Bob Hurley Sr. basks in pride watching his son, Dan, and UConn’s ‘extraordinary’ tournament run

HOUSTON – As Bob Hurley Sr. has sat behind the UConn bench, marveling at the Huskies’ magical tournament run, the first word that came to his mind was “extraordinary.”

Watching his son, UConn head coach Dan Hurley chase a national championship, the Hall of Fame father is filled with pride.

“If it was a guy from Jersey City who was coaching, I’d be so excited as a resident of Jersey City to see someone coaching who I had known as a kid,” he said. “This is my son, this is my son and we couldn’t be prouder. He’s done an amazing job, you know, UConn’s a piece of clay and he had something to mold here because it’s this tradition. And now, getting back in the Big East and getting all the players, recruiting the group that’s his team now, all of those pieces are in place and it’s great to see.”

Dan, in his fifth season at UConn, has the Huskies back in the national championship game with his first roster full of his players – those he recruited out of high school or sought after in the transfer portal.

“I’m proud of the man he’s become,” said Bob Sr., the third high school coach to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame after building a dynasty over 45 years at St. Anthony High in Jersey City, N.J. “His relationship with the coaches, relationship with these families, the kids, watching the whole overall thing – it’s proud to see how value-driven this whole thing is. How important the kids, how they function as a unit, it’s a family. And all the things that make sports great, they’re doing.

“He coached in high school for nine years. The way you coach young men is you know who they are, and then you want to help them as they grow to be their best version. And it’s a lot of things, so these kids that are here, they’re only a little bit older than high school kids that he coached. And, you get here and you realize that people entrust you with their children when they leave the house to go to college, and it’s up to you to continue the values and things that families would consider important.”

Bob, 75, and his wife Chris, Dan’s mother, have attended UConn games at Gampel Pavilion, the XL Center, sat courtside at Madison Square Garden and have been right behind Dan for the entirety of UConn’s tournament run, from Albany to Las Vegas and now Houston. He’s been amazed at the way UConn rolled over the West Region of the bracket.

On Selection Sunday when it was released, Bob, like many others, saw programs like UCLA, Gonzaga, Kansas and Arkansas standing in the Huskies’ path to the Final Four. No one would’ve expected UConn to find itself in the national championship game three weeks later with an average margin of victory of over 20 points.

“And here we are,” Bob said. “And look at the coaches that they’ve knocked off along the way – obviously it’s very, very good coaches and they’ve been able to do it double-figures every game. Double-figures or more.”

That list of coaches starts with another Hall of Famer in Rick Pitino, and includes basketball lifers like Randy Bennett, Eric Musselman, Mark Few and Jim Larranaga. Larranaga’s Miami team came the closest, and still it was a 13-point difference at the final buzzer.

Bob said that when the opportunity was presented for Dan to take the UConn job, he offered no advice.

“I knew that when somebody started talking about this place, what could you say except ‘take the job?'” he said Saturday. “You set the highest goal if you believe it’s attainable. Just the tradition here, it’s already been done. And during the year, I know they talked about from their independent schedule in the beginning of the year it gave them the belief that they can beat people. And then they had the slump. And then they had the end of the season where they played very well. And then the tournament right now, how good have they been in this tournament?”

The last 40 minutes, if not more, will be a matchup of basketball’s sons. Dan the son of Bob, Brian Dutcher the son of Jim, the head coach at Minnesota from 1975-86.

Both fathers are expected to be in attendance Sunday night (9:20 p.m., CBS).

“Just having been in locker rooms our whole lives and practices and postgame after great wins and tough losses. I think both of our careers to this point, they’re parallel,” Dan Hurley said of Brian Dutcher Saturday. “I think it’s fitting for both of us, with our backgrounds, to be meeting in this game.”

Hurley’s UConn team is a 7.5-point favorite in the game over fifth-seeded San Diego State and while that doesn’t matter to Dan, Brian, Bob or Jim, it is a testament to the work.

“I think that when they have one day of preparation, which the tournament is, (UConn’s) been tremendous following the scouting report. The scouting reports from the assistant coaches have been tremendous. Kids following the information, because we’ve been at every every part of this, it’s been great. And you know, from early on, from the second half of the Iona game, I think from that point on it’s been pretty much pedal to the metal.”