Back in Big East, Hurley and UConn are confident in return to where Huskies feel they belong

Now back in Big East, Dan Hurley is reinvigorated with drive to lift UConn past its prior heights under Jim Calhoun. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

To know Dan Hurley is to love him, even if one arrives at that destination in a circuitous route.

Hurley has met his share of critics over his decade as a head coach, and got to know them earlier than that from his days as a player and upbringing as the son of a basketball legend in his father, Bob, but has addressed them all with a blend of determination and self-deprecating humor that is ultimately appreciated when broken down to its most rudimentary elements.

It has been a journey for the 47-year-old scion to get to where he is, now entering his third season as head coach at the University of Connecticut, and while the obligatory preseason chatter makes the rounds in the days leading up to the November 25 tipoff to a season shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the buzz in the room may as well be dead silent to the man tasked with leading the Huskies back to the Big East Conference and by extension, UConn’s perch among college basketball’s elite.

“Postseason awards, to me, are the only things that matter,” Hurley said at Wednesday’s Big East media day, shrugging off the fourth-place prediction bestowed upon UConn in the preseason coaches’ poll. “I like where we’re at as a program going into the season, I think we’ve got a lot of momentum, we want to be able to continue to build on that momentum.”

“The return to the Big East has been a really incredible infusion of energy, just a much-needed jolt for the fan base, for the program. It created another level of excitement. For us, the difference from where we’ve been in the last couple of years is these games are high-profile. Everyone’s watching Big East basketball. This is a national stage, absolutely no nights off, home or away.”

Indeed, the mood in and around Storrs has returned to fever pitches not seen since UConn’s fourth national championship six years ago, and perhaps before that, as the Huskies have been lifted from an American Athletic Conference that felt to UConn supporters like a wasteland, a basketball purgatory. But regardless of where the program was affiliated, the upward trajectory was already in motion.

“We were well on our way to getting the level of talent in here back to the level it needed to be,” Hurley reaffirmed. “Our first recruiting class, when there was no end to the Big East, was (James) Bouknight, Akok Akok, Jalen Gaffney and RJ Cole, so we were already recruiting at a very high level. But it certainly has enhanced that and just added to the excitement level surrounding us.”

“We’ve raised our intensity level significantly. Just from going live, I see we’re going to have to make hard decisions on who’s going to start as opposed to — the last couple of years — just finding five guys to throw out there. We’ve got a number of good players.”

Intensity is synonymous with the Hurley brand. So, too, is swagger and confidence. And for those who know UConn’s coach, it comes as no surprise that when he was tipped off to Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard’s tongue-in-cheek comments about the return of the Huskies, quotes that were taken out of context on social media, Hurley would deliver an impactful rebuttal.

“We’re all competitive,” he stated. “I just think the stronger your conference is — and Seton Hall under Kevin has had incredible success with NCAA Tournament appearances, playing at the top of the Big East — I don’t think that’s going to change. I think UConn’s going to add one of the most passionate fan bases in the country, a program that in the last 20 years which is Top 5 in the country in terms of national championships and producing lottery picks and first-round picks. I see UConn doing nothing but enhancing the league.”

“And as we get our act together — hopefully we’ll become a perennial Top 20, Top 15, Top 10 program consistently every year — we’ll be adding an element of excitement to the conference that will allow it to stand up to the ACC and the Big Ten, and the SEC and the Big 12. We want to be considered the best basketball conference in the country, so logically it would make sense to be excited about a program of UConn’s brand coming back in.”