And a guy from Jersey with a short fuse who works the refs the way most elite college basketball coaches do.
Hurley’s mind was on officiating long before his No. 2 UConn Huskies flew to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational, telling reporters last week that he was keenly aware their low-major opponents were getting to the line more than them despite obvious size and talent discrepancies.
UConn got an objectively terrible whistle in its opening game Monday against Memphis. But Hurley has got to do a better job of containing his outrage in close-game situations. Because of Hurley’s technical foul in overtime, UConn’s 99-97 loss is on him.
Let’s set the scene: It’s a tremendous back-and-forth game between the Huskies and Tigers that UConn’s Solo Ball sent to overtime with a last-second triple in regulation. The Huskies soon have a three-point lead erased by Colby Rogers’ 3-pointer, and on UConn’s next trip, Liam McNeeley is called for an over-the-back foul when reaching for an offensive rebound—nevermind that McNeeley has about five inches on Memphis’ guy.
Hurley blows a gasket on the nearest official. His associate head coach Kimani Young has to play the role of get-back coach, but Hurley drops to the ground at one point and says just enough to get T’d up. What was going to be two Memphis free throws is now four, and PJ Carter sinks all of them.
Though UConn lost by exactly two, Hurley told CBS Sports it wasn’t his technical that made the difference.
“I think it was the s—y calls,” he said, adding, “I would expect to come to play in an event, and I don’t know too many back-to-back national championship teams that get that type of a whistle.”
He didn’t tap the brakes at the postgame podium, either, saying the Memphis player “made a half-ass effort to rebound that basketball and Liam McNeeley high-pointed that rebound.”
As for falling to the floor: “I don’t know what happened. I might have lost my balance by the absurdity of the call,” Hurley said, “or maybe I tripped.”
And here’s the thing: I agree he’s right about the call! Most reasonable people on basketball Twitter (or Bluesky) do. But Hurley, of course, was letting the referees have it from the jump, sure that his blueblood Huskies were getting disrespected. There was a technical called on the UConn bench early in the game, though Hurley later said his mild-mannered medical trainer “must have said something under his breath in a huddle.” Sure, Jan.
Call me a pearl-clutcher all you want, but after giving Hurley a long leash throughout the game, the referees had every right and reason to T him up late in overtime when he appears to be screaming obscenities at them.
Nobody I know likes it when poor officiating takes over a game. It’s hardly unique to college basketball, by the way, and I’m 100% for holding bad refs and umpires more accountable. But from a coach who is going to go down as one of the modern greats, I’d have liked to see more accountability from him too, if only after the fact.
If you’re known as the guy who’s outraged all the time, you might not be taken seriously when something truly egregious goes against you.
