If we’ve learned anything over UConn’s back-to-back national championship runs, it’s that Dan Hurley is a passionate coach. While it’s mostly contained to the sidelines on gamedays, sometimes that passion spills over into explicative-filled outbursts like the one that surfaced after the Huskies’ second-round NCAA Tournament loss to Florida on Sunday.
“I hope they don’t f$&@ you like they F’ed us, Baylor. I really hope they don’t.” Danny Hurley to Baylor walking off the floor after a slug fest loss to top-seed Florida. Likely talking about officiating, if I had to guess #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/zKKsdfsjBt
— Joey Ellis (@Jellis1016) March 23, 2025
Many college basketball fans have grown very tired of his antics, but ultimately, the clip shows a coach who was frustrated that his historic streak of 13-straight NCAA Tournament wins, which tied Duke from the early ‘90s for the second-most ever, finally came to an end. The officials have always been a target for Hurley, and it’s no surprise to see that spill over into the postgame. What elevates this outburst into a big story for the program, was UConn’s reported response.
The video was originally posted by Joey Ellis of Queen’s City News, and UConn men’s basketball’s director of communications, Bobby Mullens, allegedly threatened to “ruin his life” if he didn’t take the video down, according to another reporter, Gabe McDonald of Charlotte Sports Live who was in Raleigh on Sunday.
Mullens then gave a statement to Queen City News:
“The lasting image of Coach Hurley leaving the court should’ve been his walking off the court arm-in-arm with his seniors, overwhelmed with emotion. Instead, a reporter, who was in an area he should not have been, recorded on his cell phone a private comment made to members of another coaching staff.”
Dan Hurley is a divisive figure in college sports and in many ways, he’s the villain that men’s college basketball so desperately needs. So, if you’re the program that employs that type of mercurial personality, you have to be willing to roll with the punches. This won’t be the last time somebody captures a clip of a Hurley outburst and it certainly won’t be the last time one goes viral. And frankly, that’s good.
UConn needs to embrace its identity as the villain because as long as Hurley is in Storrs, that’s what the program that now has six national championships will be. Hurley’s okay with that; his staff should be too.