UConn Coach Dan Hurley Brings His Wannabe Bob Knight Imitation To Indiana

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. This time, Dan Hurley only messed with the ears instead of the forehead of a referee. So that's progress, I guess, for the most explosive and successful coach in college basketball. Oh, Hurley is successful. After one of the worst Final Four games ever played - with both teams looking clueless Saturday night shooting from anywhere inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis - Hurley's Huskies were the least brutal offensively. They shot 35% from the floor to 34% for Illinois along the way to a 71-62 snoozer of a victory. Whatever. It gave UConn under Hurley a chance Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium against Michigan to win a third national championship in four years. To hear him tell it afterward to me and other reporters, he couldn't care less he is the most unpopular coach beyond his hometown fans in the sport these days. "Yeah, we're a tough program. We're a tough program," said Hurley, who was showered with boos from many among the packed house of 72,000 before, during and after his postgame interview on the court with CBS Sports sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson. With a puzzled look, Hurley said to Wolfson regarding the howling masses, "I don't know what they're booing." They were booing Hurley for being Hurley. "Again, for us it's not a game that we're just kind of running around in uniforms throwing the ball around, hoping it goes in," Hurley continued to tell us during his postgame comments. "That's not what we're doing out there. We're fighting. It's a life-and-death struggle for us to get to Monday night for the opportunity to win a championship, and then just to be able to prolong this season with each other and to make the people of Connecticut proud, to make the university proud and all the former great players." The highlight (or the lowlight) of Hurley's on-court theatrics - which usually have been generated during his 16-year college coaching career by officiating -- came midway through the first half. Which brings us to Hurley blistering the ears of a referee. Actually, this involved two referees. With UConn struggling to hold a 10-point lead at the time, Hurley disagreed with a charging call against one of his players. He screamed at one referee for a long stretch, and then he did the same with another. A section of the crowd chanted, "T him up. T him up." In contrast to protocal, Hurley never got the technical, but what else is new, especially for UConn down the stretch of this March Madness? According to Hurley, there was nothing to see here, you know, after he head-butted referee Roger Ayers last week near the end of the Huskies' miracle shot over Duke to push UConn into its current Final Four. Hurley told reporters of Ayers and the incident that went viral, "Thought he was coming over to chest-bump me." Ha, ha. Hey, hey. Yeah, right. If you go by Hurley, you can get away with a bunch of things when The USA Today says you're the third-highest paid coach in college basketball at $7.77 million per year, and when you're 5-0 in the Final Four and 18-3 in the NCAA Tournament overall during your eight seasons at UConn. Here are just some of Hurley's highlights (lowlights) during the past four seasons involving his exuberance in games. * Feb. 22, 2022: Hurley turned the UConn crowd into a cursing machine against the refs during a Villanova game after he received nearly back-to-back technicals, including one for enraging the crowd. * Nov. 25, 2024: At the Maui Invitational against Memphis, Hurley responded to an official's call he despised by falling to the floor. He received a technical, which stretched the foul shots for Memphis from two to four in what was a tie game, and then it sprinted toward a UConn loss. * Jan. 21, 2025: Just weeks after Hurley's Maui meltdown, he yelled at an official, with more than a few folks hearing his words, "Don't turn your back on me. I'm the best coach in the f -- sport." * March 23, 2025: Hurley fumed over the officiating after UConn's second-round loss in the NCAA Tournament to Florida. When he saw Baylor players and coaches waiting in the tunnel before heading to the court for their game, he went on a profanity filled rant caught by cameras everywhere. * March 7, 2026: Not only was Hurley ejected during the last game of the regular season against Marquette, but he was fined. He was upset with a non-call by the officials and brushed against one of them. Then came HeadbuttGate. While Hurley said what he said about the matter (see above), ESPN college basketball analyst Seth Greenberg spoke for Ayers. "I talked to him," Greenberg told SportsCenter, referring to Ayers. "He said, 'What are you talking about?' He literally didn't know what I was talking about. He said, 'Nothing happened.'" So are you going to believe Ayers through Greenberg or your lying eyes? This part of central Indiana often faced such choices through the late Robert Montgomery "Bobby" Knight, and he was the dictator of Indiana University basketball from 1971 through 2000. His reign happened in Bloomington, just an hour's drive south of Indianapolis, where I covered Knight's Hoosiers during the late 1970s for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Once, I saw Knight rush to the scorer's table during the middle of a home game to grab the Assembly Hall microphone. His Indiana team still was dribbling, but he screamed at the crowd anyway over the PA system for chanting an obscenity after what it perceived was awful officiating. Knight didn't call a timeout, but neither he nor Indiana nor was penalized. Beyond that moment, Knight did his share of blistering officials. He also grabbed players to get their attention and berated reporters on occasion. He even slid a chair across the court to protest a ref's call. But the same Knight who made 47 times less per year than Hurley ($163,118 during his last season at Indiana in 1999-2000) was the same Knight who never head-butted an official. Or whatever Hurley said he did. This is for sure: If UConn wins Monday night, Hurley will have three national championships.