UConn's 75-60 win over Purdue in the national championship game on Monday gave Huskies coach Dan Hurley something new in common with his big brother. Bobby Hurley was the starting point guard for Duke's national titles in 1991 and 1992, meaning the Hurley brothers have each accomplished the rare feat of winning back-to-back titles.
"It's incredible to join Bob in that club," Dan Hurley said after the No. 1 overall seed Huskies closed out the No. 1 seed Boilermakers.
Now the coach at Arizona State, Bobby Hurley is uniquely equipped to evaluate his brother's historic run with the perspective of a present-day coach who has the background of experiencing a back-to-back run as a player.
Bobby Hurley praised his brother for the way he "excelled" in identifying what roster additions he needed to make, likening freshman wing Stephon Castle's role to the utilitarian role played by Andre Jackson for the Huskies in the 2022-23 season. Former Rutgers guard Cam Spencer also proved to be a valuable transfer addition following the departure of 3-point marksman Jordan Hawkins.
"The kid Spencer is an elite shooter and moves without the basketball," Bobby Hurley said. "So he brings a different dimension to their team. I think it was A+ in roster construction and what he was able to put together considering what he lost to graduation and to the NBA."
The Huskies are the first team to repeat as the title winners since Florida in 2006 and 2007. Only UConn, Florida and Duke have won back-to-back titles since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. But Dan Hurley believes UConn stands out from its repeating peers because of how its roster changed between the titles. With Jackson, Hawkins and 2023 Final Four Most Outstanding Player Adama Sanogo all departed, the Huskies had more to replace than 1992 Duke or 2007 Florida.
"I think it's maybe up there in terms of greatest two-year runs a team has maybe ever had," Dan Hurley said "I can't say anything about Duke, because that would piss my brother off. But I guess I could say stuff about Florida. But I love Billy Donovan. So I'm in a bad spot. I just think it's the best two-year run in a very, very long time, just because of everything we lost from last year's team. To lose that much and to do what we did again, it's got to be an impressive a two-year run as a program since prior to whoever did it before Duke. To me, it is more impressive than what Florida and Duke did, because they brought back their entire teams. And we lost some major players."
UConn's run also stands out for its sheer dominance. Duke's back-to-back titles with Bobby Hurley at point guard came with more dramatic NCAA Tournament moments than UConn's run, which is marked by 12 straight double-digit victories.
"They haven't even allowed a team to get close, which is scary, because in both of my championships there were games that we could have lost in each of those seasons and each of those tournaments," Bobby Hurley said. "Whether it's (Christian) Laettner hitting a game-winning shot or making some clutch plays down the stretch to beat UNLV in the Final Four, there was always a really close game that we had to win. UConn has been so dominant that they haven't even had that in two years. So it's been scary how good they've been."
Among the repeat title-winning coaches are names like Billy Donovan, Mike Krzyzewski, John Wooden and Adolph Rupp. Dan Hurley is now among them. His brother is among a somewhat larger but still scant group of players who have repeated. Amid another triumphant moment for the Hurley family, Dan was quick to credit his father, Bob Hurley Sr. The elder Hurley was the high school boys basketball coach at St. Anthony in Jersey City, New Jersey from 1972 to 2017 and is in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The legacy of the patriarch's storied coaching career now lives on at college basketball's highest level, where his sons made history as repeat title winners in their own unique ways more than three decades apart.
"Even after back-to-back for me, I'm still just a worse version of him," Dan Hurley said of his dad. "A little bit worse. I'm getting better, and I'm coming for him."
