Thump, thump, thump.

  Plus, the squeaks of their sneakers.

  It was the afternoon of January 23, 2025.

  Wearing a skully and shades, I approached them slowly, glaring, and told them to be careful.

  “Stay away from me,” I told them. “I’m a monster. I’M A TERRIBLE PERSON!”

  They all laughed. They agreed—terrible. “You’re terrible, Coach!”

  It broke the tension, I think.

  Now if I could just find a way to break the tension with the rest of the world.

  This was two days after our narrow win over Butler. The win was hard-fought, something to be proud of. We’d blown a fifteen-point lead, then barely survived in overtime. But no one cared about the win, no one was talking about the win. They were talking about me and another one of my viral moments.

  Throughout the whole game I’d consciously and deliberately been… what’s the word? Wired. For instance, I ran over to the scorer’s table and grabbed Aidan’s face with both hands and all but kissed him as he prepared to check in.

  I waved my arms frantically and pumped my fists, revving up the crowd.

  It was the old repertoire, a highlight reel. The Best of Hurley. With some new numbers thrown in.

  Alas, I did break my rule against yelling at individual players. I yelled at Jaylin Stewart pretty good for leaving Patrick McCaffery open on a three-pointer.

  And then I got into it with a ref.

  Got into it pretty good.

  At the start of a time-out I walked onto the court, arguing a call.

  The ref turned away.

  The disrespect. Man oh man, I saw spots.

  Some lip-readers on the internet thought I yelled at the ref’s back: “Don’t turn your back on me.” Others thought I yelled: “Don’t you big-time me.”

  Honestly, it could have been either one.

  No one had trouble reading my lips on the next line: “I’m the best coach in the fuckin’ sport!”

  Cringe.

  After the game I was informed that the Fox Sports 1 camera had caught me saying those words. To which I offered this meek explanation: “Well, it is a factual statement for now. Until someone else wins it all, right?”

  Right. Yeah.

  I knew the story had legs. Sure enough, within hours, my words were everywhere. Social media, SportsCenter, sportswriters, podcasters, they were making me Topic A.

  The world was calling for me to check myself. The world was telling me to take a long hard look in the mirror.

  “This guy needs to change,” people said. “This guy needs to drink a humility smoothie, right freaking now.”

  I reached out to my former agent, Jordan Bazant, who was now an executive at Fox Sports. He wouldn’t even take my calls because he knew I was calling to tell him to get the fucking camera off me.

  The morning after this outburst, the country’s most prominent sports broadcaster cut against the grain of popular opinion on his ESPN morning show, First Take. Stephen A. Smith offered a spirited defense of what I’d said—and who I was.

  “Dan Hurley, you are a bit out there. You are monstrous at times. You are… a bit demonstrative, to say the least. And I love it. Don’t you apologize for it one bit. You have a right to be who the hell you are. You are a champion. You are the best in college basketball.

  “You could look at what he said to the ref all you want to: ‘I’m the best.’ But what did he say first? ‘Don’t turn your back to me,’ because if it is Mike Krzyzewski, the late Dean Smith, Roy Williams, people like that, chances are you ain’t turning your back to them.

  “Damn it, that’s what makes you Dan Hurley. My brother, you do what you do. You’re the best in the business, baby.”

  * * *

  Can we maybe see about getting that etched onto my tombstone?

  Of course, I hoped that would be the final word on the subject.

  Ha.

  Soon after that, on ESPN’s College GameDay, Jay Williams, former Duke All-American and number-two overall pick in the NBA Draft, defended my right to say what I said, and Seth Greenberg jumped in, vouching for my authenticity and my players’ affection for me, and declared me an asset to the sport—but a couple of other analysts weren’t having it.

  Jay Bilas was critical of my sideline disposition and said he thought Seth was making an excuse for it.

  I respect Jay. But at the time he said that, our opponents had taken 432 free throws… to our 330. Over eight games, Big East opponents had taken sixty-seven more foul shots than us; Butler took twenty-eight, compared to our fourteen in our gym.

  Don’t get me wrong, Big East refs have a hard job and do it very well. The sight of them when I walked into an arena usually put me at ease. But our off-ball movement was critical to our success, and we were getting manhandled away from the ball—all the fucking time. And we weren’t getting any calls.

  Same story, every game. Every single game. And that was unsustainable.

  Yes, we definitely had a bad habit of fouling on dribble penetration. We made dumb mistakes, I can’t deny. But we also got held all game long, mauled while trying to run off screens, and it just had to stop. And if it was happening because people didn’t like me, then that was an even greater problem, not just for me but everyone who loved college basketball.

  And I needed to address it.

  I tried addressing it quietly. I told refs over and over: “Look, there’s not a program out there that’s won as much as we’ve won that gets treated the way we do.”

  And what did refs say to me when I pointed this out?

  They just looked at me.

  Which drove me insane.

  I guess the insanity reached a crescendo during that Butler game. And the crescendo then crescendoed when I saw the ref’s shoulder blades walking away.

  Once again, I’d made myself the lead actor in a surreal drama.

  Once again, my meme-magnet face was in the house.

  Mea culpa.

  * * *

  No one knew at the time, but there were other secret reasons for my Butler outburst.

  It wasn’t just the bad call, and it wasn’t just the ref turning his back. It wasn’t just my natural penchant for DEFCON 1 outbursts and over-the-top sound bites.

  That game against Butler came on the heels of our loss to Creighton, which snapped our twenty-eight-game home winning streak. On top of which, we were dealing with losing Liam to a high ankle sprain—for an undetermined amount of time. Our record stood at 14–5 overall, 10–2 since Maui, 6–2 in the Big East. Not bad, but definitely not great.

  We just weren’t great.

  We didn’t have the same level of offensive talent. We didn’t have a relentless defense. We were in desperate trouble, and I felt that I needed to figure it out. So I looked carefully over this hot mess of an early season, and I decided that our players… were too nice.

  Meaning, on the court. Off the court, they were delightful people, and everyone loved them for it, and I celebrated all of that. I watched them get mobbed in hotels and airports, I watched people get hearts in their eyes when our guys walked by, and I could tell this bunch resonated with fans in a very unusual way. Wonderful guys. We recruited a fine set of humans. High character, across the board. But during games I wanted less of that high character. You can’t win big things with all nice guys. You need killers. “Flip the switch,” I told them. “Get maniacal. Be ruthless.”

  Of course, Liam never needed to be told. If anything, he was too intense, too locked in, just like his coach. But now, with his nastiness sidelined by injury, the niceness of the other guys was a bigger factor.

  Bottom line: Nice equals soft. Somewhere along the way, we had lost our rock-hard edge, and that was a crucial part of our identity. Defense, rebounding, hallmarks of the program, had plummeted. And opponents were starting to notice—and take advantage. We had lost our aura of invincibility.

  Luke and Kimani are as good as anyone in the country at putting together defensive game plans. The problem wasn’t on paper. The problem was in the execution. Something had to change.

  So I decided to show these guys how nasty is done.

  Ever since Maui, I’d been mellower. Almost calm. Almost flatline. Making nice-nice with everyone, spraying sugar and rainbows everywhere I went. A walking Hallmark card.

  Fuck that, I decided before the Butler game. It’s time to dial it back up. This team needed my competitive fire and my raging intensity.

  I didn’t share any of this context with podcaster Adam Finkelstein when he interviewed me about the whole fiasco. I wasn’t ready to go that deep, that detailed. I was truthful with him: I said the media was trying to cancel me, and I couldn’t care less, because they’d canceled me so many times, I’d lost count.

  But I held back some of the added context.

  My only real concern over this Butler viral moment, I told him, was with regard to my colleagues. Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, Kansas’s Bill Self, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson—these guys really were the best. And now I had to face them, knowing they’d be thinking I held myself out as the best.

  That didn’t sit right. Those were conversations I was eager to have, apologies I was determined to make. Though I also threw up in my mouth a little when I anticipated them.

  “I pour every single part of myself into the job,” I told Adam. “My fans know that. There’s also a dark side… You can’t be a soft person coaching at a place like UConn.

  “If they don’t like me as a college coach, man, they’d hate my father.”

  * * *

  The next game up was Xavier. Late January.

  God, we needed a win so badly.

  If for no other reason than to get everyone out there to stop talking about me.

  We spent a ton of time breaking down tape on Xavier in our film room, the one with the twenty dark leather chairs in five rows of four. Arm rests, Husky logos—a true man cave, except for the serious fuckin’ business conducted there.

  One wall is decorated with giant painted inscriptions.

  Like: “Greatness fears no consequence.”

  And: “Your struggles become your strengths.”

  Another is painted with a quote from Muhammad Ali. “The fight is won or lost… behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road long before I dance under those lights.”

  Luke was running the scout sessions from the front of the room. He’d spent three years as a Xavier assistant, making him an especially knowledgeable lecturer.

  I sat in the back row, with Kimani and Tom.

  The lights were off, and Luke rolled the Xavier highlights. He pointed out that they were up-tempo, top twenty-five in terms of their pace. He extolled the virtues of Dailyn Swain, their six-foot-eight sophomore, an excellent cutter to the basket.

  Luke also pointed out a player who was uncomfortable off the dribble.

  Our defenders would need to chase him off his shots.

  Luke spoke about Xavier’s leading scorer, six-foot-nine senior Zach Freemantle, a really tough kid who’d battled through a lot of injuries. “Defend his jump hook,” Luke said, “force him into his nondominant hand.”

  “He’s a prick,” I blurted out.

  I meant it as the highest compliment. Much respect to pricks. I wanted our team to be more prickish.

  “If Freemantle senses you’re soft,” I announced, “he’ll take advantage. We have to be willing to fight him for every inch of the court.”

  Above all, we had to avoid a shoot-out with these guys. We were going to be in their building; their crowds could get very loud. If Xavier got a little momentum, if they went on a run, that place would be rocking and things would spiral quickly.

  “Install, quick,” I shouted, and everyone scurried out of the film room.

  The next step in our game prep was a walk-through. Then it was off to the arena for a long practice.

  Before starting practice, however, I needed to make some half-court shots. This was a routine, or ritual, that I started a couple of years prior, while waiting for practice to begin. I was just looking for something to do, something to get myself focused and amped.

  At first I told myself that I had to make one half-court shot on each basket before we could start practice.

  After we won it all in 2023, and after we set two straight titles as our singular goal, I told myself I needed to hit two in a row on each basket before we could start.

  After we won it all again in 2024, I made a rule that I had to hit three before we could start.

  So I had to get down there pretty early. This could take a while. And loads of concentration.

  Players would often be nearby, doing their stretching and warming up while I was heaving these bombs. So there was a method to my madness. I wanted them to see me trying, to see me getting frustrated on every miss.

  I wanted them to see how hard Coach was competing against himself. Over nothing.

  Because there’s no such thing as nothing.

  It got them into the right frame of mind, I thought.

  When I finally did hit my half-court shots, we’d all cheer and then get rolling.

  At the arena, as always, our routine was tightly scripted and unvarying. Six minutes of partner shooting, four minutes of shooting groups, eight minutes of defensive warm-ups, five minutes of skill work, twelve minutes of offensive breakdown, fifteen minutes of half-court execution.

  If everyone in America prepared for their jobs, whatever their jobs might be, with the sort of organization and determination that high-level athletes bring to their game, the world would be a far better place. Masters mastering their craft.

  A sight I never grow tired of.

  I put myself in the middle of practice. I wanted the kids to feel my energy and presence. I stood at the top of the key, where they couldn’t avoid me. And I didn’t tolerate one single second being wasted. We have a mindset that if the practices are easy, the games are going to be hard—but if the practices are hard, the games will be easier.

  I also wanted them to feel the morality of this sort of practice. This is what it is to care. This is what it means to be conscious and conscientious. To work hard, to dig deep.

  Alex would often call it a two-hour roller coaster. Fair enough. I knew what he meant. But if real roller coasters were like this, Disneyland would be out of business before the end of the month.

  I yelled a lot of words at the kids, as always. But if there was one word I yelled more than any other it was this:

  “Brutal!”

  I said it over and over.

  What I meant was, That mistake was brutal!

  This practice is going to be brutal!

  Being great is brutal!

  I made them run the stairs several times that day, pre-Xavier.

  I shouted profanities at them while they ran, then joked with them.

  I said we never had to try this hard to coach the guys on my championship teams.

  “You’re so soft,” I shouted. “Aaagh. Sooooooft.”

  I told them to start yelling at each other, show their frustrations with teammates.

  On cue, Hassan screamed at Tarris Reed Jr. for being in the wrong spot.

  I praised him for it. “Yes! Get on each other.”

  Hassan’s teammates applauded.

  “Accountability!” I shouted. “Yes.”

  At some point in the middle of all this yelling, and joking, and coaching, I just lay down on the floor.

  I needed to contemplate life. Or a certain play.

  And say a prayer.

  Dear God, please let these kids start playing better.

  I wanted the kids to know that I had an on-off switch.

  That I had a softer side.

  Also, that I’m crazier than they are.

  On this day, of all days, Tarris, our six-foot-ten transfer from Michigan, decided to turn away from me while I was barking instructions. Had he learned nothing from my run-in with the ref in the Butler game?

  “Hey Tarris,” I shouted. “Do I like talking to people with their backs turned to me?”

  He quickly spun around. “No sir.”

  I looked at his teammates. “You guys should know by now I don’t like talking to people who turn their backs on me.”

  I was hot. But it got a big laugh.

  Then we went back to work—and thereafter we did look crisper.

  I started to feel pretty damn good about our chances against Xavier.

  * * *

  And then Xavier escaped with a typical hard-fought Big East win.

  Thanks to some dreadful defense, and bad offensive execution down the stretch, we lost a conference road game—the kind of loss that feels like two losses in one because road wins are so hard to get.

  Starting ninety minutes before the game and continuing until after it was over, students in the Cintas Center crowd were delirious and chanting, “Fuck Dan Hurley.”

  I’m told they were chanting the same thing at bars around campus.

  * * *

  The atmosphere at Cintas was always like a UFC Octagon. Which I loved. I always enjoyed that baying-for-blood atmosphere. I respected it. I think sports needs more of it.

  Emotion? The more the better. Hate? Bring it. I get chills whenever I see fans go full beast mode. That type of passion, vitriol, élan—I’ve got my thesaurus open now—it’s what the arena is for.

  It all hearkens back to the Roman Colosseum, and I’m always going to be part gladiator.

  Are you not ENTERTAINED?

  On a podcast with Jack Curry I mentioned that, after attending some of Arturo Gotti’s boxing matches, I was jealous of never being announced before a game: “Fighting out of Jersey City!” So the whole evening at Cintas would’ve been perfectly normal, and even entertaining, if only the final score had been different.

  But at least the reason wasn’t lack of effort.

  Right before tip-off, I’d warned my players that they wouldn’t be allowed on the postgame bus if they didn’t show up in “savage warrior mode.”

  Well, they were warriors. And we lost anyway.

  I could live with that. I can always live with that.

 

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