College Hoops Today

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WEEKEND BRUNCH: Should Dan Hurley stay at UConn or leave for the Lakers?

Dan Hurley is part basketball coach, part psychiatrist, and part podcast host.

He’s a unique blend that can coach against anybody, motivate anybody, and also display personality elements that would make many chuckle if he was part of a morning radio show.

He’s also single handedly owned college basketball over the last two seasons, leading UConn to back-to-back national titles in dominant fashion, with an average margin of victory of 21.7 points in 12 NCAA Tournament games during that span.

But will the allure of winning a third straight national title — something that hasn’t been done since John Wooden did at UCLA from 1971-73 — be enough to keep Hurley from leaving Storrs and becoming the next head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers?

As ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Thursday, the Lakers are now targeting Hurley to be their next head coach and plan to aggressively pursue his services in the next few days, starting with a face-to-face meeting today.

You can’t fault Hurley if he takes the job.

He’s resurrected the Huskies’ program over the past two seasons and has restored UConn’s brand to the place that it was during its prime years under Jim Calhoun.

Hurley has always been intrigued by the NBA and anyone in basketball will tell you that if the Lakers, Celtics, or Knicks come after you, it’s time to say goodbye to your present employer.

Hurley though, is different.

14 years ago, he was a high school coach at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark and parlayed that gig into his first Division 1 coaching job at Wagner. After taking over a six-win team on Staten Island, Hurley won 25 games two years later before being courted by Rhode Island in 2012. He then did yeoman’s work with the Rams, winning a pair of NCAA Tournament games in 2017 and 2018 before ultimately accepting the UConn job.

Being offered the chance to be the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers is the opportunity of a lifetime for any coach and the landscape now in college basketball has never been more volatile. It’s a big reason why Jay Wright, Roy Williams, and Mike Krzyewski opted for peace of mind over a practice plan and an NIL meeting.

But NBA head coaches are essentially hired to be fired.

For every Pat Riley or Phil Jackson, there’s a dozen former head coaches who have come and gone, sometimes after a season or two or three.

All of them have lifetime financial security, which is what Hurley would have if he took the Lakers job and while he’ll be able to come back to college basketball in a second if he wanted to and get his pick of jobs, there’s no guarantee that he’ll ever be able to get the UConn job back in its current state, fresh off winning back-to-back national titles in one of the most dominant two-year runs in the history of college basketball.

Wright said many times when he was offered an NBA job that “he would love to take the job, but he didn’t want to leave Villanova to take the job”.

That’s the decision that’s ultimately in front of Hurley over the next few days.

For a guy from Jersey City, a long-term contract and lucrative salary with the Lakers where the only focus is on basketball seems like a pretty sweet gig.

The thing is though, Hurley has a pretty sweet gig.

If he opts to become the next head coach of the Lakers and scratch his long-time NBA itch, the college basketball world should celebrate him and wish him well.

If he stays at UConn, he immediately becomes the new face of the sport, just like Wright and Krzyzewski were before him.

There’s no guarantee though, that a head coaching position in the NBA — even if he wins multiple titles — would give him the same type of fame, reverence, and player relationships that he’s currently experiencing with the Huskies.

It also wouldn’t allow him to have a chance to pursue what Krzyzewski — who won back-to-back national titles at Duke in 1991 and 1992 — and Billy Donovan — who won back-to-back national titles at Florida in 2006 and 2007 — were unable to do; win a third consecutive national title.

Is that worth bypassing the chance to coach the Los Angeles Lakers?

We’ll find out soon.

On The Side

  • Eight Big 12 teams — Kansas, Houston, Baylor, Iowa State, Arizona, Cincinnati, Texas Tech, and BYU — are currently ranked in the Top 36 of the ROTHSTEIN 45.
  • Tennessee and Louisville will start a home-and-home series next season at the KFC Yum Center. There will be a return game in Knoxville in 2025-26.
  • College Hoops Today reported earlier this week that Wichita State will be the fourth team in an early season tournament in Orlando along with Florida, Wake Forest, and Minnesota.
  • Oklahoma State’s Steve Lutz will be next week’s guest on the College Hoops Today Podcast.
  • Northwestern will take a foreign tour to Italy and Greece from Aug. 20-30.

Leftovers