INDIANAPOLIS – Dan Hurley let all of his emotions out before Monday night’s national championship game. He wore sunglasses to cover his tears walking through the team hotel and on the bus ride over to Lucas Oil Stadium, welling up with pride knowing his team was one of the last two standing.
By the time the game ended and his players shed their own tears back in the locker room at the realization of the loss to Michigan and the end of the season, he wasn’t feeling the sadness.
“Last year he was crying. This year he definitely didn’t cry and it just meant more,” said senior center Tarris Reed Jr. “Just the fight that we had to go out there and just to give it our all.”
Michigan had been a dominant team all season long. The Wolverines had the No. 1-ranked defense and No. 4 offense in the nation, they’d lost only three games all season and dominated worthy tournament opponents by an average of 21.6 points along their road to the title game. UConn held them to 69 points on Monday night, which was the third-fewest they’ve scored in a game all season, and never trailed by more than 11 before cutting the deficit to just four in the final minute.
“It’s a team I’ll never forget,” Hurley said. “Just grew to love them. Your heart breaks for them. Your heart breaks for how far the group came and what they were able to deliver for our fans, for the staff, for the students, for the state. Your heart breaks. But that’s the risk you’ve got to be willing to take. You’ve got to be willing to commit everything you have to your purpose or your passion or what you do, and when you have the highest of goals, sometimes you’re gonna have your heart broken. And it’s heartbreaking that we weren’t able to find a way there. Credit Michigan, they’re an excellent team and a worthy champion.”
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“I’ll take how we went out,” he said. “It was a soldier’s death and we all went out on our shield tonight.”
UConn finished the season with a 34-6 overall record, tying Jim Calhoun’s 1998-99 first national championship team with the second-highest win total in program history. It was the third 30-win season – and the third championship game appearance – in the last four years.
“If we would’ve went out in the Sweet 16 or something, with our inability to get the Big East hardware that we wanted, I think I’d be crying more and I’d be more emotionally disappointed and distraught,” Hurley said. “But we were able to validate our season by getting to the championship game and really making Michigan have to fight and earn it tonight. They hadn’t really had to fight that hard in an NCAA Tournament game here.”
Hurley came into Indianapolis saying the Huskies came for rings, not watches, which everyone in the program received once they got off the plane for reaching the Final Four.
“We didn’t come for second place, we didn’t come here for watches – I’ll accept my watch, it’s a nice watch too. It is, it’s a nice watch. I don’t want to diminish the value of the watch, but we came here to hang a banner, we came here to win a ring. The difference between what (Michigan) is gonna experience now and what we’re gonna experience now is night and day, and they’ve earned that. They deserve it. But (our) team couldn’t have given more. Our 2026 team is gonna be one that our fans are gonna remember for a long time just because of the ride that they gave them this time of year, especially,” Hurley said.
What will next season’s UConn men’s basketball roster look like?
“We’re gonna be in this position a lot,” he continued. “I’m not minimizing it, this is a heck of an accomplishment to be able to get here three out of four years, to be in the national championship game. I’m not that arrogant of a guy that’s gonna say, ‘Hey, we’ll see you here next year for the championship game.’ I mean, this thing’s hard. This is a hard, hard tournament. There’s some great teams that didn’t get to this last night. But just the culture and the commitment, I’m confident in the roster we’ll be able to put together and obviously now the portal’s open. I don’t know, did anyone go in yet?”
