What is your take on Hurley and the Refs?

[jake14mw]

The funny part to me is that the question that's posed by the thread is, What is Your Take on Hurley and the refs? That's a general question. Then everyone here makes it just about the technical. It seems most people on this board are okay with Hurley's behavior if he doesn't get the tech. I understand the outrage about the tech, because it might have cost us the game in this case, and that's inexcusable.

But is it okay for him to just continually abuse officials every single game? Referees are human beings. They're just regular guys trying to do their jobs the best they can. We all get that coaches have to work their butts off, and it's frustrating when refs don't get a call right. But Hurley is yelling at them the WHOLE GAME. He screams at them at any close call that doesn't go his way. Sometimes Hurley sees it right, and I'm guessing most times when he's screaming, the ref actually got it right. Again, the guys calling the games are human. We've all seen it, they're going to get most things right, and some things wrong. It's part of the game. Screaming at the officials constantly shouldn't be part of the game.

Dan Hurley is the best coach in college basketball in my opinion. That doesn't give him a free pass to do whatever he wants.

 

[uconngb]

He has to know better. Period.

 

[upstater]

We’re bias and that’s okay. But we played defense in a way that gave the refs a chance to call a foul. There’s ways to prevent that.

If you have a forearm in somebody or hands down then you are liable to get called for a foul. As UConn fans who’ve watched guys like Kemba, Shabazz, and even Newton we should know this.

I think it was the early fouls that set him off.

It was not as you described. Players had arms up, not bodying the driver at all, feet moving.

The driver initiated contact and got the foul call. This is why we had so many starters on the bench so early in the game.

On the other side of the court, Memphis was hacking, using hands, 2 hands to push, everything we've been told needs to be called.

You can adjust and play the game the Memphis way and then you won't get called for fouls, but it's such a bad kind of basketball. No idea why the refs prefer to give the advantage to teams that isolate and drive over teams that want to run offensive plays.

That's how it as last night.

 

[gtcam]

We’ve known this about him since he got here. Everyone is cool with it when he’s winning.

He turned down every opportunity to leave UConn. He’s dominated the sport the last 2 years and the players love him.

UConn fans need to get over it. Players appreciate a coach that goes to war for them instead of leaving them to feel cheated and wronged

Going to war and screwing up are 2 different issues
He hurt this team yesterday
He was "early years at UConn Hurley" on steroids - not good at all
He won 2 NCs but that doesn't give him carte blanche with everything he does.
The officiating was horrible at best, but it was that way from the onset - great coaches work around it, they don't escalate the tension. (It took me about 5 years of my nearly 30 years of coaching to realize this myself)
Perhaps the events of the overtime yesterday will sink in with DH. Very good coach but he is still not a very good bench coach.

I bet not Everyone is cool with it when the team is winning..................................................

Today is a new/different day.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Going to war and screwing up are 2 different issues
He hurt this team yesterday
He was "early years at UConn Hurley" on steroids - not good at all
He won 2 NCs but that doesn't give him carte blanche with everything he does.
The officiating was horrible at best, but it was that way from the onset - great coaches work around it, they don't escalate the tension. (It took me about 5 years of my nearly 30 years of coaching to realize this myself)
Perhaps the events of the overtime yesterday will sink in with DH. Very good coach but he is still not a very good bench coach.

I bet not Everyone is cool with it when the team is winning..................................................

Today is a new/different day.

Hope he has a little reflection today because that PG conference was a bad look.

 

[gtcam]

What’s there to coach when they aren’t fouls?

Coach knows what he’s doing. It’s a chess match. He argues about officiating now and the refs are going to think about the calls they’re making for or against us this season. Some will work for and some against.

Maybe teach your perimeter defenders to play D with their feet so they aren't grabbing with their arms.

It's the "some against" that seem to hurt this team the most

 

[UConnSwag11]

You're making the argument that when he's calm, he wins championships. lol.

I said when he was calm, people still hated on him.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

The refs deserve plenty of criticism; however, refs make bad calls in every game. Hurley's lack of self control and game awareness is exceptionally bad. The stakes were low in this game. What if he behaved like that in a NCAA tournament game and cost us a win?

If that had been at the Final Four the refs would’ve been on their best behavior. Calls like that, and the timing of the calls would’ve led to an investigation. Most one sided refereeing I’ve ever seen.

 

[Deepster]

I am surprised by the number of hothouse flowers we have on this board.

I stand with Coach. Period.

When losing hurts more than winning feels good, you have guys that are wired differently. Michael Jordan punched his own teammates in practice. Calhoun had one of the shortest fuses in the history of the sport. Larry Bird had a temper.

Truth is, if the team showed half the fire that Hurley showed we wouldn't have been in that predicament to begin with. We played like crap in the last cupcake warm up and we played sloppy on both ends of the floor yesterday and he won't accept it and neither will I. Keep doing exactly what you're doing, Coach.

 

[ec33]

The choices should be:

"Learn to live with Hurley being Hurley because he is not going to change (and hope that after championship #5 the refs are now worried about offending the GOAT" and "Fire Hurley, he is not going to change."

 

[Zonepress]

Any objective to look at his behavior during the game yesterday shows that he reverted to past behavior he exhibited during the beginning of the 2023 season
From where I sit, he seems like a front runner

 

[Scorpio1]

Solo gets an elbow to the face and there’s no call but Hurley is the bNo connection

 

[CL82]

The T at the end was totally avoidable. Ref walked away. Kimani had Hurley behind him and seemed like it was over, then Dan went back after the ref. Just can’t happen

This. Working the refs needs to be tactical. It is done with the goal in mind of pointing out inconsistencies. With practically no time left on the clock, there's nothing to gain. So, at that point, it's just a temper tantrum and then needs to be better.

That said, you have to look at people in totality. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses, our good characteristics and our flaws. In totality I want Dan Hurley on my side 10 times out of 10.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

Any objective to look at his behavior during the game yesterday shows that he reverted to past behavior he exhibited during the beginning of the 2023 season
From where I sit, he seems like a front runner

Wait, you’re saying Dan Hurley is a front runner? The guy who navigated us to back-to-back titles. I swear the BY is not real.

 

[Tenspro2002]

I think it was the early fouls that set him off.

It was not as you described. Players had arms up, not bodying the driver at all, feet moving.

The driver initiated contact and got the foul call. This is why we had so many starters on the bench so early in the game.

On the other side of the court, Memphis was hacking, using hands, 2 hands to push, everything we've been told needs to be called.

You can adjust and play the game the Memphis way and then you won't get called for fouls, but it's such a bad kind of basketball. No idea why the refs prefer to give the advantage to teams that isolate and drive over teams that want to run offensive plays.

That's how it as last night.

You know, I kind of go back to the fact that he doesn't call any fouls during practice in order to toughen guys up for the Big East. And some of our guys certainly need that.

But the flip side is we're also not used to the (often soft) calls that go against us. I wonder if we'd be better off having one of these hair-trigger refs calling our practices.

 

[tuvent08]

I posted this in the other long thread, but it's probably a better fit here.

Every human being's strengths, when taken to extremes, are our weaknesses. That's just how we work. It's impossible to calibrate it perfectly. What makes Hurley the best coach in the sport also, when taken too far, leads to this nonsense. He can continue to improve on it, but it will always be there at times when he loses his head.

cc everyone who's ever been married

 

[KemBuckets21]

He's not the first coach to get P'Oed at the officials. I'm generally fine with it, but we never seemed to get any "makeup" calls during the game, which I would expect is the whole point of working the refs. I admittedly have a hard time separating my UConn bias from objective viewership, it seemed like Haggerty had multiple drives to the basket that were bailed out by questionable fouls. Then theres the Tarris and Liam calls. IDK, considering how poorly Samson played and how suspect AM's defense is, we were able to overcome some glaring weaknesses. So sky isn't falling, but I think the refs are an ok thing to point out in this one.

 

[Kolumbo]

I wish Coach Hurley would be a little more forthcoming

 

[Kolumbo]

 

[Jumpman62114]

I’m all for working the refs but Hurley needs to be more strategic about it and pick and choose his battles.

 

[freescooter]

We have a great coach — nothing in this discussion changes that. Having said that, there is no strategy in getting T’d up in the last minute of the game. You’re not giving yourself time to motivate your players or influence future calls. It simply is a weakness in Hurley’s game. Period. But it’s akin to criticizing something in Lebron’s game — criticism may be fair but it doesn’t mean Lebron isn’t great.

To me he needs to know better than that. You don’t put you team in that position with time running out. No excuse for those kinds of histrionics. You want throw a fit in the first half, have at it. This is a return to 2022 Hurley who cost his team games with his nonsense. He seemed to have it under control. Now it’s back.

I see shades of Bob Knight in some of his actions which would be kind of sad. Great coach remembered as much for throwing chairs and physically attacking players as his 3 National Championships. For a long time he got away with stuff until he didn’t. It would be very sad to see Hurley go down that path.

 

[BGesus4]

I mean if you want to guy to think about winning to an insane degree all waking hours and never be cool about not winning absolutely everything, it’s probably going to not always look super pretty when winning doesn’t happen or is in jeopardy. Well worth it imo

 

[Kitaman]

Coach ain't changing, just saying.

 

[HuskyCLT]

Obviously he's got to be strategic about when he's working the refs - I agree that the last 40 seconds was absolutely not the time for that and it likely cost the game.

In the grand scheme of things, I'll ride with Hurley 100%. Most of the time he's strategic about how he works the refs, and I'll take that over the KO days where he didn't work the refs at all - and guess what, we never got any calls and officiating always felt like a problem.

Let's be honest - Memphis looked like a really good team AND that game was reffed horribly, and inconsistently. If the refs had talked to the coaches early on about how they're calling the game and then followed through and been consistent on their calls I doubt we get half the theatrics we did as last night.

 

[Mr. French]

The T at the end was totally avoidable. Ref walked away. Kimani had Hurley behind him and seemed like it was over, then Dan went back after the ref. Just can’t happen.

The call was questionable. Definitely contact but McNeeley was just taller than the guy and got the rebound. Not the worst call of the game and you just gotta move on.

The worst call was the combination of the call where Reed turns around and the guy who is a half a foot shorter is crawling into his jersey and it was his fifth foul and a tech. Elbow wasn’t even extended. Literally just turned around and if it wasn’t a guard who got stuck in a terrible mismatch that’s an elbow to the chest and it’s probably an and1. Turn to end of game and Solo gets an elbow swung into his face and it’s a foul on him. Just can’t have two different interpretations of the same rule like that.

This is my takeaway too, especially the actual calls.

Reed didn’t even swing the elbow, he flat out just turned and the guy was shorter than him.

Solo, meanwhile, is in legal guarding position and the kid actively swung his elbow into Ball.

Not only were those 2 plays called differently, they were both against UConn. Not sure how that happens. The Hurley snap is based on accumulating calls.

I’ve been there, just a slightly lesser level of ball.