Their faith in UConn reaffirmed, Hurley and Karaban move on from NBA flirtation to obsess over latest Husky success

Dan Hurley embraces Alex Karaban during UConn’s latest NCAA Tournament run. Both turned down NBA opportunities in offseason to return to Huskies, who seek a third consecutive national championship. (Photo by The Boston Globe)

UConn’s stint atop the basketball world has not been interrupted for the past 18 months, but that’s not to say that the Huskies have not had an uneventful reign as kings of the sport.

Losing three starters from its 2022-23 national championship team was no problem for UConn, who powered through the following campaign to cut down another net and raise another banner. However, the latest attempt at an encore will involve having to replace four starters who were selected in the NBA Draft last June. And for a brief moment over the summer, it appeared as though the Huskies may have had to navigate the minefield of a new season with a new leader after Dan Hurley was courted by the Los Angeles Lakers to fill their head coaching vacancy.

Hurley ultimately passed on the offer coach the likes of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the Lakers moved on to former Duke star and ex-ESPN analyst J.J. Redick, but the experience made UConn a better unit as a whole, even if there was some uncertainty about which way the winds would blow.

“For a couple days, they were in a tough spot,” Hurley recalled. “I think the process for the players was a tough one to go through, but it’s not the worst thing for young people to go through uncomfortable situations. It’s going to help them deal with a lot more uncomfortable situations that’ll come up in life, and then beyond that, I think it shows a commitment that I have to them. I think it shows a commitment that I have to UConn, it shows a commitment that I have to the people in that room.”

“We’re stronger from it,” Alex Karaban echoed. “We were all happy for him when he was going through that process, but at the same time—when he was going through it and after it—we just made sure we were stronger. Obviously, we’re just happy that he’s back.”

Karaban had his own decision to make during the offseason, as the junior forward tested the waters and went through the NBA Draft process in an experience he termed a learning opportunity for himself and his game. When the prospect of returning to UConn without the man who recruited him there was on the table, it made the life-changing choice harder, but the potential All-American found perspective in his coach’s own dilemma in the wake of his own decision to follow his gut and return to Storrs to chase history.

“It was stressful,” Karaban reiterated. “It’s obviously not the news you’d want to hear, selfishly, but for Coach Hurley, I was happy. He’s changed my life, he’s changed countless other players’ lives too, and he deserved to go out there and make a decision for himself and his family. We were all just happy that he did that, and we’re all happy that he came back.”

Hurley and Karaban used each other as sounding boards and sources of advice through their journeys, which fortified an already strong relationship that the coach not only cherishes, but openly questions the possibility of another bond so deep with a future student-athlete, a credit to two like mindsets being drawn to one another and naturally gravitating toward similar objectives.

“We have a unique connection,” said Hurley. “I think me and Alex Karaban are wired the same way. We think about our family and then we think about basketball, and then we go back to thinking about our family, and we think about basketball more. Then I may pray, and then I’ll think about basketball again. We don’t have a lot of extra space in our lives for anything that doesn’t involve our pursuits in basketball and our family, and that’s why we’re so connected at the hip. And I don’t know that I’ll ever have a relationship like that again.”

Fittingly, Hurley remains just as attached to UConn, and to a larger degree, the game of basketball. For a young college coach, the allure of an NBA franchise—especially a marquee name such as the Lakers—could be too good to pass up. Hurley places a strong emphasis on his New Jersey and Northeast roots, a major factor in his decision to turn Los Angeles and its celebrity clientele such as Jack Nicholson down. He admitted his old-school path to his current perch has become increasingly unconventional, but is more devoted to that and to his desire to just improve what he has even further.

“I think you look at the whole situation, and it’s validation for the path I’ve taken to this point,” he reflected. “All the benefits of being a high school coach for a significant amount of time, coaching at Wagner, coaching at Rhode Island, taking all the proper steps along the way, the way coaches used to get jobs like UConn. Now, that’s kind of their first job at this level. I just think I have a lot of pride, just in my journey to this point and the validation of that with that opportunity, but I don’t think about it a whole lot. I’m so obsessed with the next recruit that we want to get, the next practice that I’m absolutely obsessing over how well that goes, and how locked in I am on the opener.”