UConn men’s basketball’s Battle 4 Atlantis tournament could end in Hurley-versus-Hurley matchup

With eight men’s and women’s college basketball teams gathering at Atlantis on Paradise Island, Bahamas this week, there’s no predicting who you’ll randomly see traversing from one hotel to another on the way to a meal or heading back from a go on the water slide.

And so it was both serendipitous and perfectly fitting that, on his first full day in the Bahamas Tuesday, UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley ran into his older brother, Bobby, head coach of Arizona State, walking through the casino that connects two hotels.

The brothers are slammed trying to prep their teams for the grueling Thanksgiving tournament ahead, of which UConn and ASU are both part, but were hoping to catch up later in the day before all the basketball craziness officially kicks off Wednesday. Sure enough, a photo posted Tuesday night showed a mini-Hurley family reunion of Dan, Bobby and their sons, Andrew (a sophomore walk-on at UConn) and Bobby (a freshman at ASU).

“The best part is we’re just completely not even thinking about each other’s team, which is good, because they’re completely on the other side of the bracket,” Dan said.

The Hurleys, New Jersey legends and sons of Naismith Hall of Fame high school coach Bob Hurley Sr., previously faced off against each other as college players in the Sweet 16 of the 1992 NCAA Tournament. Bobby’s Duke (where he was an All-American point guard) took down Dan’s Seton Hall, 81–69. Thanks to Christian Laettner’s famous buzzer-beater in overtime against Kentucky the following game, the Blue Devils went on to win the national championship.

While their playing careers diverged (Bobby went on to be drafted into the NBA), their coaching paths intertwined when Dan offered Bobby a position on his staffs at Wagner and later Rhode Island. But the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament is the closest the Hurley brothers have gotten to squaring off against each other from the sidelines. There are no guarantees with the teams on opposite sides of the bracket, so they could only meet in certain scenarios, including the championship game.

“I would prefer, in a perfect world, if we played in the championship game,” Dan said. “That would be, I think, something we would both sign on for out here. That’s the goal for both of us.”

If such a meaningful showdown does happen, there won’t be a huge Hurley presence for it. Dan said that his father and other family members were unable to make the trip.

As coaches known for their intense, emotional ways they approach games, a meeting with such high stakes would not be entirely ideal, at least from a personal perspective. Bobby suggested that 4-0 UConn and Arizona State being on opposite sides of the bracket was negotiated.

“It’s not something we would look forward to,” Dan said, “Once we got to that point, it would be tough for us because of the way we’re wired and the way we were wired.”

“It was a little awkward to know that UConn would be here when we agreed to do it,” Bobby added. “But I think some contingencies were put into place for both of us to be here.”

Arizona State has a pretty tough road to advance. It faces No. 6 Baylor, the defending national champs, Wednesday in their opener. The Sun Devils are 2-2 on the season with wins over Portland and North Florida and losses to UC Riverside and San Diego State by a combined three points.

“Obviously it would take a ton of work to get to that point,” Dan said. “We would both be really happy to meet in the championship game. That means that we both had an unbelievable run in this tournament with the quality that we’d have to beat to get there. So we would love that if that were to happen.”

No. 22 UConn’s first opponent, No. 19 Auburn, is no cupcake, either. Bobby said he’s hoping to watch the Huskies play when he’s not working with his own team.

“They’re the only other team that I watch as much as possible in college basketball,” Bobby said. “They’re my second team. I’m seeing some of their players walk through, like I saw R.J. Cole and said, ‘Wow, and I’ve watched him as much as guys that I coach,’ because of how I follow their program.”

No matter how laser-focused the brothers are on coming away with a championship in the Bahamas, they have the perspective to appreciate that their coaching paths are once more converging, regardless of whether they end up facing each other.

“A lot of times as you get older, you give yourself maybe a couple minutes a day where you do appreciate our journey and how this all began for us,” Dan said. “It’s like, little kids growing up in Jersey City and playing basketball in the park and we have these playing careers that played out differently and then just our journey through basketball, from when our careers ended and both end up here, big-time programs, having a lot of success. Sometimes your mind does drift to like, it’s been a hell of a journey.”

“The times that we can interact and see each other throughout this week is going to be positive,” Bobby added. “We’re really tight. We’re brothers and we love each other. And so we’ll be rooting for each other and supporting each other.”

Alexa Philippou can be reached at aphilippou@courant.com