NCAA First Round Press Conference | Head Coach Dan Hurley

UConn men’s basketball head coach Dan Hurley addresses the media on the day before the Huskies’ first round matchup with Stetson.

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Yeah hey uh obviously excited to be back in New York uh you know feel like uh you know really excited to get on the court obviously coming out a big East tournament uh you know definitely a little drained over the weekend but now uh at at full energy and and uh fully

Locked in and and uh really excited to take the court tomorrow we’ll start here in the front row first two questions will come from this front row on the far side Dave bores H connectic media uh you guys um throughout the year you you’ve talked about how you guys can do

Something that very few other teams have done and you’ve mentioned that to us I don’t know if you’ve mentioned that to the team throughout the season and how much are you thinking about that now and have you brought it up with the team recently yeah I mean listen we started

In April um I know when cam Spencer visited and when we talked to the returning players that had to make decisions like Donovan and Alex about you know Tristan about returning uh or forgoing their college eligibility I think our um our vision was you know Brooklyn to Boston to

Phoenix um you know we recruited Camp Spencer you know this is the type of year we think we could have if you uh you join this program and this is what we’re going for um obviously it’s uh you know one step at a time in terms of the

Teams the quality of teams you play um everyone’s vulnerable in every game of this tournament so obviously we’ve got to take care of business on on Friday to get to Sunday but you know this road is what we’ve been manifesting and talking about for a long time you always have to

Have your sight set on something that you want to achieve stay in the front row go ahead uh Joe Ruda Hartford current Dan obviously you guys have had a Target on your back all season long but has there been any added pressure with the number one overall seed with pretty much

Everybody picking you guys to win this whole thing and how have you dealt with that yeah I I think just playing and coaching at Yukon just It prepares you for pressure um we we don’t have the luxury of um of of playing and coaching under the

Radar and uh you know and anything that you do is is uh is surprising and good uh so just when you play at a place with the history and the standards and uh and all the success I think every game you play at Yukon is pressurized uh

So I think when you when you get to these moments uh Big E tournament MSG NCAA tournament lights are super bright um you know we’re used to playing with a big Target we’re used to playing uh you know W with pressure so we perform well under pressure we’re on the other side here

Row four go ahead hey Dan Ralph Russo from the Associated Press U I asked Dusty about coaching while his name is circulating for all these jobs and there’s all this speculation you went through that at Rhode Island how’d you handle it um I thought well I think um you know

You you know again I don’t know his situation but you tell your agent to uh to leave you alone and let you coach out uh you’ll coach out your season obviously players have decisions to make once the season’s over and coach have decisions to make uh you know once the

Season’s over so uh if the school wants you badly enough they’ll they’ll wait for your season to be over and you could deal with the business of basketball then we’ll go on the other side we’re on the aisle in the back just raise your hand real quick so coach knows go ahead

Yep what’s up Roger Ruben news day what’s up Dan the the actions of the selection committee have been pretty highly scrutinized since the field was announced particularly with respect to your conference do you believe that the Big East needs a top to bottom philosophy about scheduling to avoid what happened this

Season looking at Dave Benedict yeah Hey listen I I think you uh there’s smart things to do with non-conference scheduling um you know number the first thing you got to do though is is you’ve got to play some Big Time non-conference games and then we got to win them I used to watch

PJ carisimo uh during a non-conference season like like while we were traveling or we’re a restaurant or somewhere and he’d be watching other Big East teams play non-conference games and he’d be rooting like heck for the other teams um because he knew that winning big non-conference games not losing by games

Winning big conference games is the best thing that you could do uh for your conference so um but I I I do think that um you know we’ve got a obviously we’ve got to get together and and really figure out you know what happened uh I do think though uh obviously the moves

At the Paul the moves at Georgetown are going to strengthen those programs um Providence St John’s are in you know great hands SE Hall was right there Butler’s in great hands I think the league is in a great place um I just think uh you

Know we come back across in front of me in row three go ahead Jamal Murphy Bill Rhoden on Sports uh Dan you you’ve uh kind of expressed some disdain for for the transfer portal uh I was Wonder do do you see any fixes or tweaks to it or

You or you just kind of accept it as it is yeah I mean it it shouldn’t be open right now I mean it uh the fact that on Monday of the best week in in college basketball that it’s open is it’s um it’s it’s bizarre and it and it it’s led

To even more chaos um yeah you know listen for us uh you know my perspective changes uh listen if if you run a great program um and you’re doing things the right way it it doesn’t and you serve your players great it probably doesn’t impact you um as much as it impacts

Others we’ve been able to hold on to the players that you know we’ve been desperate to keep and build around those core players on a yearly basis so um I just think the timeline of the portal um and then I don’t know man it’s like I

Think it’s bad for kids if you you end up um your college that you go to the staff that you play for becomes your network for life like that’s the group of people that are going to help create opportunities for you for for the entirety of your life your support

System if if if you play in four or five schools in in four or five years like what type of support system you’re just kind of uh a mercenary at that point at that point and you have no you know no base in life we’ll stay on this side in row one

And then we’ll go across uh Zach brazili New York Post what’s up Dan what’s up Zach um your players said you’ve been tougher this year than last year um I was told you two weeks after you won it all you started again did so I mean what was you

I know you said you talked to Billy Donovan any other people you talk to about what it was like after winning a title because usually teams that go on a run like that lose that hunger and you have a lot of the same guys from last year so and that surely doesn’t happened

With you guys yeah I talked to Billy I talked to Jay talked to you know Tom ISO Ian in the end I just I I love being a coach I love the work so two weeks after it being over I was ready to just I wanted to start practicing again

Because I love to coach I I love to be around my team that’s the best part of the job um and then you’re deal with the the the human nature element uh for both your program and with the um you know the organization and with the individuals where you just won the

Championship and it it’s really easy to get seduced into thinking it’s going to be easy to do it again or it’s going to be easy to make another run especially when we did it in such dominant fashion like we did last year so yeah I mean I’ve been tougher on the group

Um throughout the season because uh just been trying to like root out any any form of complacency or uh entitlement uh with this team you’re not entitled to you’re not entitled to nothing especially this time of year and anything we’ve done this year we can’t

Trade it in for Jack you know what at this point like the only thing that matters is what happens at 2:30 on Friday all right we’ll stay in the front row on the other side Adam uh Adam’s aoria zags blog um I think Andrea said cam Spencer is you with blonde hair what

Do you think about that and you know any good stories of how similar you feel cam is to your intensity and and just what was kind of your message when you’re yeah I’mma bald him balding because I’ve kept this length it’s this length has stayed for

Like the last three years guys and gals um he he’s a unique competitor he’s just perfect with Tristan um in the backourt it was like uh you know you got Fire and Ice there he’s the fire um and hunger I I think that that’s been

Uh you know something for us too like he hadn’t been to the NBL tournament he hasn’t won championships at this level he hasn’t experienced college basketball at you know top of sport so you know having a a critical player that has experience this thing has been great for

Our team because it’s instilled a you know a wild ambition with the group uh because he’s got such a big personality and he’s just so damn competitive we’ll take last two questions on the aisle Row one and then Row three Jaden Dy Dy also hoop stand this is a different role for Donovan

This season last year he was coming off the bench behind Adama on the championship run now he’s one of the more dominant faces on this team how much has this season prepared him for this run and what he’s going to face face at a higher level yeah in a in a

Weird way um I think you know his injuries in the preseason and then in the start of Big East play really helped the team develop um it also allowed him to get kind of fully healthy get his weight down and then he’s gotten himself into great shape and now I think he’s

Peing at the right time um and then you you go deep in this tournament you do damage you win championships um you know when you when you just go out and perform at a high Lev level here and uh you know what we’re going to need him to

Be as good as sonogo was for us last year Adama absolutely dominated the tournament last year and we’re going to need a dominant run from Donovan to uh to do what we did last year all right last question staying on the aisle Row three coach uh Mike Fitzpatrick

Associated Press um you guys obviously there’s been for a long time no number one seed ever went down it’s happened a couple of times now in the last few years including last year you’ve talked a lot about your players about how well you’ve stayed focused this year on on

The goals at hand but you remind them of that that number one seeds that that got toppled the last few years they do they need you feel like they need a reminder like that or you do it anyway yeah I think in every game that you play I mean

Whether um you know the early season November um if we get away from our identity we have issues um I didn’t like how we guarded obviously in the St John’s game part of it was you know we’re playing an NCAA C caliber team that had a great night um you know and a

Team that that should have been in um with a couple other Big E schools and then uh you know like what keeps us bulletproof though is like you we’re number one in the country in offensive efficiency we’re top 10ish in defense uh we we generally rebound the ball as good

As anyone in the country uh we we play harder than our opponent and and we’re Elite with our preparation and we don’t care who the hero is on a given night you know that that’s a formula that will keep you bulletproof uh in a lot of

Games and make it really really hard for somebody to get you um so we stick to that script um you know we could come in here with confidence but we respect STS and we respect everyone that we play because uh you know we know what this tournament’s all about