UConn's Dan Hurley sick of being disrespected for not being Duke, Kentucky, or Kansas
02/04/2024 19:35
The UConn men’s basketball team is headed to the Final Four for the second year in a row and is trying to become the first program to win back-to-back championships since Florida did, and Dan Hurley made it clear on the Pardon My Take podcast that he is tired of the Huskies not getting as much coverage as Duke, Kentucky or Kansas would get if they had been having the success his program is having, in his opinion.
“We don’t get talked about enough, our season hasn’t been covered in my mind in the national media enough,” Dan Hurley said on Pardon My Take. “You know this is a team that’s done historic stuff. So year I mean if we were at Duke, or Kentucky, or Kansas, they would lead Sports Center with it, and it would be the biggest story in sports. But you know because we’re in Storrs, Connecticut and you know we’re just a little grimier there, a little grimier.”
This is not the first time Hurley has been critical of the media coverage his team gets. He will usually use anything he can get to make his team think they are doubted or being slighted. Even if that is something like a post on X from someone with not a lot of followers. He also was critical of the selection committee for the draw the Huskies got as the No. 1 overall seed, as well as leaving out other Big East teams like Seton Hall or St. John’s.
UConn basketball heads into Saturday’s matchup against Alabama with a 35-3 record overall, with the three losses this season coming on the road against Kansas, Seton Hall and Creighton. In the Kansas and Seton Hall games, injuries to Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan played significant parts. Creighton is one of the toughest road environments to play in as well.
If UConn beats Alabama, the Huskies will match up against either Purdue or NC State in the title game. A game against Purdue and Zach Edey would be one of the most anticipated championship games in a long time, and it would feature the two teams that were viewed as the best in college basketball for most of the season. Houston was in that conversation as well, but lost to Duke in the Sweet 16.
Dan Hurley and UConn repeating would be different than other repeat champions
There have been repeat champions in men’s college basketball, and they are all impressive feats. However, most of the time, the teams to repeat brought back the majority of their rosters for the second championship. That would not be the case for this UConn team.
Last year, the three best players on Dan Hurley’s team were Adama Sanogo, Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson Jr. The Huskies lost all three of those players to the NBA Draft. Tristen Newton and Alex Karaban are the holdovers in the starting five, and Hassan Diarra is a holdover off of the bench. But UConn has slotted Cam Spencer, Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan in the starting lineup and somehow got better than they were last season.
The 2022-2023 Huskies were great, but went into a slump in January. They finished 31-8 overall after winning the national championship.
The UConn men’s basketball program has arguably been the most successful in the last 25 years, at least from a championship standpoint, despite some down years in the AAC in the middle of the 2010s decade. If the Huskies complete this season with a championship, it would cement the two most successful seasons in the history of the program, which is crazy to say given the amount of success it had under Jim Calhoun.
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