With March Madness closing in and Super Bowl Sunday in the rearview mirror, the world of sports will shift its focus to college hoops a lot more in the coming weeks. UConn is the men’s reigning national champion, and the Huskies have backed up that banner with a 24-3 record and a No. 1 ranking entering Saturday’s Big East tilt with Villanova.
Although UConn just came off a loss at Creighton, they’re hosting the Wildcats as double-digit favorites. You already had to like their chances to rally back from defeat — even more so once ESPN’s College GameDay crew paid a visit. Huskies legend and 1999 national champ Rip Hamilton — also a decorated NBA player mostly with the Detroit Pistons — challenged ESPN’s Jay Williams to trade off half-court shot attempts.
Rip hit nothing but net, intimidating J-Will, the ex-Duke sensation, to the point where he didn’t even want to shoot:
What a boss. Rip’s still got it!
UConn head coach Dan Hurley decided to take a crack at it. This man is as feisty of a personality as there is in the sport, so it’s no surprise that his competitive spirit led to an inadvertent profanity when he couldn’t knock it down from where Rip did.
No but I’m not just here to poke fun at a running-hot coach dropping an F-bomb in the heat of a moment. This is why everyone loves Dan Hurley. He’ll be who he’s going to be, hot mics be damned. Look at how this man goes off. It’s unbelievable.
OK but back to today’s news that casts Hurley in a better light. A fan actually put together a sign of Hurley’s two sons, which nearly moved him to tears when it was brought onto the GameDay set.
He proceeded to discuss how much his boys mean to him:
You love to see it. Hurley comes across as the most energetic, passionate college basketball coach of my lifetime. Thank goodness he has the players, coaching ability and larger support to back all that up. Otherwise, his style could wear thin pretty quickly on a university.
ESPN did a great video feature on Hurley that dropped on Saturday, too, which described how he can be so boisterous and old-school with some of his coaching practices, yet still level with modern players who tend not to take a bunch of traditional negative reinforcement very well.
We haven’t seen a back-to-back natty winner in men’s NCAA hoops since those loaded Billy Donovan-coached Florida Gators teams from 2006 and 2007. They were stacked with future NBA talent and had incredible chemistry despite having a bunch of stars who could’ve perhaps shined brighter as the “alpha” at another program. This UConn squad shoots almost 50% from the field as a team, with five double-figure scorers led by senior guard Tristen Newton’s 15.4 points per game.
It’ll be time here soon to bury myself in KenPom ratings and gear up for the Big Dance. Until then, we’ll see if the Huskies can do enough down the stretch to claim the No. 1 overall seed after winning it all last year as a 4-seed.
