Analyst Seth Davis makes his feelings known on Dan Hurley's on-court antics amid controversy
The UConn Huskies, coached by Dan Hurley, were unsuccessful in their pursuit of a three-peat. On Sunday, they lost to the top-seeded Florida Gators by just a tight two-point deficit, 77-75, in the second round of this year's March Madness and are now officially eliminated from the competition.
Hurley has since gone viral for his off-court antics where he took shots at the officials as he was walking back to the locker rooms for their alleged questionable refereeing. For college basketball analyst Seth Davis, this shows the kind of intensity the tenured tactician has but is something he'll need to work on, as he explained on the Rich Eisen Show on Tuesday.
"I love his vulnerability. I love his authenticity. You saw him getting emotional. Those players wouldn't play for him the away they do if he made it all about him."
Although Davis fully acknowledges that is really how Hurley is, there is a flip side to it that causes trouble for him.
"BUT, there is definitely another side to that coin. We can say it's part of what makes him great. When you walk off the court and you're saying to Baylor, 'I hope they don't screw you like they screwed us,'" he explained. (2:03)
Davis then went on to talk about how disrespectful it was for Dan Hurley to make a statement like that, where he asked Baylor to be careful about the officiating during its game against Duke.
"What you're saying is that Florida didn't deserve to win," Davis said. "That's not respecting your opponent, and that's not respecting the game. Dan has a regrettable tendency to fall into that when he gets frustrated. It's part of what makes him great, but stuff like that you can't defend. So, I don't like the way he treats referees a lot of times.
"He won two national championships and so the only thing better than not having Dan Hurley as your coach is having him as your coach cause he's gonna win. ... He's no phony," Davis concluded.
After winning the past two national championships, Hurley and the Huskies couldn't get the three-peat they were aiming for, which hasn't been done since the 1960's by the UCLA Bruins. They finish the 2024-2025 season with a 24-11 overall record.
Seth Davis had second thoughts about Dan Hurley's three-peat chances
Before he laid out his sentiments regarding Dan Hurley and the things he was saying after the tough loss to the Florida Gators, Seth Davis asserted that the 52-year-old still did a great job with the team despite the starters they lost from their championship seasons.
"I think he did a really, really good job with this team," Davis said, "This notion that they were going to win three in a row, I never bought into it because they lost four starters.
"I think I started off in the preseason, in my first AP poll, maybe had them 10th. But, I think they may have second or third in the polls. I was always like, 'Let's wait and see but 10th is still pretty high.'"
Although he later shared that he could see them going on a deeper run than they did, Davis still discussed how there were a lot of things out of Dan Hurley's control that led to their demise, such as the injury to freshman standout Liam McNeeley back in January.