Dan Hurley Saved College Basketball

When you think of Men’s College Basketball, the names of Wooden, Dean, Krzyzewski, Williams, Thompson, and Calipari shoot to mind right away. All the memories of the great teams from UCLA, Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, the Big East, UNLV, and even the Fab Five start to rush back. Nostalgia of a time when the sport meant something different. For all those longing for the days when great teams didn’t dissipate into the transfer portal after one disappointing year—Dan Hurley and the Connecticut Huskies are here to save the day!

UConn has done something that only seven other programs have done in the history of college basketball, repeat as champions.

Forget all the talk about “best team of all-time,” even though if you look at point differential (like it truly matters), this UConn team is the best team to ever play in the NCAA Tournament. This team means much more to the game of college basketball than that. Coach Hurley has given college basketball what it has been missing since the introduction of NIL and the transfer portal, continuity. Repeating as National Champions for the first time since the 2005-07 Florida Gators has given the college basketball fan something to hold onto. A north star to look toward and hope their school or favorite program can emulate. Hurley is the spotlight that the sport has needed, turning back the clock (sort of) and showing the basketball watching public that you don’t need the deepest pockets or be the most attractive stop in the transfer portal to cut down the nets in early April. All you need is hard work, solid fundamentals, and chemistry.  

Dan Hurley also brings legitimacy back to the Big East in a year where many believe his conference got the short end of the stick in the number of teams playing in March Madness. Once again, the brand of the Big East means something. Not only do the name of the coaches bring you to the television, but so does the basketball! Just don’t watch DePaul or Georgetown. And when you watch the Huskies you don’t have to do a 10-minute Google search on where the guys running up and down the court went to school before playing for Hurley. Six players have played on both teams with two of the biggest difference makers, Tristan Newton and Donovan Cligan, getting better in year two when leaned on as the primary contributors.

What Dan Hurley and his team just accomplished seemed impossible to fathom four years ago. When the bubble burst for paying student athletes, transfer rules were changed, and assistant coaches were sentenced to jail time. Many of the faces of the game have retired, ushering a new era of college basketball with their farewell speeches. The game changed and the old guard didn’t care too much for the new rules they had to play along too. At least for two years, hopefully more, Hurley and his Huskies have put a stop to that.

Perhaps Hurley will move onto bigger and better things. With Calipari taking a new job at Arkansas, the appeal of Kentucky blue will be hard to turn down. As will the check that they will write to bring Hurley aboard to do in Lexington that he has down in Mansfield. My hope is that he sticks the blue grass colored check in his back pocket and keeps screaming his head off on the sidelines of Gampel Pavilion. Now that he has saved a piece of the old guard, his new challenge is staying and continuing to make the Huskies a powerhouse, all while sticking it to the new wave of thinking by doing things the old fashion way.