PHILADELPHIA — Here were two coaches with a lot in common. Both are the sons of coaches, both are in command of blue blood men’s basketball programs, both bring the kind of persona fans of other teams love to hate.
Missing anything?
“… Hair?” Mick Cronin suggested.
Yes, that, too. Both Dan Hurley and Mick Cronin, who were to battle for survival in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Sunday night, are indeed bald. But they wear that, like their emotions, out front for all to see. Whether it’s getting after their players, which Hurley does more privately, or officials, which both do rather boldly, they are among the sport’s lightning rods. Cronin occasionally spars with reporters.
“It’s ridiculous,” Cronin said, of the heat they take. “Everybody needs to get a life, bro. Get a life, man. Come on, man. Get a life, bro. You want to win big? But you think Coach Hurley is not supposed to be intense, but you want to win? Come on, man. We’re not coaching Little League, buddy. Everybody doesn’t get an at-bat. Come on, man. Paying us a lot of money to win games.”
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Cronin, 54, has long been a UConn nemesis. “Do they still love me back there in Connecticut?” he wanted to know. He coached his alma mater, Cincinnati, from 2006-19, battling Jim Calhoun, Kevin Ollie and Hurley in the orginal Big East and the American Athletic Conference, the games often rock fights.
“Trying to get a rebound against them or to try to score against his teams at Cincinnati, I know firsthand just how much of a nightmare that was,” Hurley said, “and how they would beat you up physically.”
The jobs they have are among the toughest in all of sports. Hurley came to UConn in 2018 to rebuild after the first losing seasons in 30 years, taking on the program Jim Calhoun forged into a national power. He’s aced it, winning championships in 2023 and ‘24 and, taking a 30-5 record into Sunday night’s East Regional second round, getting a No. 2 seed by assembling a rugged nonconference schedule and winning five of six. Hurley, 52, has done what Cronin considers his best coaching job at UConn.
Cronin left a comfortable place at Cincinnati to sit where John Wooden once won seven championships in a row, 10 in 12 years, all of which happened in the much different world of the 1960s and 70s. Building that kind of program has long been impossible, and building anything resembling a “program” is almost impossible in this era of NIL and revenue sharing. Coach after coach has come and gone at UCLA since 1975, some having more than reasonable success, but none living up to the Wooden standard, so the Wizard of Westwood chair is perpetually hot.
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“At UCLA, it’s still there, but I read one of Coach Wooden’s books,” Cronin said. “I read them all, but one of them said, ‘it shouldn’t be a problem, only for one guy, the guy that followed him. For everybody else, they didn’t follow me. If they’re worried about that, they’re worrying about the wrong things.’ When I read that quote from him, it kind of helped. He became so philosophical after he retired. One of the best of all time, right? But the standard is real. It’s not for the faint of heart. But I wanted it. I left a place that I loved, my alma mater, for the chance to sit in a seat at UCLA. So it’s been everything I’ve dreamt it would be. Our recruiting advantages of weather, campus, tradition, Pauley Pavilion. We have an unbelievable practice facility, all went out the window when it came pay-for-play, but you have to keep fighting on.”
As UConn and UCLA fought to get out of Philly and on to the Sweet 16 in Washington next week, the memories were bountiful. The schools had met only once before, a memorable game in Oakland in the Elite 8 of 1995 in which UCLA overcame Ray Allen’s 36 points and the Huskies, 102-96, then went on to win their only championship of the half-century post-Wooden era.
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But UConn got the better of Cronin’s Cincinnati teams in the 2015 and ‘16 AAC Tournaments, the first on a game-winning basket by Ryan Boatright, the other a multi-OT affair in which Jalen Adams got off a game-tying shot from three-quarter shot, the ball inbounded with 0.8 seconds on the clock.
“No shot. No chance that was good,” Cronin said, when asked to relitigate. “At the end of the day, it didn’t matter. Conference tournaments are to line people’s pockets. … I was going to say I’m glad Hasheem Thabeet is not walking out there. A lot of years in the same league. A lot of games with UConn. A lot of respect for them. I would have liked a chance to play them in the Elite Eight full strength in ’23 when we had two NBA picks go down in March.”
That was in Las Vegas, when UConn and UCLA were on a collision course before the Bruins lost to Gonzaga, and the Huskies went on to take it all. History, like modern social media, is not always kind to coaches don’t filter their thoughts. Never boring, never boilerplate, Hurley and Cronin survive, even if only one was to advance Sunday night.
“There’s a lot externally that you deal with,” Hurley said. “The criticisms, the critiques, the comparisons. I would say in today’s college sports, just having a great brand doesn’t get you a whole lot in today’s day and age. Obviously, the NIL and the portal have diminished the advantage of coaching at a big-branded school. I certainly understand the microscope that you’re under all the time.”
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