He has resurrected programs at Wagner College and Rhode Island and now at UConn. And just because he hasn’t been at this as long as Jay Wright has at Villanova didn’t mean that Dan Hurley couldn’t remind everyone what a big-time Huskies team can look like in March in the Big East Tournament at the Garden.
A Garden packed again with howling Huskies fans, just like the good old days before the school’s seven-year AAC hiatus and the pandemic’s treacherous tentacles, greeting Villanova as if it was Villainova … whose own fans were able to make their voices heard.
Hurley couldn’t summon Kemba Walker for an epic step-back, couldn’t ask Ray Allen for a couple of clutch 3s, couldn’t summon Tate George for a buzzer-beater, couldn’t ask Richard Hamilton to be the best player on the court.
Villainova, the 63-60 survivor, makes a coach, any coach, wish he could haunt and torment it with the ghosts of yesteryear.
Villainova has a poise and a pride and a resilience and a tradition that is the envy of most. Its three-year stranglehold on the Big East Tournament was ended last year by Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown, but they could be on the verge of starting a new streak.
So this was the Big East Tournament’s version of the heavyweight championship, the Wildcats getting surging Creighton in the Saturday night Final in what feels at the moment like an anticlimax.
This was a pitched Big East brawl from the start. Following an Isaiah Whaley rejection of Jermaine Samuels, an animated Hurley marched onto the court before a timeout, looked up at one of the UConn sections, and waved his arms while mouthing “Let’s Gooooo!” The game wasn’t even six minutes old, UConn 14, Villanova 12.
Every single possession was going to matter. Every single possession was going to be contested.
There were moments when you feared that Hurley’s head might explode. He barked at what he considered injustice from the officials. He held his head when the overhead scoreboard replay left him in disbelief. He rained encouragement and fire on his players at every opportunity. He screamed instructions above the din from near halfcourt when his team operated on offense. He was the caffeinated young Rick Pitino.
When a charge was called against R.J. Cole with one second remaining in the half that negated a driving layin, Hurley went bonkers, scurrying the opposite way by his bench, hurling a white towel, raging at the official who called it, causing two of his assistants to calm him down.
Turns out his father, legendary St. Anthony High School coach Bob Hurley, was hardly a sideline wallflower during his 26-state championship run.
“The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree,” Bob told The Post. “I stayed on officials to be in position to respect the game, and I’m a firm believer that the coaches and players put in so much time, and the officials have to understand the frustrations that exist, and how, when there’s 15,000 people, how they think a coach is showing them up if he’s just yelling.”
Brandon Slater and Jermaine Samuels were doing most of the damage before Collin Gillespie, such a floor general, fed Samuels, who doesn’t care that he requires a chiropractor for his back, for a flying dunk that had the ’Nova crowd roaring. It was Gillespie’s ninth assist. A monster left-handed block of Tyrese Martin at the basket by Slater soon followed.
An Andre Jackson 3 from the left wing bounced up and in to make it 62-60 with 8.6 seconds left. Villanova sweated the inbounds pass before Gillespie, with three seconds left, made the first of two free throws. Martin’s halfcourt prayer went unanswered. “We came up a possession short,” Dan Hurley said.
It is not lost on Bob Hurley that Wright has created the gold standard culture in college basketball culture.
“His culture has probably a lot of the same components as Danny’s culture,” Bob Hurley said, “but they’re different, because the way the person steers his organization’s a little bit different. A lot of this stuff is more about group dynamics, and motivation, and being able to get somebody who is down and get them up. And Danny having had his ups and downs as a player, gives him that empathy to understand what it’s like to be in a slump, and how you need somebody when you’re in a slump to try to build you back up again.”
Dan had to build himself back from a depression during his early playing days at Seton Hall, where the boobirds and the pressure of being compared to older brother Bobby forced him to take a mental health break from the game he has forever loved.
“The first thing he has, he has empathy,” Bob Hurley said. “He connects with everybody. He has a lifetime around the sport. From the time he was 18 months old, he was going to the games, and he was coming to the gym following teams. He may not look it during a game when he’s coaching, but he couldn’t be happier.”
Dan, 49, has the Huskies back in the NCAA Tournament as a likely No. 5 seed in his fourth season in Storrs. “He believes that you put in a couple of bricks into the foundation each year,” Bob Hurley said. “And the ones that you have … nobody was run off at UConn.”
Somehow, Dan Hurley had a voice afterward.
“Once the pain goes away, hopefully this’ll strengthen us for next week, our resolve,” he said.
Bob, 74, was resting comfortably watching his son from home following an ablation at Mount Sinai Hospital. His wife and daughter were at the Garden.
They all watched a familiar show from Wright and his team. Villanova doesn’t beat itself. “They don’t make a lot of mistakes,” Dan Hurley said. Villanova knows how to win. When it was Winning Time, Villanova recognized it. “They can beat anybody in the country. They’re going to make a run in the NCAA Tournament,” Wright said.
Dan Hurley has closed the gap. You better believe that isn’t good enough for him.
