UConn Basketball HC Dan Hurley talks New Haven postgame
UConn Basketball Head Coach Dan Hurley met with the media following the Huskies 79-55 victory over New Haven in the team’s first game of the 2025-26 season.
FULL DAN HURLEY TRANSCRIPT
Some things swirling around, just in watching their scrimmages and just seeing, you know, how good they were offensively, you know, with the things they run and the spacing and the patience and, you know, just had a lot of respect from the film. I think you, you know, I think, you know, you evaluate who you’re playing and the quality of the coaches that you’re playing when you’re, you know, when you watch the film and you see habits and you see a great structure and a great plan at both ends of the court. So, you know, credit coach, it’s going to be fun, I think, to watch, you know, him build that program, you know, into a team that, you know, is going to be fighting for NCA tournament bids.
You know, for us, you know, I thought today that, you know, they made a, you know, they made a lot of hard shots, I think some of the things that plagued us last year, you know, reared its ugly head anytime that a team has 23 field goals and on only three assists. That tells you that you’ve lost a lot of one-on-one battles both on the perimeter and in the post. Some of it was a lack of physicality, especially with all the resources that we have at UConn, you know, that we couldn’t play, you know, with greater physicality tonight.
Maybe it was too much of the messaging of not fouling and, you know, which we dealt with the last two games, but, you know, just you walk away with it, you know, obviously you missed many opportunities to score, you know, wide open threes, finishes at the rim, 11 assists is really disappointing. You know, we’re a 20 assist team, so to get 11 means we didn’t pass the ball very well or finish plays. But I think for me it comes down to just really bad one-on-one defense and from guys that were brought in here to, you know, guys that were brought in here to help us in that area or, you know, players that on the wing that as juniors now we need to be able to guard better.
Yeah, I know obviously the defense, like you said, is a concern. As far as the, is the shooting something that you think is not going to be, you know, maybe the least of your worries coming into the season and at some point is it starting to get a little worrisome? I know it’s extremely early, but. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, Solo is, you know, Solo has not shot it well in the exhibitions and then tonight, you know, but I thought he set that off to start the game, you know, with the way he attacked the rim, just with no shot blocking out there for him, for them.
I was probably, I was more, I was more disappointed in what we did at the rim, the amount of layups we missed. You know, we just, we butchered opportunities. I think we’ll, I think we’ll shoot it well enough.
You know, the other thing, too, is Eric’s developing and Dwayne is not a guy that you could throw the ball in. Obviously, Tarras is going to, you know, solve a lot of offensive issues, you know, by having a guy that’s going to have the ball in his hands, you know. Every other possession or every third possession at the minimum will create better threes, but I’m not worried about the threes.
And was Jalen Stewart’s assertiveness a bright spot? It seemed like he was pretty consistent. He had eight rebounds. Yeah.
You know, I think there was, they were definitely encouraging things there. You know, the, you know, I think there’s a lot for him to build on. I think, you know, I think, you know, Jalen is a guy we need.
I just thought he could have guarded better. You know, I just thought that, you know, we just, we needed to guard better. And I think some of it was, you know, being spooked about fouling.
I think some of it is like letting right-handed players drive the ball righty middle. So, again, I’m going to take your answer about Jalen’s offense and I’m going to turn it into, I’m going to turn it into defense. But sometimes, you know, to buy games, it’s, you just, the games are very different.
You know, even when you play high major teams, you know, the court is just spaced different. There’s so many small perimeter players on the court. You know, where when you play in Michigan State and different people that are high major, there’s bigger bodies out there.
You know, not to make excuses, but that may have had something to do with the brutal defense. Because we guarded Michigan State better than we guarded New Haven. Dan’s still on your left.
Hello. Was this a pretty frustrating, disappointing experience for you? Or is it also easy to say, hey, it’s a team with two starters out at its opening night? Two things can always be true. I mean, that was excruciating.
I mean, that was like, I mean, games like that are tough. I mean, there are games like that. I mean, these games that we play like that are way more stressful than BYU or Kansas on the road, just because, you know, when you play as poorly as we played for that long of a period of time, and your, is that the Wi-Fi? Is that, I was actually able to send text messages in the pregame.
To family members, I didn’t have to send the GA outside, so that my mother-in-law can get the, what was the question? So two things could be true, right? So, yeah, I mean, it, that was a painful game to coach. Because we, you know, we played better in the two, you know, we played better in the two exhibitions versus teams that are significantly better than New Haven is. But, I mean, credit them.
I mean, some of the shots that the game sucked, I have to sit through for the coaches. It was painful. It was miserable.
But I also love the team. I think, you know, I think the team will get a lot better from this. In a way, it’ll be, it’ll be a wake-up call.
You know, you’re missing two starters versus Michigan State. You know, and you’re up 17 or 18, you know, twice in the second half versus the top 25 team. So maybe you come into the game today a little bit of a, hey, listen, this is just going to be a 45 or 50-point night.
So, but I love the team. I think the team’s going to be, I think the team’s going to be awesome. It’s going to be great to get Tarras back, you know, and it looks like, you know, it looks like Bray’s, you know, doing a great job with his recovery.
You know, maybe recovering faster because he’s, he’s such a gamer. So, but I think the team’s going to be awesome this year. And tonight sucked.
What do you take from Eric, you know, his debut? Obviously, like you said, the kid did score a little bit on him. Down low and just the one rebound. But, I mean, does he have to be a little bit better at that? You know, a little more assertive on the boards? I mean, the good news for Eric is he’s never going to play against a center that is taking those types of shots.
I mean, it felt like, you know, Woody Harrelson in White Man Can’t Jump. You know, where he’s kind of like shooting his fadeaway twos. I just think it was a very uncomfortable game.
I mean, the five man for them, the way, and again, credit coach and his system and, you know, and again, this is a guy that I think is going to be able to build a great program there and deserves the full support of the university and the people around there. The guy’s a sharp basketball guy, but that’s a, that’s not your typical, that wasn’t like a center matchup. Like Eric played better against the Michigan State frontcourt.
You know, Eric played better against Boston College’s frontcourt. Some of these games are different when you’re playing low majors and by games where they insert you. His center was, you know, driving the ball.
He was playing like a quarterback, like a point center. So, he’ll play better against high majors than he will against probably these low majors. Coach, Terrace looked pretty live in warmups today.
Can you comment on what went into the decision to sit him today and what his status might be for Friday? Yeah, I just keep myself out of that. You know, we can’t bring him back prematurely and have the hamstring linger because we can’t do this without him. I mean, he’s, you know, he’s a focal point.
I mean, he’s going to improve our defense. He’s going to improve our offense. He’s going to improve our rebounding.
I mean, he’s going to improve our energy because he plays with a lot of energy. I thought out there we didn’t have guys with a lot of spirit tonight, partially because they weren’t making shots. But, I mean, that’s above me.
I mean, that goes to our medical people. They’re just telling me when he’s available. He’s practiced live four straight days and then that decision was made by the medical people.
I’m not getting myself involved in medical things with the players. Their job is to make sure that this guy comes back on the court and stays on the court. Coach, on defense, in terms of your philosophy, do you want players giving help or do you want a big man down there helping protect the rim? Well, the problem was their big man was not at the rim.
The problem was their big man was out on the perimeter. So you can’t just, you know, yell at your center to go stand underneath the basket. You know, while his guy is at the top of the key, he’s in the left corner.
He’s getting catches. He’s handling the ball as much as their guards. So, you know, the thing is you could be in gaps more.
But the problem with that was tonight a lot of time it was straight line drives. When you get beat in a straight line and you don’t push an offensive player off of a straight line and get him off of his angle, then digging at drivers and getting in gaps and raking at the ball doesn’t do you any good because there’s no help for a straight line drive. And I think my fear is going to be that a lot of what we saw tonight was, and dumb, you know, like you’re letting guys drive their strong hand middle when you have help at their left hand away from the middle, sending it sideline baseline.
So, yeah. And as far as Silas goes, you know, when you have a guy come into a new program, does it take some time to maybe just get used to being out there? Yeah, I wouldn’t overreact to, you know, I wouldn’t overreact. I mean, he had some really bad individual defensive possessions out there tonight.
And, you know, credit, I think Fitzpatrick’s a good player. But it should not have been as easy as it was for their guards. You know, I just, again, let’s, yeah, I would let this team develop.
I would let this, you know, I wouldn’t, if I was the fan base, I would not overreact to, you know, not a great performance from the group. He’s going to be a lot better defensively. He’s, you know, he’ll improve from this performance.
He’s got the requisites, you know, the requisite physical traits to be the on-ball defender that we need him to be. I was encouraged with the way he drove it. So, yeah, I mean, again, T. News junior year, you know, it wasn’t a joy ride from day one.
And the guy, you know, ended up having – ended up in the ring of honor or whatever the hell that’s what it’s called. Yeah. Here we go.
Coach, I forgot what I was going to say. But Coach – You’re like me. You mentioned this in your opening statement, but just can you talk about the frustrations about finishing around the rim? Yeah.
Listen, you know, I think – I don’t know. Maybe it was again. Like I tried to preach to these guys, this is opening night.
This is opening night. You know, this is really our third game. But there is something different about, you know, opening night, you know, because it’s all they hear and see.
And it’s a different feel. It’s game one, it counts. You know, I mean, these guys smoked some finishes.
I mean, you know, at the rim that they’re going to make, that we’re going to be – that we’re going to be much better at. I was more – I thought it was just a bad passing game. You know, I thought some of Solos passes when we had advantages that normally for us are hitting the roller and laying the ball in.
I thought Malachi, you know, was – I just thought we missed opportunities and then just missing so many shots as bad as we passed it. It probably should have been a 17 or an 18 assist game. So, we’re going to get so much better from this.
You know, yeah, tonight sucked. But this is going to be – I think it’s going to be an awesome team this year when we get healthy and we get our shit together. Thanks guys.
We’ll be right back.
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