UConn Has Heated Rivalry Brewing With St. John's, Rick Pitino
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After missing out on a three-peat last season, the UConn Huskies and head coach Dan Hurley are out for revenge. While that holds true for all of the Big East rivals, it is particularly applicable to one man: Rick Pitino.
The St. John’s head coach last season dethroned Hurley’s squad and went on to win both the Big East regular season and tournament titles. That loss stung, and now, as Hurley himself puts it, “There’s tension.”
The rivalry isn’t just about wins and losses anymore. It’s personal. Hurley’s Huskies stumbled to third in the Big East last year and crashed out of March Madness as an 8-seed, while Pitino’s Red Storm stormed through the conference like they owned the place.
As UConn reloads with veterans Alex Karaban, Solo Ball, and Tarris Reed Jr. and fresh firepower from Georgia transfer Silas Demary Jr. and five-star guard Braylon Mullins, the tension is set to explode.
Before the first tip-off of the season, though, Hurley, being Hurley, is laying bare what makes this rivalry tick, and why it’s got college basketball buzzing again.
Dan Hurley and Rick Pitino’s Rivalry Heats Up Ahead of Big East Clash
Recently, Hurley appeared on NBC Sports, where he discussed his relationship with Rick Pitino.
“I don’t have a lot of relationships with many college coaches... I’m the son of a high school coach,” said Hurley when asked about a possible behind-the-scenes friendship with Pitino.
While Hurley and Pitino might share the same sideline energy, their basketball roots are different. Hurley grew up in the gritty gyms of Jersey City under the watchful eye of his father, Hall of Fame high school coach Bob Hurley Sr., learning the game through toughness and tradition.
Pitino, on the other hand, was a New York City point guard who carved his path through the polished hardwoods of UMass, playing alongside future legends like Julius Erving and later diving straight into the college coaching circuit.
Hurley went further, explaining that he feels closer to coaches like Shaheen Holloway, another high school-to-college success story, and even to Rick’s son, Richard Pitino, than to Rick himself.
“I probably got a better relationship with Richard because we both have a very similar sense of humor,” Hurley admitted. “It’s very hard when you’re both competing for the same thing... and you have a regional rivalry…we obviously played them in the NCAA tournament, you know, when he's at Iowa, and then that next year at St. John's, the rivalry there starts, and we go back-to-back and we’re both fighting for the same thing. So it’s tension. There’s tension.” That tension has turned into theatre.
Last season, St John’s took down UConn, winning 89–75 at Madison Square Garden, which snapped the Huskies’ eight-game streak at the “World’s Most Famous Arena.” The loss eliminated UConn from Big East title contention and cemented St. John’s as the new kings of New York. For a coach like Hurley, that kind of defeat doesn’t sit quietly.
However, Hurley is not bitter. Instead, he is analytical. He knows rivalries are born when both sides are good enough to matter.
“I would say it’s probably just starting,” he said of the UConn–St. John’s feud. “It can't be a rivalry if one program is winning national championships, going to the Final Four, and is dominant in college basketball, and the other program, you know, has been struggling for a long time, like St. John's has been struggling.”
Hurley says so because last season, Pitino and his squad made a quantum jump. They finished 31-5 overall and matched the legendary 1984–85 and 1985–86 teams. Their victory over Omaha in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament ended a 25-year drought for the program, and with a top-five national ranking late in the season, the Red Storm was back for good.
Dan Hurley and Rick Pitino Have Opposing Views on Rivalry
Now, St. John’s is back. Pitino might not see it that way. In fact, Pitino, during Big East Media Day, even said, “I don’t consider Connecticut any more of a rival than Villanova or Providence or Marquette or Creighton or any of them.” But Hurley clearly disagrees.
Hurley loves the heat. “You want to play games that people are dying to see,” Hurley said. “People like animosity. People like intensity. It’s not disrespectful, it’s just that we both want the same thing.” That “thing”, a Big East title and a national championship, is exactly what makes this battle so combustible.
Pitino’s revival of St. John’s has restored the Big East’s old-school fire. Hurley, meanwhile, is guarding UConn’s modern dynasty, the one he built on defense and relentless energy. And when the two meet on February 6 at Madison Square Garden and February 25 in Hartford, the stakes won’t just be standings or seeding. They’ll be pride, history, and bragging rights over who truly runs the Big East.
-fd44250df32912986cc6690f0b8bfa32.png "Shivani Menon")
Shivani Menon is a sports journalist with a background in Mass Communication and a passion for storytelling. She has written for EssentiallySports, College Sports Network, and PFSN, covering Olympic sports like track and field, gymnastics, and alpine skiing, as well as college football, basketball, March Madness, and the NBL Draft. When she's not reporting, she's either on the road chasing sunsets or getting lost in the rhythms of electronic soundscapes.