Dan Hurley explains how much the portal, NIL have impacted UConn's tournament run

Dan Hurley had some interesting thoughts of NIL and the NCAA Transfer Portal ahead of Connecticut’s showdown with San Diego State in the 2023 NCAA Tournament title game.

While Hurley has other factors weighing on his mind at the moment, the transfer portal has been popping throughout March Madness. Star players of programs who didn’t receive a ticket to the dance have entered their name, as well as others who were eliminated in prior rounds.

While the Huskies don’t have many transfers, the Aztecs have several contributing down the stretch this season.

Speaking with the media, Hurley explained that he’s keeping tabs on the portal and recognizes that Connecticut will be dipping their toes in to fill out the roster each season, but he doesn’t want NIL to be the reason why athletes choose the Huskies.

“It’s weird, I guess. We’re not paying much attention to it, but obviously we saw some high profile players today going to the portal on Twitter. And I think who knows where this thing is going to go,” started Hurley. “For us, I don’t want a kid to pick my school because we matched an NIL offer or we gave the best offer. I want kids to come to UConn because they want to play for me. And obviously you hope that they can take the best possible advantage of NIL.

“But times are changing. And it will be interesting to see whether people still do it regular kind of the way we’ve done it. We don’t have a player on our team that is at UConn because of NIL. And we’re still going to do it with high level high school recruits that we’re going to develop over the course of time and supplement those guys with transfers out of the portal that make sense for our culture and the way that we run our program, which is more old school.”

Evidently, it’s obvious Hurley takes pride in keeping the Huskies’ old-school mentality, not wanting money or potential gifts to be the reason why athletes choose his squad. Basketball is the name of the game, and Hurley wants to keep it that way.

Perhaps that makes Connecticut’s run to the title game that much more impressive, but one has to wonder how the Huskies will adjust moving forward.

Still, we doubt that’s on their mind at the moment, as they prepare for center-stage at the 2023 title game.