UConn Basketball HC Dan Hurley talks Michigan State postgame
UConn Basketball Head Coach Dan Hurley met with the media following the Huskies 76-69 victory over Michigan State in the team’s final exhibition before the 2025-26 season starts.
FULL DAN HURLEY TRANSCRIPT
Okay, yeah, you know, happy with some things. You know, first of all, it’s, you know, there’s programs, you know, during the course of, you know, the Marquettes, I think, and, you know, the Marquettes, the classy programs that you just have a lot of respect for the way that they do things. But the ultimate, you know, you know, for me, I’ve modeled so much of how I’ve tried to be, you know, a coach and a college coach with just by, you know, watching and trying to model and learn as much as I can from Coach Izzo.
So it’s just awesome for us to be able to get an exhibition versus, you know, one of the greatest coaches to ever do it in college and then one of the classiest, winningest programs. So that was, I thought, a good physical test for us. You know, there’s obviously things I liked.
I liked, I’m just trying to rack my brain for what I liked. I love, obviously I love Jay Ross. I mean, I’ve seen that movie in my home a lot, streaming, streaming in my house.
But I think that now that, let’s hope that movie is now going to theaters so the public can see it. I mean, that is the, that’s the Jay Ross that we’ve seen on a daily basis a lot. And, you know, that was exciting to see that.
And we need that, especially with Braylon out. So I love that. You know, I thought we played hard.
You know, obviously the fouls are an issue. They’ve been an issue in both games. You know, but from what Coach Izzo was saying, I’m in my own little bubble.
I don’t really know what these free throw attempts have looked like in these other exhibition games, but he mentioned to me after the game that there’s a lot of fouls being called in these exhibitions right now. And I just don’t think that we want college basketball to start looking like the NBA where people are dribbling into people and throwing it up at the basket. I think the fans are not going to like that.
And, you know, so we fouled a lot. I’d say a lot of it was a lack of discipline. And we’ve got to figure that out because I do think we’re playing hard.
We’re much better defensively, even with Tarras out, than we were last year. But we’ve got to figure out the fouling thing. And I thought we had too many guys not play well today.
Well, yeah, I mean, we were in foul trouble in the first half, even with the six fouls. So, yeah, I mean, that’s definitely a lineup that we’re going to want to play. We’ve just got to stop fouling.
I mean, I would say probably 10 or 12 of them were just like lack of discipline fouls. I mean, that’s just I’m doing a bad job, and I’ve got to coach better technique and discipline. And, you know, like we practice real hard, but then when you get to the game, we’ve just got to clean some things up.
Maybe I’ve got to start calling more fouls in practice. Yeah, I mean, we talked with those guys because our staffs talk a lot. And actually at halftime, I tried to go over and ask for any coach said.
So he didn’t say he didn’t want to do that. We didn’t get that. I think it’s just, I don’t know.
Yeah, I mean, we could say that, but like fans and media will definitely overreact. That’s kind of the only downside of this because it does give you a chance to get some jitters out. For Silas, it was his first time in a UConn uniform.
Obviously made a couple of threes early, but, you know, overall, you know, I didn’t love what we got. You know, I think we’re going to get great play from point guard, and I think it will get better. But, yeah, I mean, I thought for me, what I’ve gotten out of it was what I already knew was that obviously when Tyrus gets back, that’s going to make a huge difference.
You know, he’s a huge factor on offense. I mean, he’s going to be a focal point offensively in a way that Adama was. And then, you know, he’s also, you know, one of the best returning defensive players in the country, like a top five defensive rated player when he’s not fouling.
So he’s going to make a huge difference. I think we’ve got, you know, a team that when we’re healthy and as we develop throughout the year, that we could be a championship caliber team. We’ve got depth.
You know, the wings, again, like Jaden Ross, if he gives us something like that, you know, when we’ve got this whole operation together player wise, got to get more out of Jay Stu. You know, Jay Stu, you know, we need him to, you know, to take advantage of his minutes and to make that, you know, that jump we need him to make as a junior. He’s a one-hander.
Yeah, I mean, you know, your grandfather, you know, the coach that when you grow up in North Jersey and you play for your father and you grow up as a basketball guy in North Jersey, there’s an edginess to it. There’s a confidence. There’s a fire to how you coach and how demanding you are with your players and the standards you set.
And you really, you know, you change the lives of young men by making them tougher, by holding them accountable, and preparing them for how challenging life’s going to be. And then, you know, the way his team, so Coach Izzo has changed young men’s lives by making them into fully grown men that are ready to handle the challenges of the world. Plus his teams, they play unselfish.
They play physical. They defend. They share the ball.
He gets the most out of his personnel. After you play his teams, everyone in your team immediately is in the ice tub, you know, because of the physicality and just, you know, the guy is not a cheater, you know. He’s not a fake.
You know, he doesn’t have like a fake persona with the media. Like who you think he is is exactly who you see on TV, and there’s a lot of phonies out there, and he’s not one of them. And so I’ve stolen his tactics.
I’ve stolen his culture, you know. I’ve stolen the way he leads. He’s one of the best coaches to ever do it.
Yeah, I mean, it’s one of those things where it’s, you know, we’ve been here before where he got back into practice and then kind of tweaked something and it set us back another two weeks. So, yeah, I mean, you leave it in the hands of the medical people. And we really can’t afford another setback where, you know, we start another process of two or three weeks more or longer.
But he seems to be progressing back to the point where, you know, he’s got the potential, you know, to be back out there for the next one or the one after that, hopefully. Yeah, I think more, you know, more cutting. It was good to see Silas make threes.
It was good to see Jay Ross make threes. Solo, I thought him and Alex, those deep threes they took to start the game were stupid for such veteran players. Like, you just don’t want your first three of a game to be like – I don’t even want to look at it on film.
It felt like 28-footers. It’s like you don’t want your first three of a game to be that deep of a three. So, you know, I would say that we’re just – we’ve got to kind of – we have an offensive system that, you know, that we’ve got to tweak a little bit to play into the strengths of Jalen a little bit more, Jaden a little bit more.
You know, do less things to create three-point looks, more things to get people downhill, you know, either in the mid-post with Jalen where he could go make a play or get Silas or these guards downhill. They also don’t have to use a lot of these off-ball screens to shoot threes. You know, so Solo today, like they chased him off screens and rather than settling for a contested three, he escaped dribbled and got to the rim and finished.
So, you know, I think, though, you’re going to see us throw the ball inside more, especially when Tarras comes back. I think a way that we could make up for losing the offense from Braylon and some of the firepower is when Tarras gets back, we’re going to throw it in. And we’re going to keep throwing it to Eric because Eric, I thought, held up reasonably well or pretty well for a freshman versus those, you know, big ten frontcourt players.
Yeah, I mean, just when he’s getting run off the line, I mean, I thought the finishing was a lot better than it was last year. I think he took real strides that way. You know, just any time he got to his third, fourth, fifth dribble and started going laterally, things got a little bit shaky.
But when he plays, he’s a guy that I think he’s got to continue to learn how to play off a live dribble, off a shot fake, use some of these off-ball actions to get downhill at the rim when they chase him over the top. But I think he took a step that way. I just think he took, you know, he shot one for seven from three.
I thought he took, like, three bad threes that he could have, like, ripped it or shot fake it or straight line drove it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, tonight we’re missing two starters. We’re missing a guy who’s potentially, you know, just a flamethrower in Braylon who, you know, is an excellent offensive player and one of the better perimeter defenders.
And then Silas, who’s obviously his focal point at both ends and a guy that could potentially have a Sunogo effect on the team, a Klingon effect as a starting center, potentially be one of the best centers in the country. So I’m happy. Obviously, the fouls, I mean, that was a tough game.
I mean, it was a very frustrating game. And it was a long game. I’m shocked.
I said to the guys at halftime we were, like, heading for a three-hour game. So I guess we just shot the free throws quicker in the second half. But, no, I love the team.
I mean, I think this team’s got a chance to be— obviously, we’ve got to get better. We’ve got to clean up the fouling. We’ve got to get better in ball screen defense, especially with Eric in the game.
We had some breakdowns there. But, yeah, I mean, this team, I don’t— I feel like this team’s got a chance to be a contending team this year, both in the Big East and, you know, we’ve got a lot of answers. I thought Dwayne played well.
I don’t know what he was doing. I want to watch the film. I don’t know what was going on out there.
If he was just—I just don’t understand how and what he was doing to keep just fouling people. Because, like, he was—he had four rebounds in ten minutes. He gives you a different look at center.
Like, he rolls and puts pressure on the paint and rolls because he’s so quick and mobile, which opens up things on the perimeter. Like, I think Dwayne could really help the team. I just—he was a battering ram today.
I don’t know what—I’ve got to see the fouls. I don’t know what the hell he was doing. But I love that guy.
I think that guy’s really going to help this team win games. That’s one way of saying it. See, I thought a lot of our fouls were, like, trying to make a play on the ball, whereas last year’s fouls we were victim.
Like, we were, like—we were just getting driven on our heels and just kind of flailing at the ball. I thought we were making, like, assertive mistakes, aggression mistakes, maybe too much—trying to make too many plays on the ball, like being into the ball with too much physicality. You would much prefer to be in that situation and now try to, like, reel these guys back in with the aggression than the situation that we were in last year where we literally just watched teams reverse the ball and drive the ball at will without any resistance.
So we’re putting up a great deal of resistance right now. We’ve just got to be able to apply that resistance without the lack of disciplined fouls and obviously adhere to these new rules where, again, we’re potentially becoming the NBA where it’s, like, the guys are now dribbling into a defender that’s guarding the ball, throwing their head back, throwing the ball up at the basket. I just don’t know if the college fans are going to love those foul calls this year.
We’ll see how that goes. No edging, I’m just kidding. That’s a wild thing to say.
Yeah, let’s end on that. All right, guys. We’ll see you next time.
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