Without a doubt, UConn Huskies head coach Dan Hurley is feeling on top of the college basketball world. He is now a two-time NCAA Tournament champion head coach, and he did it in consecutive fashion. He completed the rare feat when the Huskies defeated Zach Edey and fellow No. 1 seed Purdue Boilermakers in a heavyweight affair Monday night in Glendale, 75-60.
And just because of the 2023-24 college basketball ending, people are just going to stop talking about Hurley, in part because of a particular job opening in Lexington.
Even before the national championship game, Hurley was already being speculated as a potential replacement for John Calipari as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats
The UConn Huskies Have Every Reason to Prevent Dan Hurley From Leaving
The Huskies have hit the jackpot with Hurley, who has done an incredible job of ushering in a renaissance period for the Storrs-based basketball program. UConn’s success alone in the last two seasons also seems to be enough for UConn athletic director David Benedict to feel confident that Hurley is not heading somewhere else.
Via Kyle Tucker of The Athletic:
“The market is the market and Kentucky is obviously Kentucky, but last time I checked, we won the last two national championships and we’ve got six of them,” Benedict said. “So I think UConn is a pretty good job and Dan’s doing an unbelievable job.
“We obviously hope that he’s with us for a long time. UConn has a tradition of keeping coaches that have reached Hall-of-Fame level success at UConn for a long period of time — coach (Jim) Calhoun, coach (Geno) Auriemma. I’m sure they had plenty of opportunities to leave and we certainly hope that Dan follows suit.”
Hurley has a chance to make even more history with UConn in the 2024-25 college basketball season, as the Huskies are in position to complete a three-peat. To this day, only one program has managed to win three NCAA Tournament titles in a row, and that’s the UCLA Bruins, who won a natty seven times consecutively from 167 to 1973.
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