Dan Hurley is the best coach in college basketball. He’s an unassailable evaluator of talent who, after back-to-back championships, has UConn at the the top of the sport for two years running. And he’s a completely unhinged sideline presence that needs to be reined in.
At the Maui Invitational this week, where his No. 2 Huskies went 0-3 and finished eighth in an eight-team field, the latter was far more clear than the former. He berated officials, routinely violated bench decorum by breaking the boundary of the coaching box and making profane comments with numerous outbursts that could have – and should have – earned him far more punishment for acting inappropriate and unprofessional than the one technical he left Hawaii with.
It’s a festering problem that laid bare the truth of officiating and of Hurley right now: that there’s a standard by which college coaches are treated by officials per the NCAA rulebook, and Hurley – who believes his team should be above it – is being handled with kid gloves. Every referee knows Hurley’s a hothead prone to tantrums, and as such is bending over backward to make sure the two-time championship-winning coach is catered to with extra care by overlooking flagrantly egregious behavior.
A major problem for such inaction can be found on Page 6 of the 2024-25 NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Book. There’s a section in bold entitled Major Officiating Concerns where the NCAA men’s basketball rules committee issued seven directives to the officiating community specifically for this season. No. 2 on the list pertains to enforcement of the coaching box, unsporting conduct and bench decorum. It reads as follows:
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee issued the following directives to the men’s basketball officiating community for the 2024-25 season.
Additional focus/attention should be given to:
2. The consistent enforcement of bench decorum, the coaching box and unsporting conduct rules for both players and bench personnel.
Another rule change detailed for this year is the definition of a Class A technical pertaining to respecting officials, which adds color for how the directive should be interpreted and enforced. The rule reads as follows in Rule 10, Section 3, Art. 2.
Art. 2. Bench personnel committing an unsportsmanlike act including, but not limited to, the following:
a. Disrespectfully addressing an official.
b. Attempting to influence an official’s decision.
c. Using profanity or language that is abusive, vulgar or obscene, or using derogatory remarks or personal comments during the game relating to race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability.
d. Taunting or baiting an opponent.
e. Objecting to an official’s decision by rising from the bench or using gestures.
f. Inciting undesirable crowd reactions.
g. Fighting by bench personnel as in Rule 10-5.
h. Disrespectfully contacts an official or makes a threat of physical intimidation or harm to include pushing, shoving, spitting, or attempting to make physical contact with an official.
i. Causing contact that is unnecessary, unacceptable, excessive or extreme during a live or dead ball.
Violation of any of these rules calls for two free throws awarded to the offended team. Violation of any of Art. 1.g through .i calls for automatic disqualification. And violation of Art. 1.h – of which Hurley could be seen as an offender after attempting to charge at an official during the tournament this past week and had to be restrained – calls for an ejection and a suspension for the team’s next regular-season game.
And that’s just for Class A technicals. Class B technicals are called for when a coach “spontaneously reacts” to an outstanding play. Hurley’s actions could’ve earned him dozens of Class B technicals per game in Maui alone. Each game this week consisted of numerous outbursts.
And that’s not just a Maui thing. Fits of rage have become synonymous with Hurley in the same way excellence has become synonymous with his program. Some may even argue you can’t have the latter without the former. Maybe it’s true, probably it’s not — but either way it doesn’t make his antics any less tired or acceptable.
I could go through the entire rulebook. The entire section on bench decorum and unsportsmanlike conduct – on comments aimed at officials, profanity use, prolonged negative responses and disrespect – is a laundry list of Hurley offenses. You get the point.
Enforcement is subject to the discretion of the officials, ultimately. It’s on them to restrain Hurley, and the lack thereof not just this week, but over the years, may be in part why he has seemingly become emboldened to flout the rules with consistency. They have recourse and should use it.
But it’s on Hurley, too, to show some self-restraint. It’d be one thing if he lost himself in the moment but was able to regroup afterwards. That has not been the case.
After the first of three losses this week, he lamented “shitty calls“ for UConn’s 99-97 overtime loss vs. Memphis while wailing about not getting the whistle a back-to-back champion should get. After the second of three losses, he mentioned the irony of an over-the-back no-call that went against UConn in the first game and somehow also went against UConn in its 73-72 loss to Colorado. (To be fair: He might’ve had a point on this one.)
“It just speaks to how these last two days have gone for us,” Hurley said. That (play Monday vs. the Tigers was) the biggest play of the game, was an over-the-back that was called against us, and then (the play vs. the Buffaloes) was more egregious because (Colorado’s Trevor Baskin) pulled (Liam McNeeley’s) arm down. I saw the replay of it.”
After the third loss, let’s all hope he did some self-reflection on the long trek back home. His behavior has been an embarrassment to UConn and to college basketball, and a poor reflection of himself. If he has an ounce of shame and self-awareness, he’ll recognize his bullying is unkind and unbefitting of the coach widely viewed as the king of the sport.
