Dan Hurley: ‘I’m not going in the portal’ after repeating as champ at UConn

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Dan Hurley found a good time to get into a dead zone.

“My phone has been SOS since yesterday,” Hurley said, in the hallway outside the UConn locker room Monday night. “See that SOS right there? I can’t receive an incoming call, nor put one out, nor get a text message at this point. So you can see no one has texted me since the game was over. My phone’s broke.”

SOS means no cellular service. It is expected that Hurley will eventually receive a text or call from Kentucky, gauging his interest in becoming their head men’s basketball coach in the wake of John Calipari’s departure. However, in the aftermath of the Huskies’ 75-60 victory over Purdue for the championship, he would only talk about his ideas for UConn next season.

“I’m not going in the portal,” he said. “I’m not.”

After winning the championship last season, Hurley got a new contract, increasing his salary to $5 million per year and extending it through 2029. With performance bonuses, he is up to $6.7 million. If Kentucky decides to go after the most successful coach in the game right now, it could offer record salaries, given its SEC revenue.

UConn AD David Benedict has been known to make pre-emptive moves to keep his coaches, and he’d likely do so again.

“Look, obviously Kentucky is one of the all-time great programs,” Benedict said, “and he’s put himself in a position where there is no big-time program that, I can’t imagine when they talk to ADs and say, who’s on your short list? If you’re in a place like that, to not have Dan Hurley on your short list? I don’t know. … We’ve been committed since he arrived and we’re going to continue to be committed to do everything we can to support winning championships. He knows he can do that here, he’s done it twice in a row, and hopefully he wants to be here until he’s done coaching.”

There will be conversations when the dust from the championship and confetti from the parade settle.

“Dan’s not the type of person who is going to be talking about things during the season,” Benedict said. “He didn’t due that during the search process where we eventually hired him. There will be conversations about how do we continue to have success.”

Hurley, from New Jersey, has spent his entire career in the northeast, working at high schools in Jersey City and Newark, coaching at Wagner, Rhode Island and, since 2018, Connecticut. He has made it clear his wife, Andrea, wants to be close to Jersey.

“We went to Rhode Island, which I had to drag her to,” Hurley said. “Connecticut, I got her closer. Now, further? I can’t afford a divorce now. I just started making money.

“I’m not going to start thinking about another place. We’re in a position to be back-to-back in an era that’s kind of tough to do it. Now you’re thinking in your brain, looking at the locker room at the chance to do it three times, dynasty in modern times. That’s what I’m thinking about.”

Hurley said he is hoping players hold off on their decisions about next year until after the victory parade, likely to be at the end of the week in Hartford. He was a little annoyed that the coaching news came out Sunday night before the championship game. Other sports, like MLB or the NFL, put moratoriums on announcements during championship weeks.

“College basketball, we need a commissioner,” Hurley said. “It’s the greatest sport, we have the greatest sporting event, we’ve got NIL, which is going to keep players in college longer, for deeper connections with fan bases. The portal situation, we’ve got to get that under control. We just can’t do things to take away from such a great game. Dropping news like that, the day before or day off … again, somebody told me about it because my phone doesn’t work.”

UConn assistants, notably Kimani Young and Luke Murray, have long been pushed for head coaching jobs by Hurley. He’d like to see them get the chance at a high-major, or top mid-major.

“It would have to be the best mid-major job in the country for those guys to leave,” Hurley said. “We’ve got the resources to be able to take care of them. I don’t know how you’re at the best mid-major program in the country, or a high major, and not wanting your program to look like our program.”