Hurley found validation in national title, but still isn’t satisfied

Shown cutting net after UConn's national championship win, Dan Hurley has gained confidence from his biggest testimonial of a career he now considers validated. (Photo by Getty Images)

NEW YORK — Seven months have passed since Dan Hurley cut down the net that finally granted him access to the stratosphere his father and older brother have enjoyed for decades.

The junior Hurley, now five years into his tenure at the University of Connecticut, spent his entire basketball life in the shadow of his father, Bob, the Hall of Fame high school coach who turned St. Anthony into one of the best prep programs in the nation. Having to live up to the career of his older brother Bobby, a two-time national champion at Duke and lottery pick in the NBA Draft before Dan graduated from Seton Hall, made the journey feel almost eternal at some points. But following UConn’s national championship victory this past April, not only was the weight of the world lifted off Dan’s shoulders, it gave him a newfound confidence at the same time.

“I’ve chased that,” Dan Hurley said of the quest to maintain relevance and notoriety alongside the elder members of New Jersey basketball’s first family. “I’m 50 years old. The Hurleys, I guess we started doing basketball serious with my dad when we got out of kindergarten. But my pursuits in basketball as a player, let’s say they started in high school, 35 years of my basketball life as a player in high school, as a player in college, as a coach at all levels.”

“For me, I pursued that moment of reaching elite status and doing something like that. Obviously my brother had it as a player multiple times, national champion, lottery pick, my dad a Hall of Famer. That was a very important moment for me to climb that mountain and to get the confidence that comes from a moment like that.”

Hurley has mixed that confidence with a hunger to add to the resume as UConn defends its national title this season, doing so while replacing three starters from last year and earning a third-place ranking in the Big East’s preseason coaches’ poll that he dismissed as “all a bunch of (expletive).” When addressing a throng of writers at last week’s media day, he was playfully asked about his decision not to wear his national championship ring, something Hurley then quipped he should have done. But his decision to eschew the jewelry was rooted by his last experience in Madison Square Garden — a Big East tournament semifinal loss to Marquette — and the sting of coming so close in an emotionally charged encounter that has resonated through the offseason into the new campaign.

“S*** like that definitely drives you,” Hurley revealed. “Having the type of celebration that we had in Houston, having that here in the Big Apple where our fans are desperate for it — and obviously, we’re desperate for it — that’s something that’s definitely in the back of our mind.”

The Huskies will look to win a conference championship for the first time since the magic carpet ride fueled by Jim Calhoun and Kemba Walker in 2011, but they are also dually driven by the experience of dominating the NCAA Tournament last year, leading wire-to-wire in each of their last five games. The nature of UConn’s victories served an emphatic notice that not only was the talent and execution there when it needed to be, but also that Hurley pushed the right buttons along the way, adding an extra dose of vindication to a transcendent moment in his career.

“When you accomplish what we did last year, your organization has a lot more confidence,” he proclaimed. “You have more belief in what you do. I think you get even more of a buy-in from players. Obviously, you try to continue to learn and grow and change some things tactically about your attack and your leadership, and different things you do, but when you win a national championship, you know your way works.”