What’s it like watching Dan Hurley lead UConn to the title game

INDIANAPOLIS–Before we start, a question. Why do they bother giving Dan Hurley a courtside stool? All the man needs is a tray. In fact, all he needs is a paper clip. Because all this was on a knee-high stool which was very carefully placed next to Yukon Benched by NCAA for Saturday’s Final Four Semifinal Matchup with Illinois There was a single sheet of white paper: the Huskies’ play sheet. And even he only sat there between every Hurley pickup – check, double-check and check again – before he was half-folded and tossed aside as UConn was on the verge of blowing a late lead for the Fighting Illini.

When one’s job is to spend an entire game watching college basketball’s most animated, most demonstrative, and – because of all of the above – most divisive men’s basketball coach, one walks away from that assignment feeling like that piece of paper: worn out.

But it’s also impossible not to see Dan Hurley.

For the record, his first F-bomb came at the 55-second mark. Not 55 seconds left–55 seconds In game. Then his attention fell on a member of the three-man officiating crew – it’s worth noting here that Hurley had made headlines a week earlier for “head-butting” a referee at the end of UConn’s Elite Eight win. ruler – and asked very loudly, “What was that?!”

From there, it appeared Hurley slowly started talking with officers. The initial focus was on Ron Grover, who worked four UConn games during the regular season – and three of those were among the team’s five losses. Hurley’s first real statement was toward Gruver, causing controversy over his team’s first foul of the game. Grover asked him to remain calm. Hurley continued. Gruver glanced at him. Hurley continued. Gruver turned to her. Hurley raised his hands in surrender and said, “Yeah, I know. Calm down.” And both of them laughed.

The two-handed “Calm down” is a theme when it comes to Hurley and those charged with keeping him in line. He screams. They give him hand signals. He calmed down. For a moment, anyway.

As the officials rotated to their natural positions and took turns stepping up to the station directly in front of the UConn bench, the Huskies coach focused his attention on each of them.

To Marques Pettigrew: “Are you kidding me, Marquess? That’s what we’re calling it now?”

Calm down.

As for Paul Szelak, the official who looks like he might be Gruver’s twin brother and who pulled up Hurley’s pant leg to let him know he crossed the midcourt line and was in Illinois territory. “Come on, Paul. I know where the line is!” Calm down. Then looking down at her feet. “Oh, s—. Okay. Yes, there it is.”

But check out the twist in this plot. For every “peace” he received from officials, the coach distributed at least five times as many of them to his team. Coming out of timeout, he’s caught off guard solo ballGave him a push signal with two hands and said, “Calm down. This is your shot.” The ball immediately stroked a 3-pointer. Determined to beat Illinois in an old-school half-court game, Hurley gave the “Calm down” signal whenever a scrimmage began and the temptation to pace a game plan — the one on that stool — rather than finish it off as planned grew.

“I think people see clips on the Internet all the time and think it’s all crazy,” the UConn forward explained. alex karbanWhich pointed to a moment late in the first half where he got the two-handed signal and immediately — and yes, calmly — knocked down his own 3. “But he does a great job of keeping us in the moment. Run our plays and play our game.”

Hurley’s sideline game during UConn’s outing can also be broken down into plays: a one-sheet portfolio of go-to moves.

There’s The Thinker – straight out of Rodin, with chin on hand. Unlike the bronze sculpture however, Hurley usually has his mouth open, always ready to shout something.

There’s the Big Sniff, when he takes a breath in through his nasal cavity, and the Big Huff, when he exhales simultaneously through his mouth and nose like a Brahma bull, as he did in the closing minutes to start the media timeout. He did a full circle around his huddling team and followed Big Huff with an all-caps “F—!”

His use of The Force is a variation of his body language, as he attempts to impose his physical will on the basketball universe – especially when his team is crashing the boards in search of a defensive rebound. He subtly shakes and jerks his shoulders and face, accompanied by tiny bends of his knees, like Luke Skywalker trying to magically retrieve an object from across the room using only his body movements.

It’s very hot in there, when Coach pulls back his lips to expose his teeth as if he’s bitten a ghostly pepper. The arms are folded in front. Hands clasped behind the back. A two-thumb test of his belt loop. His hands were in his pockets with a look of disbelief. His hands were in his pockets and he shrugged at one of his players; Let’s call it “Really, friend?” Say. There’s also a hands-in-pocket hop.

And considering what we’ve recently learned about his penchant for the same threadbare Lucky Winning suit he wears to the sidelines in the name of superstition, that belt loop and pocket play feels like a flirtation with wardrobe malfunction disaster.

“Yeah,” Hurley admitted after the game, replacing his dress shirt with a Huskies T-shirt, “I’ll have to find a tailor here in Indianapolis.”

During an amazing stretch midway through the second half, Hurley managed to cram in two minutes of real time with 96 steps, a mini-jump, six one-finger points, a pair of two-handed cool-downs and a 30-second crouch next to his stool, during which he drank two cups of water and looked at the play sheet seven times. When he finally stood up, he did so with so much force that he nearly threw himself backward off the floor and into the sunken bench area.

“We all keep an eye on him from this high floor,” UConn freshman guard Braylon Mullins Said laughing.

Early in the second half, Mullins missed an ill-advised one-hander on the baseline. His coach reacted with an action we’d call the final straw: rubbing his bald head with two hands. Mullins, who scored 15 points but struggled from the field a few times during the second half, received the final straw. With 6:36 remaining in the contest, as Illinois had cut the Huskies’ lead to six points and the orange-clad crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium took over the energy, Mullins missed another ugly shot, followed by a UConn break that ended in a turnover, followed by a terrible miss by Ball.

And then the final straw’s hands moved from his head to drop the play sheet into the low area between his unused stool and the UConn bench. But just as the water cups kept near the stool were always magically filled and Hurley’s glasses always magically returned to the stool, so too did the sheet of paper return.

(Side note: About those glasses. They look like readers. And he’s 53, so the need for readers is understandable. But when he looked at the play sheet, he didn’t use glasses, and whenever he looked downcourt, he Did use glasses, but sometimes he does not use glasses to see far and sometimes he Did Use glasses to read the sheet, so…huh?)

He had to be stopped only once by his staff. It’s a good night for Hurley. It came with 12 minutes remaining, when the center Eric Riebe Checked in for UConn and immediately picked up his third foul on an illegal screen.

“How can this be possible right now?” Hurley yelled.

“Coach,” his staff and officials said, “calm down.”

The final 43 seconds were a combination of everything we saw from Hurley all night. A sniff. A snore. A strange shock. Hand. Warnings to his team to remain calm including “No fouls!” Was also included. Frequently. He, ahem, pointed at each one of them individually.

With 14.5 seconds remaining, the coach once again felt a slight tug on his lucky suit. The game ends just as it began. Conversations with Grover, who has quietly clung to the tail of Coach’s jacket to prevent him from wandering off again. Hurley overreacted but instead looked down at his feet and then back at the officer.

“Thank you, Ron.”

Theft by the Huskies ahead jaden ross As the clock ticked down the win was sealed and UConn’s third trip to the national title game in four years. Before the clock reached all zeros, Hurley was hugging Illinois coach Brad Underwood (who, for the record, used his stool a lot). Hurley then hugged every Illinois player and took time to make eye contact with each one of them.

Hurley strutted across the floor, waving to UConn fans, and paused from chewing his gum to stick his tongue out for the CBS cameras — wait, he had gum in his mouth this whole time?!

Finally, he grabbed Mullins and — wait for it — rubbed heads with him like he did with the refs after Mullins’ game-winner against Duke a week earlier. Thus the rebuke began. Lots of reproaches. And thus the smile began.

“Are they screaming head-butts?” Hurley asked, knowing full well that he was being broadcast live on the stadium’s big screen. “I don’t know what they’re yelling.”

Yes, he did. They were booing him. And after the TV cameras ended, he turned to the booing crowd, before running for a hug with his players’ parents sitting behind the bench.

What did he say? You know exactly what they said.

“Oh, calm down.”