Dan Hurley would love to see UConn men play at White House

STORRS – Does Dan Hurley come across as somebody who is into fighting?

That was a rhetorical question.

The UConn men’s basketball coach remembers growing up in the 1970s and 80s and watching the iconic boxers like Alexis Arguello, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, Roberto Duran and Mike Tyson. A Jersey City native, he would go to Atlantic City in his 20s and into his 30s with his dad, Hall of Famer Bob Hurley Sr., and his brother, Bobby. There, they saw Floyd Mayweather Jr. knock out Arturo Gatti for the WBC super lightweight championship in 2005. He’s long been a fan of the UFC, too, and has been to eight or 10 live events, mostly at Madison Square Garden, the Barclays Center or the Prudential Center – where he’s had plenty of his own battles over the years.

Hurley added the White House lawn to his list on Sunday night when he was in attendance for the one-of-a-kind UFC 250 event.

“That was an amazing card of fights, literally the best fights you’ll ever see. None of the fights went to the scorecards, so every fight was an absolute banger,” he said Thursday. “I love the fights, I love America. So it was a cool thing being at the White House.”

At some point during his time in the nation’s capital, Hurley was approached by a TMZ reporter and asked about bringing college basketball to the White House lawn.

“That would be good, man, I think UConn should definitely be in it. UConn-Duke. That’d be pretty cool,” he said.

While there is no UConn-Duke game scheduled to take place at the White House (it will be in Las Vegas on Nov. 25), the Huskies’ coach said Thursday that he would love to play in a similar atmosphere.

Hurley has made at least three trips to the White House in the last four years, having celebrated back-to-back national championships with former President Joe Biden.

“I would love to play (at the White House). As a basketball fan, watching some of those college games get played on aircraft carriers and military bases, those things were cool as hell. If there’s a way to get a court there to create that atmosphere that I saw at the fights – I mean, that atmosphere was amazing,” he said.

UConn actually played Michigan State in the first-ever Armed Forces Classic in 2012, which was hosted at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The UConn women were meant to play there in 2025 before the event was relocated to the U.S. Naval Academy.

“It was amazing to be at a sporting event surrounded by service men and women, first responders, people in sports, people in business, people in politics. I mean, it was an incredible setting,” Hurley said. “So if we could ever play a game in that type of setting, sign me up.”

‘Get used to the Spartan lifestyle’

UConn is in the middle of its first four-week summer session. So far, for a team with nine new players (and counting), the focus has been on adjusting to the style of practices Hurley and his staff like to run.

“The biggest thing you’re trying to get across now is how to practice, get used to the workload, get used to the Spartan lifestyle here in the summer in particular. There’s not a lot of people here, Storrs isn’t a crowded place this time of year, so it’s a real Spartan lifestyle here,” Hurley said.

“Monday to Saturday, just put in so much time, get used to the pace of practice, the intensity, the extra work. With the new staff member, Coach (Mike) Pegues, with the new strength coach, JMac (Justin McClelland), and the new players, it’s just getting everybody up to speed. The summer is a big time to improve, but just get used to the workload for a UConn player, just how hard we work, how intense it is every day for us,” he said. “Coming into this building, your mindset should be that there’s three (seconds) on the shot clock. There should be like an urgency to improve, get better as a group and individually.”

So far, Hurley knows he has a talented group that can shoot the ball.

“We’re not spending a ton of time on defense in the summer, because we’re going to overwhelm them with that in September,” he said. “Summer, it’s learn our system on offense, learn the terminologies, get used to how we practice and then learn how to carry the workload. Those are the big things we try to get accomplished.”

Why Hurley tabbed Pegues as new assistant

It was a long process, as expected, but Hurley finally found an experienced assistant to fill the assistant coach position previously held by Luke Murray, who departed for the head coach position at Boston College.

Mike Pegues, who coached with Murray at Louisville and Xavier, and spent the last four years at Butler, was announced as the Huskies’ newest assistant on June 8.

“With big decisions like that, I take the maximum amount of time. I really look at it from every angle and I really let it settle before I bring anybody into the circle. It’s so important that the men we bring into the circle fit the criteria and that when they get in the circle, everyone looks at each other and says like, ‘that man belongs in the UConn circle,’” Hurley said.

“As I’ve been coming up through the business, Mike’s had a great reputation in the coaching ranks. His actual profile at the time that we hired him is similar to some other profiles of coaches I’ve hired that have come in very highly motivated and have been great for me both here and at Rhody,” he continued. “And then we got three sophomore big guys that are very talented but need to get brought up to speed, need a lot of development, and Mike’s considered an excellent front court coach.”