When looking at the big picture, UConn's Dan Hurley is glad to be hosting Arizona

After winning his second straight national championship at State Farm Stadium in April 2024, then complaining about the 24/7 nature of college basketball’s transfer portal, going 0-3 in the Maui Invitational a year ago and bouncing from the NCAA Tournament’s second round last March, UConn coach Dan Hurley considered retiring at age 52.

“I was completely cooked,” he wrote in his recently released book, “Never Stop: Life, Leadership, and What It Takes To Be Great.”

The brother of equally demonstrative ASU coach Bobby Hurley, always wearing his emotions on his sleeves and pretty much everywhere else on his body, Dan Hurley even reportedly had preliminary talks with Fox Sports about becoming an analyst.

But while he’s since recommitted to the idea of being a college coach for the long haul, Hurley jokingly reconsidered that thought Saturday night after UConn’s 20-point second-half lead nearly melted away in an 86-84 win over BYU in a Top-10 matchup.

The Huskies had enjoyed a predominantly pro-Huskies crowd at Boston’s TD Garden and could have even more vocal support when Arizona wanders into UConn’s Gampel Pavilion on Wednesday, but that’s only the first of two games the teams have agreed to play.

The second one is scheduled to be played at McKale Center on Nov. 18 next season, and chances are, Dan has heard a few things from Bobby about the place.

“I’m glad to be having them here this year,” Hurley told the Star after the BYU game. “Because I know that the Hurley treatment in Tucson is … maybe I’ll just coach this year and actually do the retirement so I don’t have to go to Tucson.”

That might be tempting. But this sort of series is also just what Dan Hurley appears to want: Under Hurley, who is in his eighth season with the Huskies, arriving a year after UConn last appeared in Tucson, UConn has annually woven in a significant number of high-caliber teams into its nonleague schedule.

The Huskies had Indiana, Texas, Kansas, North Carolina and Gonzaga in 2023-24, then the Maui games plus Texas, Baylor and Gonzaga last season.

Now, Arizona, too, mixed in this season with a UConn schedule that includes BYU, Illinois, Kansas, Florida and Texas.

“I’m gonna give credit to our general manager, Tom Moore,” for contracting the UA series, Hurley said. “I’m real bad with the phone. The staffs kind of reach out and say, ‘Hey, do you guys want to do this? This would be fun.’”

It should be fun for Hurley, for his players, for UConn fans, and everyone watching the FS1 broadcast. It could be a lot of fun for Arizona, too, if the Wildcats pull off another November upset, the kind they are becoming known for under fifth-year coach Tommy Lloyd.

But the Wildcats also have little to lose if they don’t. The game will be Arizona’s first Top-5 matchup since the top-ranked Wildcats faced No. 3 Purdue in December 2023, before the Boilermakers went on to face Hurley’s Huskies in Glendale during the national championship game.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

It’s also Arizona’s first time facing back-to-back ranked teams outside of conference play since the Wildcats beat Wisconsin at home and then suffered their first loss of the 2023-24 season in that Purdue game.

For this tough two-game stretch, the Wildcats opened by beating No. 15 UCLA 69-65 on Friday in Los Angeles, then returned home for two days of prep and traveled to Connecticut on Monday afternoon.

“We can’t relax,” said UA assistant coach Ken Nakagawa, who has been scouting the Huskies. “We’re treating this like a second game (in the NCAA Tournament second weekend), like an Elite Eight game ... so after playing a team like UCLA, you’re gonna play another high caliber team. It’s a great test to see how we can manage that.”

The same applies for UConn, which also beat a ranked opponent by a small margin in its previous game, but in an even scarier fashion, after Boston-area product AJ Dybantsa of BYU led a late Cougar rally.

“It’s a weird feeling, because you had a chance to really put on a 40-minute great performance, but it’s also early in the year,” Hurley said after the BYU game. “Teams improve throughout the year. Maybe over the course of the next couple weeks, you’re able to sustain 30 minutes of that level, and then 33 minutes of that level, and then 37 minutes of that level.

“But it was a big win for us ... and it obviously creates an even bigger game on Wednesday.”

The Wildcats are coming into Wednesday’s game ranked No. 4 and at 4-0 after beating ranked opponents in Florida and UCLA, a team Hurley glowingly rattled on about even in the moments shortly after the Huskies’ win over BYU.

“I’m real familiar with Koa Peat and (Brayden) Burries especially and I faced Jaden before,” Hurley said, referring to UConn’s 82-67 win over Alabama in December 2022, when Bradley had 12 points and four assists as a Crimson Tide freshman.

“But Tommy (Lloyd) — we’ve played Gonzaga and the class level of that program. He kind of ran things with (Zags coach) Mark Few and now he’s brought that to Arizona. It’s impressive what they just did, beating UCLA in L.A.”

Hurley had more to say.

More details that might indicate, deep down, that there are nights when he really enjoys being a college basketball coach after all.

“No one’s had a better start to the year than those guys,” Hurley said. “To beat Florida and not even at home? Two neutral wins at that level? It just creates a fun night and on a Wednesday when there’s no college football going on. It’s going to be a game that people can be excited to watch.”