There are a lot of angles to Dan Hurley’s decision to stay at UConn rather than move west and coach the Los Angeles Lakers. A few of them, before we talk about risk:
- How set are the Lakers on drafting Bronny James? Is accepting this a precondition for a potential head coach?
- Does anyone bow out of the Lakers’ coaching search now that it’s clear they were at best the second choice?
- This is great for UConn.
- This further strengthens what was already a great narrative for the coming college basketball season, that of UConn chasing a threepeat.
- Hurley staying is good for college basketball as a sport, because it gets the benefit of the Los Angeles Lakers wanting its current top coach’s services without dealing with the loss of that threepeat narrative. But. A lot of college basketball media shaped this as existential for the sport, and it wasn’t that at all. Had Hurley left, it still would have been good for college basketball. It’s the Lakers.
As for risk…
There’s a misconception here, propagated by some of those same existential fearmongers, which implies that Hurley’s return to UConn is without risk. They say he’s chasing a threepeat, but for some reason they say “chasing” very quietly and say “THREEPEAT” with all the force they can muster in their musically trained lungs. John Wooden’s the only coach to win three in a row. Yes, but John Wooden won seven in a row. And he won ten in a twelve-year span. And he went undefeated in four of those seasons. And Hurley hasn’t won his third yet! Nor is he favored to do so!
I am higher than the market on the 2024–25 UConn Huskies. I don’t think Alabama should be favored ahead of them, nor do I think they and Kansas should see matching odds. I think UConn should be the favorite. But not against the field! This is the NCAA Tournament. It’s a whirlpool of random single game results. It’s not as random as its Final Four fields often imply—only four teams outside the kenpom top three have won the title in the entire history of kenpom—but college football, this is not. The best team does not always win here. And building the best team is in itself a tricky, luck-driven exercise. Making matters worse, NCAA Tournament success is the only standard the mainstream sports consciousness applies when evaluating college basketball coaches. One unlucky game can do more to tank a legacy in college basketball than in any other major sport, possibly on the entire globe. UConn could again be the best team in the country entering next March’s NCAA Tournament. They’d likely face no better than a 1-in-3 shot at winning it. Lose, and the threepeat talk is over. It would have been fun while it lasted, but the college hoops zeitgeist would be on to the next big thing.
Hurley does enjoy a lot of advantages in Storrs, especially in the short term. The first two are Luke Murray and Kimani Young, his star assistants. A third is experience with an offseason transition exactly like this one. A fourth is proven NCAA Tournament experience, for whatever it’s worth. Can anyone really figure out the NCAA Tournament? Probably not. If someone did, would someone else best them with their own master plan? Probably. The Yankees had figured out how to win in the crapshoot that is October. That is, until Luis Gonzalez and Josh Beckett and David Ortiz and Josh Hamilton and Delmon freaking Young brought them back to historic averages. Nobody “figures out” the NCAA Tournament, and if they do, it’s short-lived. Dan Hurley deserves massive, massive credit for what he’s done the last two springs. He also probably had a little bit of luck.
A fifth advantage is UConn playing in the Big East. This, however, cuts both ways.
The thing about the Big East in the short term is that it’s full of teams who were either recently mid-majors or sure look the part. In 2005, Xavier was in the Atlantic 10, Butler was in the Horizon League, Creighton was in the MVC, and Marquette and DePaul were in Conference USA. Villanova, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s, and Georgetown all have plenty of basketball history, but are they that different fundamentally from their recent little brothers? The current Big East makes a lot of sense. Nine Catholic schools (small by nature), one small secular school, and a smaller-branded state school, the rare state school that doesn’t give a shit about football.
This is a nice setup in the short term. UConn has a lot of natural power its peers lack. With Villanova’s post-Wright recession, UConn has no serious natural challenger within the Big East. Rick Pitino’s got a great track record. Creighton and Marquette are top-25 programs right now. That is only three schools, and we’re talking top-ten contention, not national championship favorites. Neither the SEC nor the Big Ten is a basketball league, and the Big 12 wouldn’t like to be one. All three of those, though, have multiple serious national championship options nearly every year, as does the ACC. That isn’t as true of the Big East, whose second-best team, to again turn to kenpom, hasn’t finished better than tenth since 2013, the last year of the old conglomerate conference. UConn dominated January and February this year. It was easier for UConn to do that than it would be in a different power leagues. This medium-sized competition helps UConn. In the short term.
In the long term, Big East membership is a concerning situation. Schools aren’t entirely wrong these days to make such a priority out of which conference they call home. A conference’s power goes a long way towards defining what resources are available to a school. The fact Hurley could likely have made more money at Kentucky is telling. Not because he’ll necessarily jump ship—the man and his family seem to understandably love the Northeast—but because UConn is going to need to play moneyball with recruits and transfers if it wants to remain a top national program into the 2030’s. Revenue sharing is coming, and unless UConn turns its football performance up by a lot of notches, the Big 12 lifeline isn’t. Even if it was, it’s not the Big Ten or the SEC.
There are other risks between now and then. How long do Young and Murray stay in Storrs? How does UConn adjust to an even clearer target on its back? Are Samson Johnson and Tarris Reed Jr. going to be able to replace Donovan Clingan? Is Duke’s rise real? Will Bill Self regain his fastball? What happens if UConn draws multiple top-five teams in a single tournament?
Overall, the short-term risk—that Hurley will not threepeat, and that this return will become a letdown—is far likelier than not to materialize, while the long-term risk—that Hurley’s confined himself to a situation with a lower ceiling than his competition—is something like a 50/50 bet. The question of whether Hurley will be the same one day without Young and Murray echoes that asked of Dabo Swinney when Brent Venables left for Oklahoma. The Lakers job had a lot of risk. It’s a hard job in which to meet expectations, and LeBron James—who’ll probably be back—has proven himself a difficult figure to coach. But in a sport which centers on a six-round single-elimination tournament, there are no sure things. Credit to Dan Hurley for choosing what makes him happy, and for leveraging the situation into a nice raise. Good luck, though, too. Because coaching basketball at UConn is still very, very hard.
Miscellany
- If Caitlin Clark was left off the Olympic team because she isn’t one of the thirteen right players, that is fair and just. Is she currently one of the thirteen best American women’s basketball players? Doubtful. Could there have been a role for her as a sharpshooter, like when Kyle Korver almost made Team USA for the 2014 World Cup? Probably. She’s certainly one of the best shooters among active players. If she’d only been left off through an objective attempt to craft the best possible team to secure another gold medal, it would have been hard to have a problem with it. The value of marketing has its limits. At some point, a sport needs to behave seriously if it wants to be taken seriously. The problem is that, at least according to Christine Brennan’s reporting, USA Basketball didn’t exclude Clark because it was too focused on winning. According to that reporting, at least part of the decision centered on concerns about the firestorm Clark’s undoubtedly limited minutes would create. USA Basketball, per Brennan, was concerned about the reactions of Clark’s own fans. If the exclusion was about basketball, the decision is justified. If the exclusion was about fan reaction, the decision is phenomenally stupid.
- Sergei Bobrovsky was a maniac in Game 1 against the Oilers, and I should confess that I sometimes see Bobrovsky do things and think, without a shred of doubt, “That man is the best goalie in the world.” It seems Bobrovsky doesn’t stay the best goalie every night—that appears to not be how hockey works—but man, one or two more games like that this series and the state of Florida’s going to be running up the Stanley Cup score on poor Canada.
- After the Mavericks fell behind 1–0, we mentioned their poor Games 1 against the Clippers and Thunder. In both those series, they rallied in Game 2. They did not rally in Game 2 last night. The Jrue Holiday trade wasn’t maligned or anything when it happened, but Brad Stevens sure looks smart right now, with the cold start from Jayson Tatum a non-issue for Boston thanks to how well-rounded its roster is.
- The College World Series field is almost set, and it’s entirely comprised of ACC and SEC teams. Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Florida are in from the Southeastern Conference. North Carolina, Florida State, and Virginia are in from the Atlantic Coast. Tonight, NC State and Georgia play their rubber match in Athens to determine the eighth team. Per the Atlanta Journal–Constitution, this is the first time in the CWS’s 75-year history of eight-team fields that only two conferences will be represented. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is partly driven by a decreased importance on geographic proximity in bracketing, but still: First time ever. The SEC piece is natural in the modern era of college sports, especially in baseball, where the Big Ten has yet to live up to the power conference status it deserves elsewhere. The ACC piece is also natural, though, and that’s a good reminder of how good the conference is across all sports, even as football and men’s basketball suffer downturns. Stanford joining the league will only help that cause.
- Alexander Zverev gave Carlos Alcaraz trouble on Saturday, but Alcaraz won in the end, and he now has a chance to stretch his Grand Slam lead among his generation, with Novak Djokovic’s knee removing the toughest Wimbledon competition. It’s possible Jannik Sinner is better on grass than clay, at least relative to Alcaraz, but I’m surprised to see the pair so close in Wimbledon odds after this French Open. I’m seeing them at 7-to-5 and 8-to-5, which is hardly different at all. There is a lot, though, that I do not know about tennis.
