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UCONN’s Dan Hurley believes he’s got the easiest job in sports. Never mind the fact that he’s coaching at one of college basketball’s most prestigious programs with tons of pressure to annually get to the top.
This year, he’s succeeding as he has the Huskies one game away from a national championship. And he might be right given the path that Connecticut has taken in the NCAA Tournament.
UCONN has not only won all five games it’s played, but it’s done so in dominant fashion. Hurley’s bunch has beaten every opponent by double digits, including a 23-point romp over Arkansas and a 28-point thumping of Gonzaga.
Despite entering the Big Dance as a four-seed, they’ve looked like basketball’s best group this March.
While some might’ve been shocked by the Huskies’ tournament run, Dan Hurley isn’t surprised in the least. In fact, he went as far as to say it’s been easy to coach this team. He says he’s got a solid core of NBA prospects. The only thing he needs to do is put a few pieces around them.
Dan Hurley: “This isn’t that hard. I have three NBA players and we put the right pieces around them.” pic.twitter.com/GxwBCqt363
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) April 2, 2023
Hard to argue given the most recent results.
He’s not surprised to see his team in this situation, and he certainly doesn’t seem worried about the next challenge. After his Final Four win over Miami, he said the following in the postgame celebration.
“I’m not that excited, fellas, to be honest… we knew we were going to be playing on Monday… you guys have been so dominant.”
Dan Hurley says there’s no Achilles heel on this team. They’ve got the shooting, the bigs, and the defense to matchup with any team in the nation. That includes title game opponent San Diego State.
Of course, it took Hurley a bit of time to find out that the Aztecs would be his next foe on the schedule. He said that he was meditating during the end of that exciting SDSU-FAU contest, missing the buzzer beater altogether.
“No real Achilles heel for this team.”
Dan Hurley is going into the #NationalChampionship game with complete confidence in every aspect of the game for the Huskies 👀#MarchMadness @TheAndyKatz pic.twitter.com/UFCBMFEn1i
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 2, 2023
“I was meditating at that point… I actually haven’t seen [the game winning shot] yet, but I heard the eruption [of the crowd], so I knew something happened at the buzzer.”
The path for Dan Hurley and the Huskies has been one of relative ease thus far, in terms of the box score. They won’t take their next opponent lightly, but they certainly won’t lack confidence in the championship game.