Dan Hurley must change. There's no better time with UConn out of March Madness spotlight

RALEIGH, N.C. – The hard part for Dan Hurley isn’t going to be the quiet flight home to Connecticut, or the anger that’s going to boil once again when he watches the film sees this call or that call that the referees missed or even saying goodbye to more pieces of the 24-month magic carpet ride that has now become a memory.

Those are normal things that every college basketball coach goes through nearly every year. In this NCAA men's tournament, it ends sadly for 67 teams and 67 coaches. Only one goes home happy. The rest are usually drenched in tears.

But as Hurley ponders how to reset UConn’s program after second-round defeat Sunday to No. 1 seed Florida – an honorable, oh-so-close 77-75 loss that will fill him with a little bit of anger and plenty of regret in the coming days – he must face the difficult question that will define the next chapter of his career.

Can Hurley get rid of the worst parts of himself without losing the parts that make him great?

Connecticut coach Dan Hurley reacts after a play against Florida during the second round of the NCAA men's tournament at Lenovo Center.

Because very quickly after the Florida game Sunday, the story wasn’t how UConn bravely fought a much better team and nearly pulled off what would have been the most impressive coaching performance of Hurley’s career. It isn’t the genuine tears that he shed on national television and then again in a press conference when he talked about what it meant to coach players like Alex Karaban and Hassan Diarra who have played their last college game. It wasn’t even his sportsmanship, tipping the cap to Florida guard Walter Clayton for making a pair of NBA-level threes with hands in his face to turn the game in the final three minutes.

No, instead, the story is going to be a video clip of Hurley as he walked to the locker room, microphones capturing these words as Baylor waited in the tunnel to take the floor for the next game against Duke: “I hope they don’t (expletive) you like they (expletive) us. I hope they don’t do that to you, Baylor.”

And just like that, because we live in the world we’re in and Hurley is who he is, that’s what will explode on social media and lead the sports debate shows Monday morning. That’s what will grab the headlines. That’s what will continue to paint Hurley as a rage-a-holic who can’t control himself even though he knows there is a cost every time one of these things blows up.

“The run we’ve been on – you know, if it wasn’t for all of my antics and viral moments, obviously there would be more focus on just what we’ve accomplished as a program the last three years,” he said Friday night after UConn beat Oklahoma.

It sounded like a confession. It seemed like regret.

And then, fewer than 48 hours later, here we go again.

Look, it’s a difficult discussion. There is no version of Hurley that isn’t going to run hot when he’s on the sideline, all hopped up on adrenaline, putting every ounce of energy and emotion into the battle at hand. He is also a highly successful, 52-year old man with psychological trauma that he has – much to his great credit – talked about publicly many times.

He’s going to deal with stress the way he deals with it, and it’s probably not going to change a whole lot at this point. Maybe it shouldn’t change. How he acts is part of who he is, and who he is accounts for a lot of what makes him great.

“We’re a passionate program,” he said Sunday. “The players play with it. I coach with it. You’re always (expletive) drained when it’s over.”

But does Hurley really want to live like this, coaching from one temper tantrum to the next until he inevitably does something more self-destructive than a few days of embarrassment on X?

The sad part is, Hurley isn’t the caricature that social media often makes him out to be. The reason he’s gotten to this point in his career is that he’s incredibly smart and he deeply, deeply cares about what he’s doing and the people around him. People tolerate all the other stuff because, in the end, they know he’s one of the good guys.

The last few months, though, have seemed to be a months-long, public cry for help. From the beginning of the season when he completely lost it with the referees multiple times in Maui to the infamous clip of him telling an official “Don’t turn your back on me; I’m the best coach in the (expletive) sport” to Sunday night when his ego couldn’t handle losing to a better team so his defense mechanism was to blame a questionable call here or there.

That’s not healthy. That’s not right. And you can tell deep down that Hurley knows he needs to change – if he can – before he goes down the Bobby Knight path of self-destruction.

“There's a lot of rewiring and things I've got to do in the offseason because you just get caught up in this tidal wave of success that we've had,” he said. “You lose perspective. You struggle with the ego at times because you've been on this incredible run.

“It will be nice to get to a normal offseason and just get back to myself as a coach and not have to throw out first pitches. You should only be ringing stock market bells and throwing out first pitches when you win the major championship. I won't have to do things like that. I'll be able to just focus on the upcoming season and make better decisions with all aspects of coaching.”

You don’t have to read between the lines to know exactly what he’s talking about.

The complex part is that it’s great for the sport to have coaches like Hurley who are forces of nature, who have undeniable swagger, who show emotion and say what they think. That species barely exists anymore.

But you can tell it hurts on some level to be constantly talking about and thinking about his behavior because it’s so egregious and overwhelming and out of control that people watching these games can’t help but talk about it.

It won’t be easy, but there’s no doubt Hurley can overcome this if he wants to.

For years, he lived in his older brother Bobby’s shadow as a player, and it wrecked him. He toiled much longer than he should have coaching high school basketball, wondering why colleges wouldn’t give him a bigger stage. And even at UConn, he had to remain steadfast in his belief about where the program was going despite four pretty difficult years before it all came together.

If Hurley can conquer all that, he can find the right balance between being himself and steering clear of these unflattering moments that make him look like a maniac. Now that UConn’s championship run is over, there’s never been a better time to start.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UConn coach Dan Hurley must change. With spotlight off, now is time

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