Dan Hurley owns up to bad behavior during UConn's disappointing season, hints at changes: 'I'm not a victim'

NEW YORK — A year ago in this very building, Dan Hurley made the media rounds at Madison Square Garden and pitched why UConn should have been ranked No. 1 heading into the season.

Coming off back-to-back national titles, the Huskies were No. 3 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll. Nevertheless, Hurley was on top of the sports world, proudly and unabashedly chasing a third consecutive national title and eager to sniff out any doubters over Connecticut's chances at pursuing the near-impossible in the modern age of college sports. 

And then, the most taxing and controversial season of Hurley's life toppled his ego and was such a shock to his senses that it prompted the 52-year-old to consider stepping away from coaching in the aftermath of UConn's 24-11 season that ended without a Sweet 16 appearance, as a No. 8 seed. 

"Having a year like we just had, which was very challenging, it took me to a point where I did think about taking a gap year or being done," Hurley told CBS Sports on Tuesday. "I had a shit year. I didn't coach my best, I didn't lead my best. I didn't put together a group that could compete for the things we wanted to compete for."

The story of the 2024-25 Huskies has been rehashed to death, but it doesn't mean reflection is unwarranted, especially on the precipice of the '25-26 season. Reflection is why Hurley is here and it's why I'm writing this column. Hurley being at the center of controversy and bargaining his way back to good behavior reinforces his standing as one of the most interesting people in college sports. He's readily available with the media as much as any high-profile coach in America. He'll debate you on the particulars but is always willing to admit his wrongs when it's clear he's out of line.

It hasn't stopped him or his program from building out what appears to be another Final Four contender.

So here is Hurley again, just like last year and the year before that, with his team occupying a spot in the preseason top five. Only this time, he seems determined to take a different approach with his comportment as much as he mentally and physically can. 

It's not just the volume of losses that he doesn't want to experience again — it's the embarrassment to his players and family that he'd like to avoid. He knows it won't be easy. In speaking to Hurley both Tuesday and in a previous lengthy conversation over the summer, he's owning up to his behavior and not looking for excuses. Everything spun out from the 0-3 Maui disaster last November, which led to UConn becoming just the second team ever to go from a top-five ranking to unranked in a week's time.

"What I gave the cameras today was … Oppenheimer," Hurley told me in a daze under the Hawaiian morning sun outside the team bus after that Nov. 25 loss to Memphis, which included a sideline meltdown near the end of the game. His self-inflicted tribulations only got worse after Maui, from a variety of run-ins with officials and fans, and even some occasional tangles behind the scenes with certain members of the media. 

"It became personal at times for me," Hurley said.

An all-access look at how Dan Hurley prepared UConn for Maui before the Huskies' disappointing loss to Memphis

Matt Norlander

Friendly advice from a familiar face

Among Hurley's most crucial advisors is Geno Auriemma, who can be dogmatic in his own way, but has mastered basketball coaching on a level few have ever matched. He can call Hurley on his actions and has the résumé to mandate the respect of essentially any coach in the country, basketball or otherwise. Auriemma women's coach was maybe the most important person other than Hurley's wife to keep him from going completely sideways last season.

"Geno was able a couple times to talk me out of some bad mental states I was in," Hurley said. "I coached that team angry, I coached them with too much ego where, you know, if we weren't performing at a NCAA championship level, instead of helping them get better and max out their potential, I just got mad at my team all winter."

Some of that anger manifested in public ways and at strange times, like when TV cameras caught him in that mid-January game against Butler, scolding a ref: "Don't turn your back on me. I'm the best coach in the f---ing sport."

In the aftermath, Hurley hated himself for even thinking it, let alone saying it in the heat of a game. So he's trying to atone for that kind of behavior before the season arrives. Because he knows a new season brings potential for a new sea of emotions to try and voyage across.

It sounds like he's just about through getting over last year's chop.

"There's a tax you pay for the success of the past couple of years," Hurley said. "Then we end the year with an emotional loss, and we have one final incident to end the year which takes all the focus away from everything we'd done the last couple years." 

He's referring to the thriller in the second round against Florida, a nail-biting 77-75 loss. The Gators received as tough of a punch vs. the Huskies as any team on their way to winning the national championship. But the story afterward wasn't the Huskies and Gators putting on one of the best games of the 2025 tournament. It was again about Hurley, who was caught on camera telling Baylor players "I hope they don't f--- you like they f----- us" as the Bears were about to jog out to the court.

"It was all my doing," Hurley told CBS Sports. "I'm not a victim. We have enough victims in the world. I did it to myself and I did it throughout the year. We were not able to really celebrate the run we had because all the attention was on the jackass that I acted like in the tunnel. I think all those things combined to put me in a state where I had to consider what I wanted to do next."

That regrettable moment came two months after a win at Creighton, when Hurley was emphatically booed by Bluejays fans as he took his time leaving the court. A Creighton fan caught Hurley's attention so much that he yelled back, "Two rings! Two rings, baldy!" 

"If I can avoid the fan stuff at the end," Hurley said. "I'd love to be able to just take myself from when the game is over to the tunnel and back to the locker room nicely this year. I would like that." 

Seems easy enough. Almost every other coach can handle it. To his own admission, Hurley brings it on himself. Will he be able to resist one word, one gesture the whole season to any drunken or out-of-line fan just trying to needle him for a reaction?

This would be the moment most other coaches would simply give a "yes."

Hurley's not so simple.

"I don't know," he said." I've done a lot of work on myself this offseason to prepare myself for that. I just want to get to and from the court at the end of the games more seamlessly and avoid that. That is the part that deserves the criticism. When fans yell at you in the tunnel, even as obscene and nasty and personal as it is, just go to the locker room, man. Just get to the locker room."

Lest you think this is a personality makeover, hardly. Hurley's just trying to shave off the worst of his instincts and keep everything inside the lines. There are certain things about his coaching style that won't change. In the spirit of some personal growth, I asked Hurley if this would also lead to a change in in-game activities as it pertains to the ebbs and flows of a 40-minute battle. Is a docile Hurley suddenly going to materialize on the sidelines?

"No," he said. "You'll see the same me. But for me, getting back to my values as a coach. There will always be, as the coach at UConn and as a Hurley in basketball, a life-or-death urgency to the pursuit of championships and greatness and excellence. There's an energy and intensity you bring to the sidelines that won't change. But also while that's going on, enjoying the relationships and getting the most out of my team."

Hurley insists the Groundhog Day-like issues that he, his staff and his players grinded through for months last fall and winter won't be their reality over the next five months. That was backed up by Tuesday's release of the preseason All-Big East team, wherein three Huskies (on a seven-man team, which is odd and uncalled for) were recognized as senior forward Alex Karaban, junior shooting guard Solo Ball and senior center Tarris Reed Jr. all earning first team honors. 

There are approximately 360 coaches who'd trade away two or three of their good players for just one guy with four years in the program who's won at the highest level and is fully dedicated to the school and the staff. That's Karaban. UConn's leader. Hurley seems determined to not waste Karaban's senior season after he bypassed a great chance to go to the NBA in 2024, only to have a frustrating and inconsistent junior year. 

"We've got the traits, we've got the talent, we've got the depth," Hurley said. "I think I'll be a better leader for my team."

Hurley made himself into a Hall-of-Famer by refusing to bend on his principles. That doesn't mean he can't change. Both can be true at the same time. Balancing the cerebral with the emotional is what brought him to the top of the sport and could very well get him back to the apex again.

To know Dan Hurley is to know that he can't change, he can only try to get better. If he makes good on his intentions, Connecticut's probably going to be one of the best teams in the country again.