UConn won its second straight men's basketball national title on Monday night, which cemented Dan Hurley as the Next Big Thing in college coaching.
His Huskies became the first team since 2006-07 Florida to crowned kings of back-to-back Big Dances, but they did so by acheving a level of dominance no one has ever seen. Look at it this way: UConn will enter next March's Big Dance on a 12-game tournament winning streak. One could subtract 12 points from the Huskies' score in all 12 games... and they'd still have a 12-game tournament winning streak.
Unlike Billy Donovan -- who built those Gators teams around a nucleus of four NBA players and then took the Orlando Magic job months later (only to later change his mind) -- Hurley is here to stay. The son of legendary high school coach Bob Hurley and the brother of legendary Duke point guard-turned-Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley, Dan Hurley appears in the college game to stay. The fervor with which he coaches and the culture within the NBA would mix like peanut butter and gasoline. Here in the college sports, we're going to be hearing from Dan Hurley a ton moving forward.
At 51 years old, he's only been at UConn for six seasons. The 2023 team lost three players to the NBA, then got better. Even more rare, Hurley has built UConn without relying on super-blue-chip recruits or the portal. The team that tore through the 2024 NCAA Tournament had only three transfers on its roster.
In an interview before the game with CBS This Morning, Hurley explained the key ingredient to the culture-building process in Storrs. It starts in the recruiting process with an evaluation of the parents just as much as the player.
"There's measurable talents you have to have -- the height, the speed, the skill set. But we spend a lot of time really focusing on the parents," Hurley said. "Are they going to be fans of their son or are they going to be parents? Are they going to hold them accountable, have an expectation that when something goes wrong that it's not the coach's fault? That their son's got to work harder, he's got to do more, he's got to earn his role."
When pressed on how he evaluates recruits' parents, Hurley said this:
"Have they played on seven different travel teams? Have they transferred to four or five different high schools? When you talk to the parents in the recruiting process, are they constantly complaining about the coaches after a bad game or are you having a conversation where their son has got to do more, got to play harder, he's got to work on his skills. They tell on themselves. They drop hints. You've got the wrong type of people around the inner circle of your players, they'll sink your program."
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.