Bleeding Blue for Good celebrates the repeat champs
Coming off of two straight national championships, Dan Hurley and the UConn Huskies have a lot of confidence, and every reason to be confident about their potential for this upcoming season. In an evening where Bleeding Blue for Good raised $350,000 towards its NIL budget goals, fans had a chance to meet and mingle with Hurley, the players, and members of the staff. Athletic Director David Benedict, Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Strategy Chris Grosse, and other members of athletic department leadership were in attendance as well.
In a series of panels led by former college basketball coach Seth Greenberg, the program started with an intro from BBFG founder/chairman John Malfettone before Greenberg’s one-on-one interview with the Huskies' head coach. We then heard from Andrea and Andrew Hurley before another panel with the assistant coaches, and then the returning players went up, including Jordan Hawkins representing the 2023 championship squad. The only team member missing was Cam Spencer. Tristen Newton was in Philadelphia for an NBA workout but was still able to make it.
“This has been the most dominant two years in recent college basketball history,” Greenberg said in his opening statement, later adding, “That doesn’t happen everywhere… to do that, you’ve got to have a great staff and a guy that has a vision.”
In a one-on-one conversation, Hurley initially discussed the team’s recent appearance at a Red Sox game, where Karaban threw out the first pitch, sharing that his practice throws were not going great.
Among the lessons learned from the Huskies' recent success, Hurley credited his excellent staff, the players they brought in, and that they have the players watching film longer than most other programs.
“I’ve never seen this coaching staff have a bad practice,” Greenberg, a frequent attendee at practices, said. “Though film sessions can be brutal.”
“They say these kids, their attention spans, you can only watch 15 minutes of video before they lose interest. Screw that,” Hurley said. “If they do shit that makes us lose we’ll make them watch it for an hour and a half, and the clips are brutal.”
Hurley also outlined the four foundational pillars of program success: Strength of the Pack, “the last couple of years, we've had no real weak players,” Mindful Communication, “which is something I struggle with, I don’t follow all of them,” Relentless Competitive Effort, and Consistent Improvement.
“When you get on campus just put the blinders on and just get better,” he explained. “You’ll get everything you want.”
With Andrea, Greenberg started by asking about when she met her future husband, and what the early years of his coaching life were like. “It wasn’t going great,” Hurley quipped.
Andrea shared that when she and Dan were engaged, his plan was to go play in Europe after college but her parents wouldn’t let her go unless she was married or engaged. They got married, but Dan ended up not wanting to go to Europe and taking an assistant coaching, and teaching, gig at St. Anthony’s High School.
Andrea mentioned that they were “broke as a joke,“ and “we had four pairs of silk grandpa underwear,” addressing the question on everyone’s mind given what we know about Dan’s lucky MeUndies. She also praised her husband’s tireless work ethic over the decades and the message that he was always building something.
“This wasn’t an overnight success,” Greenberg noted, mentioning Hurey’s path as an assistant at Rutgers and then head coach in high school before getting to Wagner.
Even UConn was no walk in the park. Tom Moore, who has the distinction of coaching on four championship Husky teams from his stint on Jiim Cahoun’s staff from 1994 to 2007, has perhaps the best view of how far UConn’s program had fallen by 2018 and returned to former glory since. Moore notes that in 1994 the team was on its way to greatness, it already had numerous NBA players on the roster including Ray Allen.
The situation when Hurley took over in 2018 was not anywhere close to that.
“The team was bad when we got here,” Hurley said. “I could never imagine UConn being as bad as it was.”
Luke Murray, who worked with Hurley at Wagner and also URI, shared how lucky he feels to be part of the progression.
“He’s the single most important person to me in my professional life, and he’s changed my life, completely changed my family’s life, so I’m deeply indebted to this man.”
Associate head coach Kimani Young echoed this sentiment.
“For me personally, it’s been an unbelievable professional experience, to get a front-row seat with one of the best coaches of our generation, to be able to work with such an incredible staff, and some of the best players that have come through this program.”
Young also said he appreciated how “our best players have always been our hardest workers in this program… I’m most proud about the kids and families we’ve been able to recruit. I truly am most proud of how awesome these young men are.”
Young also shared that he privately maintained a heavy pessimism about the Huskies before these last two seasons. Perhaps keeping such high standards helped them reach these great heights.
“I thought we stunk two years ago, thought we’d be in the play-in game… and thought they were worse last offseason.”
One of the highlights of the player panel was seeing Hassan Diarra’s Dan Hurley impression. He and Newton shared their thoughts on how to succeed as an incoming transfer.
Newton credited his coaches and teammates for pushing him every day, “practice is gonna be rough at first, just stick with it… just listen to them.”
The question was meant to help Aidan Mahaney and Tarris Reed, both in attendance getting their first or second taste of Husky fans’ largesse and support (Reed attended the championship parade during his recruiting visit). But the advice applies to freshmen as well, and echoes the sentiments of Hurey’s pillars, particularly on continuous improvement.
“Just buy in as fast as possible,” Diarra said.
“The product you see on the court, what we do here, we produce championship payers, NBA players… Coach is gonna be hard each and every day, that grows your ability to improve. Just grow into it, buy in, everything will work out.”