UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley said coaches who are taking advantage of court rulings to add to their roster for the upcoming season are hurting college basketball. He added that it’s not a “victimless situation.”
“We can’t go on the way we’re going on like this,” Hurley told reporters Friday. “It’s the (college) players, but then you also have kids in high school who get affected by this, so there are people who end up losing. You can’t act like it’s a victimless situation. There are kids who are 17, 18 years old who potentially may lose out on opportunities, so it’s not victimless.”
On July 31, a U.S. District Court judge in Colorado granted a preliminary injunction that gives college athletes from the high school class of 2022 another year of eligibility for the 2026-2027 school year. Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney handed down the ruling in response to plaintiffs challenging the NCAA’s age-based eligibility rule, which ran out the clock this past spring on college athletes from the high school class of 2022.
Hurley said the current state of college basketball is “not sustainable” and called it “absolute chaos.”
“If you’re a coach and the sport has given you a lot, (then) doing things to hurt the sport so that you can win a little more, I think you have to be able to look in the mirror a little bit on that,” Hurley said.
Texas Tech announced Friday that former All-Big 12 first-teamer Darrion Williams, who entered the 2026 NBA Draft but wasn’t selected, is returning to the Red Raiders after one season at NC State. Florida’s Denzel Aberdeen is a high-profile player who could impact the Gators’ roster this upcoming season, and former UCLA floor general Donovan Dent is on the market.
Coaches typically build their rosters throughout the offseason, so most roster spots are already filled given that schools have allocated most of their name, image and likeness resources. Hurley said UConn’s process for putting a team together involves high school recruiting and jumping into the transfer portal before summer practices begin. But now that a new wave of players have been granted eligibility, Hurley said coaching has been “cheapened.”
“You can put together better teams, compete and not have to identify young talent, develop that talent (and) have a vision of putting together a team over time to develop,” Hurley said. “Now you can screw up high school recruiting, (transfer) portal recruiting, not have a very good team and now start plucking from a group of players in August and put together a team.”
Hurley said he won’t add any players to his roster but called the situation “frustrating.”
“If compliance says something is illegal and we can’t do it, or a player is ineligible based on the rules, our reaction as a university isn’t, ‘Let’s go find a lawyer in Willimantic, Connecticut.’”
UConn will chase its third national championship in five seasons after finishing as national runner-up in April. Braylon Mullins, the Huskies’ NCAA Tournament shot-making hero, returns for his sophomore season alongside seniors Silas Demary Jr. and Jayden Ross. The Huskies also added a few players via the transfer portal, including 6-foot-11 Seton Hall transfer Na’jai Hines.
“No other sport is going on like this,” Hurley said. “And anyone that acts like this is great, it’s fine, it’s good for college basketball; they’ve already taken the stance that this is what they’ve wanted and now they’re just defending their position.”
