GLASTONBURY, Conn. — It’s mid-afternoon on a Sunday and, from the entrance of Dan Hurley’s home, you may flip round and look clear throughout Connecticut. Over Manchester, over South Windsor, over Enfield, all the way in which to Massachusetts. A whole bunch of miles. Within the distance, the horizon line is lower by nationwide parks in Vermont. Hurley as soon as instructed a recruit that the view reaches all the way in which to Canada. Dan Hurley says plenty of issues.
This home? It’s up there. For a state that isn’t all that topographically fascinating, Minnechaug Mountain, roughly 10 miles east of Hartford, has an elevation of about 700 ft. On this specific weekend, the primary of March, the sky is as blue as a robin’s egg, however it’s nonetheless rattling chilly; chilly proper all the way down to the marrow. And actually windy.
The doorbell bongs. You wait. You wait a beat longer. You push it once more.
Now, as a rule, nobody desires to see into another person’s house. However generally there’s no different alternative. So that you press the sting of your palm upon the glass of an ornate entrance door, lean your brow ahead and look round. Good home. You possibly can see straight via some cozy, inviting areas, all the way in which to the yard. And there he’s. Dan Hurley, shuffling aimlessly, carrying a log. Feeling a buzz rumble from beneath, you watch as he removes a glove, reaches into the pocket of his UConn basketball parka and pulls out a cellphone.
“The place are you?” he solutions.
“I’m right here. I’m standing in entrance of your home.”
“Oh. I’m within the again simply f—ing round. Come via the gate.”
It’s an off day, apart from Hurley assembly early along with his workers, reviewing movie of yesterday’s win over Windfall and, after Mass, watching movie of the Huskies’ subsequent opponent — Marquette. Hurley has the firepit going and acts as if it’s warming the air. In actuality, the wind is so robust that this hearth, and the various logs he’s throwing on it, produces nothing however smoke and ash. He sits within the exhaust.
“This climate sucks,” he says, “however what are you able to do about it?”
Going inside is an possibility, however that’d be the simple means. Why try this if you will be right here, on the high, on the sting, and actually uncomfortable?
UConn is aware of this properly. None of this has gone as anybody thought, has it? All that speak about a three-peat. Hurley and the Huskies made all of it sound like a matter of sheer will. They didn’t speak about attempting for a 3rd straight nationwide title. They declared they’d accomplish that. This staff was the subsequent one. The 2023 group, that was the bodily manifestation of the coach — going from nice expectations, to doubted and discounted, to kicking doorways off hinges and successful all of it. The 2024 staff, that was the manifestation of this system — complete domination on the way in which to a second straight title, the college’s sixth in 25 years, greater than another. The 2025 staff? This may be the coup de grâce, the ultimate act of dominion. No staff has gained three consecutive titles since John Picket’s UCLA dynasty. This may be UConn’s dynasty.
As an alternative, it’s March in Storrs and the Huskies are 20-9, unranked, and trending towards a middling eighth or ninth seed within the NCAA Event.
The short-ish model of an extended story: After a brutal winless journey to the Maui Invitational, Hurley mentioned “the burden of sporting the uniform after back-to-backs seems prefer it’s weighing heavy on the group,” and that’s by no means significantly modified. Stable wins in opposition to Baylor, Texas and Gonzaga have been adopted by a seesaw Huge East slate. Win, loss. Win, loss. Little gained, nothing sustained. A large number of causes. Poor teaching, in line with Hurley, tops the listing. Star freshman Liam McNeeley missed time with damage and is, even now, nonetheless catching up. Alex Karaban, a preseason All-Huge East First Group choice, hasn’t performed to such ranges. Hassan Diarra has ridden a bum knee. Younger guys have seemed like younger guys. The switch portal wasn’t significantly fruitful. And the protection has been horrible. Oh, and, alongside the way in which, Hurley, a person already liable to caricature, determined to inform an official: “I’m the most effective coach within the f—ing sport,” setting off a hearth hose of takes. Hurley gave his lengthy, lengthy line of critics all the pieces they wished, and he gave it to them on a platter. (Apparently, his prolonged introspection with Hearst Media’s Mike Anthony quickly thereafter, saying, “I’m embarrassed that I mentioned that. It makes me really feel like an actual ass,” didn’t garner such consideration.) The scrutiny positioned on the coach has been inevitably shared by this system.
That’s life within the smoke.
“You realize,” Hurley says, ft perched on the fireplace pit, “Typically you get deer; some deer will come by. Another animals come by, too. It’s like complete isolation up right here.”
In actuality, Hurley, and most others in and across the program can admit what’s apparent: That if not for the back-to-back titles, this specific UConn staff wouldn’t have carried nationwide title expectations. Closing 4 hopes? Positive, perhaps. However nobody would have a look at this roster — one which’s misplaced six NBA draft picks in two years — and say the one measure of success is to win all of it. But, that’s the deadly stress during which each minute of each sport and each second of each apply has existed. If each day is a belief fall, ultimately the arms will get drained.
The result’s a staff that’s often superb, usually frustratingly insufficient, and loads of blame to go round.
The recipe for a reckoning.
If UConn is ready to salvage one thing from this season — win the Huge East Event, make a run to the Closing 4 in San Antonio, do the issues that UConn has a knack for doing — the pivot level, Hurley says, will hint again to a day of arduous truths. That’s what’s down the mountain, across the bends you are taking to get right here, about 20 miles east, over in Storrs.
It was Feb. 24, a cloudy Monday morning, a couple of week and a half in the past. Hurley walked right into a staff assembly and seemed round. Nobody was certain what to anticipate, not after what occurred the prior day. A visit to Madison Sq. Backyard. A complete and full ass-kicking by St. John’s. A second loss to Rick Pitino’s staff in as many weeks. A submissive bequeathing of Huge East supremacy to a staff and a coach the Huskies like to detest.
This dialog was a very long time coming. UConn was, on the time, 6-6 in its prior 12 league video games and beginning to slip-slide towards the “B” phrase. The mere chance of lacking the NCAA Event was unthinkable. May you think about? After Hurley’s waltz with the Lakers final summer season? After rating No. 3 within the preseason ballot? After performing just like the season schedule ought to embody a 3rd parade? Different Huge East faculties may print shirts to mark the event. This was a staff in want of a pickup.
“They thought I used to be going to return in like Al Pacino in ‘Any Given Sunday,’” Hurley says.
Both we heal as a staff, or we’re going to crumble, inch by inch, play by play, until we’re completed …
We’re in hell proper now, gents, consider me. And we are able to keep right here, get the s— kicked out of us, or we are able to struggle our means again into the sunshine. …
Dan Hurley didn’t, in truth, give the Al Pacino speech. As an alternative, he grinned, type of. “Not a smile,” he remembers, “however no matter a madman does when he’s attempting to faux smile.”
Hurley instructed his staff that he’s pleased. Glad to not really feel any entitlement. Glad to see actions nonetheless have penalties. Glad to take the blame. Glad that “there’s nonetheless some equity someplace on this world and we’re getting what we f—ing deserve.”
He instructed them they didn’t should win as a result of he hasn’t coached properly, and the workers hasn’t coached properly. After which he went across the room. One after the other. Each participant was instructed why he doesn’t should win.
Do you suppose gods have aligned in opposition to us? No. We’ve performed all this to ourselves.
It was a change in message and everybody heard it. Whereas Hurley is incapable of being something apart from himself, even when that features grabbing an influence wire off a scorers desk throughout apply and mock-choking himself after a foul play, he has been, internally, way more, uh, let’s say, tender with this staff. He realized such was required after the disastrous Maui journey. So, whereas he by no means backed off a three-peat because the objective, he throttled again teaching them to such requirements. He says now: “You possibly can’t let your gamers suppose something in another way, particularly those which have performed for you. However, on the flip aspect, I needed to give this staff extra grace. Put up-loss video classes, issues like that. I’ve not coached them as arduous as I’ve coached my different groups.”
That each one apparently ended that Monday morning. How the message was acquired was as much as every particular person.
Karaban apparently listened. This was purported to be a season the junior wing solidified himself as a first-round NBA Draft choose. As an alternative, his capturing numbers and utilization charges are down throughout the board. Hurley didn’t maintain again. In previous years the offense cooked up open photographs for him, however this yr he wanted to get off photographs faster into tighter home windows, the identical photographs Jordan Hawkins and Cam Spencer made. Did he do all the pieces he wanted to get his shot off faster in each rep of each drill? Did he do all the pieces required within the weight room so as to add muscle? Is he doing all the pieces doable proper now to be the man he’s purported to be?
These are issues that get distilled when mentioned out loud.
This previous week, after scoring 17 factors within the win at Windfall, Karaban spoke to a pack of UConn beat writers about a few of his struggles this season, providing a mea culpa. Most followers and onlookers will suppose first of two late missed free throws in a botch-job at Villanova. Karaban pointed to all the pieces else.
“For myself, whether or not that’s offensive selection, defensively, strength-wise — I used to be capable of management that this summer season and I didn’t do sufficient work for that, and now I’m dealing with the consequence of it,” he mentioned. “However it’s not too late to alter how the season goes and never too late to alter how I’m taking part in.”
Later, earlier than heading to the staff bus, Karaban was pulled apart and requested what he meant by that. It’s not each day you hear a star upperclassman say, primarily, that he didn’t work arduous within the offseason. May he make clear?
“No, I put within the work. I labored my ass off,” he defined. “The factor is, I’m simply reflecting on what may’ve been totally different. Like I admit, there are moments on the market after I look weak on the courtroom. So perhaps I may’ve gone more durable within the weight room. Coach Hurley is doing the identical factor. He’s reflecting on what he may’ve performed higher. All of us are. And we’re gonna repair it.”
These are, after all, simply phrases, and UConn is what its file says it’s. The perfect groups in school basketball: Duke, Auburn, Houston, proper on down the road (together with, sure, St. John’s), know who they’re at this level within the season. Hurley and his assistants, in the meantime, are nonetheless “tinkering” with the rotation, questioning from sport to sport who will do what. Switch middle Tarris Reed Jr., whose minutes fluctuated wildly in January and February, is instantly wrecking video games from the put up and has, so far as effectivity stats go, been the staff’s most beneficial participant in three of the final 4 video games. McNeeley is now seven video games faraway from his return from damage and exhibiting flashes of the lottery choose he’s projected to be. Karaban is, maybe, trending. Solo Ball’s defensive struggles are cumbersome, however he’s among the many elite shooters within the nation. Diarra and Samson Johnson have championship DNA.
Possibly this could all nonetheless come collectively.
Possibly it was by no means purported to be straightforward.
Hurley will get as much as throw one other go online the fireplace. If you ask what he could be doing this afternoon if nonetheless alone, he cocks an eyebrow from behind his sun shades, and says, “What do you imply? I’d be right here. Doing precisely this.”
The pool is roofed. The timber are nonetheless naked. The rooster coop he and spouse Andrea inherited from the earlier proprietor in 2018 is empty as a result of, shockingly, the North Jersey pair had no thought find out how to elevate chickens. However that is Hurley’s spot. The place he and his program are most comfy. A single billow of smoke from the highest.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photographs:Joe Buglewicz, M. Anthony Nesmith / Icon Sportswire / Getty Pictures)