UConn's Dan Hurley, gracious in defeat, praises Michigan after national championship

UConn head coach Dan Hurley has earned his reputation for being boisterous on the court, and his antics draw the ire of fan bases across college basketball.

Once the final buzzer has sounded, and his intensely competitive spirit is left on the hardwood, all of that gets left behind. Particularly after Michigan’s 69-63 win over the Huskies during Monday’s national championship game.

With the program riding a 6-0 record in the national championship game and Hurley in position to win his third national title in four seasons, it would be easy for someone in the heat of defeat to not think about the other side during a crushing loss.

Not for Hurley, though, as the first thing he did during his postgame press conference was congratulate his opponent.

“Number one, congratulations to Michigan,” Hurley said during his opening statement. “Just an incredibly talented, incredibly imposing team physically, obviously well-coached, great staff. Just overall, just a tremendous university with what they’re able to accomplish in sports.”

U-M’s run through the NCAA tournament felt effortless, as the number of times the Wolverines saw resistance of any kind in the games leading up to the title game could be counted on one hand.

That wasn’t the case against the Huskies, though.

UConn forced the Wolverines into a style of play that was uncomfortable throughout the game. Taking the Wolverines off their game and shaking their confidence almost saw David slay another Goliath. However, as Dusty May’s crew had done so many times before, it found a way to win and cement itself in NCAA lore.

It’s a team that Hurley won’t forget about for a long time.

“Well, it’s one of the better teams that I’ve played, certainly since I’ve been a college basketball coach,” Hurley said. “When I was back at Rhode Island, I coached against an Arizona team with Aaron Gordon and Hollis-Jefferson and Nick Johnson and T.J. McConnell. I’ve coached against some teams with a lot of good players. They’re legit. They definitely deserved to win the National Championship. They’re clearly the best team in the country this year. They’re just so hard to score against at the rim. I could talk about the threes that we missed, and I thought we had a lot of good threes that we missed. But they just made it so tough on us around the rim.

“That was probably what even got us more than the missed threes was some of those rim shots, all those transition baskets. I think they cut it to four. Could have put some serious game pressure on them. They changed so many shots around the rim. They’re just so tall.”

As U-M running back Kalel Mullings so famously said after the Wolverines’ upset win over Ohio State in Columbus:

“Some people gotta learn how to lose.”

Hurley and his UConn program don’t have that problem.