Seven months to the day after losing the national championship in Indianapolis, UConn head coach Dan Hurley attempted to exact revenge. But his will to win boiled over in a hilarious moment against No. 16 Michigan.
With 4:54 left in the first half, UConn freshman Colben Landrew was called for a hook and hold foul under the basket. Hurley sat down in his chair with both hands on his head staring at TD Garden’s well-decorated rafters in disbelief.
Then came a whistle for a UConn bench technical foul – which is normally due to the head coach’s bluster. Enraged, Hurley was seen screaming at all three officials on the broadcast asking, ‘What did I do?’
It wasn’t until referee Brian Dorsey came over that Hurley got his answer: the foul wasn’t on him, it was on assistant coach Mike Nardi. With a glare and a grimace, Hurley pointed a crooked finger at his assistant before play resumed.
Addressing the moment after the game, when asked by the Daily Mail, Hurley put his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes: ‘This is the s*** … It was the boy who cried wolf, and I have no credibility because of my past behavior so no one’s gonna back me on this, but that technical was on Mike Nardi.
‘I don’t want to be a rat, like the last thing I want to be is a rat, but that wasn’t my technical. That was Nardi’s. Nardi threw his papers and he had to scout. I just sat back in the chair and just looked up into the sky. I didn’t do anything.’
A win in Boston wouldn’t have healed the wound of UConn’s first ever loss in a national championship game. But with a unit deemed fourth-best in the country in the preseason, the Huskies dominated in an 85-77 redemption win.
UConn coach Dan Hurley blew up at the officials in Boston after a technical foul was called
Hurley demanded to know what he did to deserve a call, only to find out his assistant coach Mike Nardi was the one who got in trouble
With a grimace, Hurley pointed down his bench to the coach in a hilarious moment
Huskies hero Braylon Mullins led scoring with 23 points while two-way star Silas Demary Jr nabbed 21 points and a team-high four assists.
This past summer brought monumental changes for both teams, but one was much more affected than the other. Despite losing all-time great Alex Karaban and monstrous center Tarris Reed – both of whom were picked in the first round of the NBA Draft – UConn was able to find suitable replacements.
The early signs from both are promising. Reed’s replacement is sophomore Na’Jai Hines, who was swiped from Big East rival Seton Hall and already has matched the now-Spurs star’s physicality.
While it’d be a near-impossible ask to succeed Karaban as a leader, the Huskies found a near like-for-like scorer and rebounder. His name is Nik Khamenia, and last year, he played for Duke. Khamenia was on the bench when his now-teammate Mullins capped off a 19-point comeback with one of the sport’s greatest buzzer-beaters to upset the Blue Devils and reach the Final Four.
Those were the major changes for the Huskies. But they could take solace in knowing that Michigan had much more significant turnover.
Stars Yaxel Lendeborg, Aday Mara and Morez Johnson Jr all went to the NBA Draft. Lendeborg in particular has already made the transition to the next level a breeze and appears to be a front-runner for NBA Rookie of the Year.
Some players returned – notably Trey McKenny, Roddy Gayle and Final Four Most Outstanding Player Elliot Cadeau. For size replacements, they snagged Cincinnati’s Moustapha Thiam and Tennessee’s JP Estrella.
But there’s one piece that couldn’t be replaced this offseason: head coach Dusty May. Only months after conquering college basketball, May fled Ann Arbor for the NBA and joined the Dallas Mavericks.
The April title game saw the Huskies get out-sized by a physically stronger Michigan team
But the Wolverines lost key contributors Aday Mara (L) and Yaxel Lendeborg (R) to the NBA
But the biggest departure was coach Dusty May, who left for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks
Assistant coach Mike Boynton, who previously helmed Oklahoma State, was initially named the interim before being handed a two-year contract.
The Huskies arrived on Causeway Street with revenge on the mind and carrying a distinct crowd advantage. While pouring rain and horrible construction on Interstate 90 may have tried its hardest to keep fans away, the building was a sellout and the crowd – conservatively – was a 90/10 UConn split.
From the tip, the feisty nature of a revenge game took over. When UConn guard Silas Demary Jr put back a tough layup at the 8:34 mark in the first half, Hurley roared at the crowd in approval.
In a half where the officials called an inexcusable 23 fouls, three technicals were assessed. The first two were matching between Cadeau and UConn’s Jayden Ross, but the third led to the aforementioned Hurley tirade.
His anger carried over into the crowd, who rose up in one Husky voice to throw free throw shooters Quinn Costello and Estrella off their game – missing three of four shots from the charity stripe.
Connecticut closed the half on a 9-0 run – with a clutch pull-up triple from Landrew making it a 43-30 game at the pause.
UConn’s Nik Khamenia (L) chest-bumps teammate Braylon Mullins (R) during the victory
UConn freshman Colben Landrew drives to the basket, scoring two of his 14 points
Much of that first-half offense came from Demary. The Big East Preseason Player of the Year took 14 shots in the first 20 minutes to put up 17 points. It’s a stark jump from the 7.2 shots a game he averaged the season prior. He would finish the night with 17 shot attempts, the most he’s had in a Husky uniform.
‘I feel like coach has told me, be an All-American point guard,’ Demary said when asked by the Daily Mail about his shot volume. ‘So that’s being able to go out there and run the offense. If it’s time to score, score. If it’s time to get guys involved, that’s what I’m gonna do. I feel like [Hurley] and the staff has helped me grow with that every day.’
The Huskies managed to keep pace in the second half through free throws, but went on a 6:41 field goal drought before Hines threw down an emphatic put-back dunk.
With an already sizable lead, UConn continued to maintain their advantage all the way until the final horn sounded. That’s mostly thanks to the Huskies hitting an eye-bulging 30-of-36 free throws on a night where the teams combined for 59 attempts at the line and 48 fouls committed.
But with the night over, Hurley took relief in the victory ahead of arguably the toughest non-conference schedule in the game.
‘I just think there was an enormous amount of pressure on us to win this game tonight,’ he told reporters. ‘Not because of what happened in April – there’s no getbacks on that – just with what we got coming up on our schedule, we really needed to win this game today.’
