UConn's Dan Hurley Discusses Media Negativity: 'I'm Giving Them Tons Of Clicks'

Still less than a calendar year removed from becoming a back-to-back national championship-winning head coach, Dan Hurley of the UConn Huskies has attracted a lot of controversy recently.

Hurley’s “bad” press (if such a thing exists) started at the Maui Invitational back in November. Hurley had multiple fiery interactions with officials in Maui that prompted large sectors of college basketball social media and its various talking heads to launch a smear campaign against Hurley for his behavior.

Hurley’s had other passionate interactions with referees since Maui, including one instance in which Hurley was caught on camera telling an official to look at him because he’s the best coach in the sport.

One thing to note about Hurley’s demeanor on the court is that it isn’t anything new. Hurley has always coached like this, even if he was more tame over the past two seasons due to the fact this his Huskies were often blowing teams out.

But as this year’s iteration of UConn has struggled in many of its games, poor officiating has become a renewed thorn in Hurley’s side. He knows that his team’s margin for error is slimmer than in the recent past, and he’s interacted with some of the particularly heinous calls against him accordingly.

While the negative press about Hurley this year has become somewhat of a case study of how jealousy works in the sports world, there have also been instances when Hurley has legitimately gone too far.

On Friday as a guest on Mad Dog Sports Radio, Hurley spoke about the challenges of being a coach driven by passion as well as the media frenzy that has attached itself to him this season.

“In the end, my rocket fuel has been my intensity level (and) the passion that I coach with,” Hurley said.

“When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Oftentimes I'll admit that I'm wrong. I guess when you're playing career was my playing career and you struggle so hard to get to this level of success in basketball, I think in your mind you believe that you're going to finally become this beloved figure in basketball when you have the dominating success we've had the last two years.”

“What you find out really quickly is that you don't become beloved; you become hated by all the fans of the other college programs that you have had much greater success than. The media has figured out that I'm giving them tons of clicks and tons of things to talk about, but I don't think coaches like me are a bad thing … coaches who are just so intense and take a life-or-death approach to every game. I think that's what makes sports great for fans.”

Hurley will be juiced to the max on Sunday when UConn takes on St. John’s at Madison Square Garden in what promises to be a heavyweight Big East fight.

More NCAA: To Defeat Rick Pitino, UConn's Dan Hurley Needs 'Ferocious' Tarris Reed Jr.