Dan Hurley Loved His Wife’s Savvy Move Preventing UConn From Costly Technical Foul vs. Duke

UConn coach Dan Hurley opened up about the chaotic ending of his team’s win over Duke in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. | Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images

The UConn Huskies are moving on to the Final Four of the NCAA men’s tournament thanks to Braylon Mullins’s buzzer-beater three against Duke, though they also seemed to get some outside help, too.

Immediately after Mullins sank his game-winning three-pointer, UConn coach Dan Hurley was seen visibly fired-up on the sidelines to the point where he appeared to headbutt a nearby ref. The ref, Roger Ayers, declined to give Hurley a technical over the interaction. Around the same time, Hurley’s wife Andrea was seen aggressively trying to corral Huskies players from storming onto the court, an action which could also warrant a technical foul and lead to free throws for the opposing team.

Hurley spoke briefly about his wife’s postgame move on a guest appearance on Pardon My Take on Wednesday.

“You wife was incredible in the moment too, she had everyone saying, ‘Get back on the bench!’ ... She was on top of it,” podcast co-host Dan Katz said.

“Yeah she’s a boss,” Hurley replied. “I mean she’s the Jersey boss lady, and her language is colorful too. She was grabbing people around the back of their warmups. And she doesn’t even know anything about basketball.

“I said to her on the plane, ‘Three out of four years you’re going to the Final Four, did you ever imagine this with your life?’ And she’s like I didn’t even know the Final four existed until four years ago.’”

Andrea Hurley was holding players back from storming the court so they wouldn’t get a technical pic.twitter.com/ka3nJkSor4

— Pardon My Take (@PardonMyTake) April 1, 2026

Here’s a clip of Hurley’s wife, who was watching the game from directly behind the players’ bench, doing her best to make sure no Huskies players stormed the court during the climactic moment:

Andrea Hurley making sure no one gets a technical in this clip is AMAZING. https://t.co/163EuXLH3X pic.twitter.com/nhRv8cIVLz

— Jack Mac (@JackMac) March 30, 2026

Dan Hurley escaped a technical after his viral headbutt of NCAA referee

Hurley’s wife had no control over what the UConn coach did after the buzzer-beater, though, as Dan got away with what could have been a technical foul following his apparent headbutt of referee Roger Ayers.

"Really, at that point in the game, we had it won," Hurley said of the now-viral clip. "And [Ayers] is such an easy guy to work with during the game that I thought he was coming over to chest bump me to celebrate the shot.”

Hurley elaborated on the moment on Pardon My Take calling his forehead tap of the ref a “head hug”: “More of a nuzzle, an affectionate nuzzle. All these refs are different. They all got different thresholds or personalities. Roger’s very playful. ... When you’re going too far he’ll give you a look and he’ll T’ your a-- but he’s playful, he’s funny. He messes with you during the game. You bust his chops back.”

Following the incident, Ayers, who was worked seven career Final Fours, is not scheduled to ref in the men’s Final Four this year. The NCAA reportedly denied it had anything to do with his interaction with Hurley: "This had no bearing on the selection of the Final Four officials.”

In the end, no one got T’d up at the end of the game, and UConn secured its spot in the next round with a stunning 73-72 win over the No. 1 Blue Devils. Hurley and the Huskies will face No. 3 Illinois on Saturday night in Indianapolis, where the longtime UConn coach will hope to book a ticket to his third career national championship game—and also likely try to avoid any further controversial contact with NCAA officials.

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