Dan Hurley: 'UConn has been running college basketball for the last 30 years'

For the second year in a row, UConn is the final team standing in the NCAA Tournament. Dan Hurley has made history as a head coach with back-to-back national championships. The Huskies were dominant all season long and everybody inside of the locker room knew it.

Moments before the title game against Purdue, Hurley made sure to remind his players. He told them going out there and executing as normal would result in bringing the program a sixth national title, all coming since the 1999 season.

“The message was, we’re the best team in the country,” Hurley said to Ernie Johnson will on the podium. “Purdue is clearly the second-best team in the country. Play to our identity, be who we’ve been all year, and we’ll be champions.”

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No. 6 means only two other schools have more national championships than UConn. UCLA (11) and Kentucky (8) are ahead while North Carolina is tied with the Huskies. Winning on Monday night meant they surpassed Duke and Indiana.

UConn’s run has been different than all of those programs, though. They have a deep history dating back quite a bit, being powers in the sport for multiple decades. But all six of the UConn national championships have been in the past 25 years.

Hurley claims UConn has been running college basketball over that time and they certainly have result to prove it. Anybody who argues against Hurley is likely fighting a losing battle.

“For the last 25-30 years, UConn has been running college basketball,” Hurley said. “We’ve been running college basketball the last 30 years. Let’s go.”

Last year’s championship was a special one, dominating their way through the NCAA Tournament as a four-seed. However, this run was somehow even better for UConn, winning games by an average of 21.7 points per game. Beating Purdue by 15 points actually hurt the average.

Hurley built an incredible roster but credited his players for being unselfish. Winning a national championship is all that mattered to them, not wanting to make any specific moment about themselves.

“We just recruit really talented NBA players that are willing to not make it about themselves,” Hurley said. “To be a part of a winning group and to go for all the championships. While doing that, their draft stock is still really, really high. We both win. UConn wins and the players win.”