn men’s basketball wasn’t the program it had been from the mid-to-late 90s through 2014, the tough-as-nails northeast upstart that built itself brick-by-brick into a perennial basketball power, validated by not one, not two, but four national championships.
It had been rudely exiled and shut out of a major conference by realignment, cast aside as if its hoops dominance meant nothing, left to fend for itself on those cold, dark winter nights in Tulsa and Wichita, its future unknown, dangerously teetering on the verge of irrelevance."
Hurley had been hired to revive the program, and it seemed like he was the perfect fit. You could squint and see a younger version of Jim Calhoun roaming the sidelines, barking at everyone in sight, willing his teams to victory almost by toughness, intensity and force of personality alone.
It hasn’t been easy, but no one could have ever predicted how it would turn out.
By declining Lakers offer, Dan Hurley proves he’s built UConn into premier basketball destination
Storrs has long been known as the ‘Basketball Capital of the World.’ But after spurning a $70 million offer to coach the Lakers in favor of chasing a three-peat, Dan Hurley proved it…
www.courant.com
