{"id":26131,"date":"2026-04-04T01:14:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=26131"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:14:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:14:28","slug":"uconn-coach-dan-hurley-wont-shy-away-from-sideline-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=26131","title":{"rendered":"UConn coach Dan Hurley won&#8217;t shy away from sideline behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-meta\">\n<div class=\"byline-wrap\">\n<ul class=\"authors byline-authors\">\n<li class=\"single-author mugshot-shown\">\n<div class=\"author-img\"><\/div>\n<p>Myron Medcalf<span class=\"timestamp \">Apr 3, 2026, 01:10 PM ET<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"author-overlay\"><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Covers college basketball\n<\/li>\n<li> Joined ESPN.com in 2011\n<\/li>\n<li> Graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Multiple Authors<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>INDIANAPOLIS &#8212; Dan Hurley believes the backlash about his on-court behavior is fair.<\/p>\n<p>Just over 24 hours before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/team\/_\/id\/41\/uconn-huskies\">UConn<\/a>&#8216;s matchup against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/team\/_\/id\/356\/illinois-fighting-illini\">Illinois<\/a> in the Final Four, Hurley said he is not looking for any sympathy regarding the perception of his coaching style.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not a victim. I&#8217;ve done everything. I did what I did,&#8221; he said during his pregame news conference Friday. &#8220;We don&#8217;t allow victims in our program, and I&#8217;m not a 53-year-old man sitting up here like I&#8217;m some victim. I don&#8217;t want to waste a lot of time with it because it takes away from the team. But for me, the way I view what we&#8217;re going into, in the game, when some people, again, view it as a game, just my family, how I was raised in the sport, where I&#8217;m from in Jersey, we look at it more like a battle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>After <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5196916\/braylon-mullins\">Braylon Mullins<\/a> hit the game-winning 3-pointer over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/team\/_\/id\/150\/duke-blue-devils\">Duke<\/a> on Sunday night, Hurley went forehead-to-forehead with referee Roger Ayers in a bizarre move that could have led to a technical foul at a crucial moment. Hurley said he expected a chest bump from Ayers and was joking about the exchange again Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought it was fitting that they gave me that helmet, the race car helmet. I probably could have used it on Sunday night,&#8221; Hurley said about the commemorative racing helmet he received upon landing in Indianapolis this week. &#8220;Or that might have been bad.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hurley said he expects a &#8220;real war&#8221; with Illinois, a team UConn defeated 74-61 in Madison Square Garden in November. In that game, projected lottery pick <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5254165\/keaton-wagler\">Keaton Wagler<\/a> played a season-low 14 minutes. Hurley said Wagler has grown since that meeting and &#8220;obviously has the ball in his hands a lot more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As for his own growth as an emotional leader for his program, Hurley said he doesn&#8217;t plan to change.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My world and the world I think is the best world to live in is the real world, which is interacting with people, putting your phone down,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I get much more of a bad reaction from people, I think, on social media than when I meet regular people, because any time I meet regular people they look at me and they start laughing or they start smiling, or like, &#8216;You&#8217;re the guy from the video. You look a little crazy, but I think you&#8217;re a good egg.'&#8221;\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/story\/_\/id\/48386951\/uconn-coach-dan-hurley-shy-away-sideline-behavior\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Myron MedcalfApr 3, 2026, 01:10 PM ET Close Covers college basketball Joined ESPN.com in 2011 Graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato Multiple Authors INDIANAPOLIS &#8212; Dan Hurley believes the backlash about his on-court behavior is fair. Just over 24 hours before UConn&#8216;s matchup against Illinois in the Final Four, Hurley said he is not looking &#8230; <a title=\"UConn coach Dan Hurley won&#8217;t shy away from sideline behavior\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=26131\" aria-label=\"Read more about UConn coach Dan Hurley won&#8217;t shy away from sideline behavior\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/UConn-coach-Dan-Hurley-wont-shy-away-from-sideline-behavior.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26133,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26131\/revisions\/26133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}