Dan Hurley’s Wife Went to Great Lengths to Retrieve Coach’s Holy Beads for Final Four

You've heard of Dan Hurley's lucky suit. But what about his holy beads?

After UConn’s big Final Four victory on Saturday night, which saw the Huskies defeat the Fighting Illini 72–61, Andrea Hurley—the UConn coach’s wife—made an appearance behind the CBS Sports desk on Sunday afternoon. It was then that she revealed just how far she went to satisfy one of her husband’s many superstitions ahead of the quarterfinal game.

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“He got this bracelet years and years ago in church, and they’re holy beads, and they’re from Jerusalem,” Andrea told the desk, referring to the coach. “He wears them every single game. They break all the time. They've been breaking for years. They fall all over the floor. So I string them [back together].”

The bracelet recently broke again—some time before the quarterfinal—so coach Hurley tasked his wife with putting the trinket back together again before the big game. But amid the madness of the tournament, Andrea totally forgot.

“I get to my seat last night, and [assistant coach] Luke Murray calls me and says, ‘Where’s the holy beads?’ And I said, ‘They’re in the room!’” she recounted, relaying the horror she felt in that moment.

So, in an effort to fix the situation, Andrea then had to “leave the arena last night, run in the rain, get the beads ... and then I got a police escort back with the holy beads.”

Sheesh! All that for a bracelet.

Still, “I saved it,” she joked of her impact on the game. “The win is all mine.”

"I had to leave the arena last night, run in the rain, get the beads... and then I got a police escort back with the holy beads."

Andrea Hurley drops a story about bringing her husband's holy beads to the Final Four on Saturday night 😅 pic.twitter.com/TlGP10UniD
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) April 5, 2026

Perhaps she didn’t mind the added effort too much, though—indeed, she seemed to give more credence to the effect of the beads than to that of Hurley’s lucky suit, which she (playfully) termed “so embarrassing.”

“It’s like, the way your husband looks is a reflection on the wife, and please everyone, it’s so embarrassing. He won’t even let me polish those shoes! The shoes are brutal. He looks like an unmade bed,” she joked with the CBS hosts.

When speaking to reporters on Saturday night, coach Hurley did admit that his preferred postseason get-up has seen better days ... though he made clear he will be wearing it “as is” during Monday's final, no matter what.

“Suit’s in bad shape, I’m not gonna lie to you guys,” Hurley told reporters. “The pants are fine, it’s the jacket that is really—the lining is the problem. There’s like three holes when I stick my arm in the right [sleeve].”

Well, that’s never a good sign.

While it’s Hurley’s attention to detail and his commitment to excellence that put the Huskies in these winning positions year after year, keeping track of all these superstitions does sound quite exhausting ... not just for him, but for his wife, too. Hopefully, both the beads and the suit will be ready for the championship tilt, when UConn goes up against an excellent Michigan squad at 8:50 p.m. ET on Monday.

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