Dan Hurley, perhaps the best coach in college basketball, considered resigning from his work earlier this year.
This according to a first-person account in his upcoming book, “Never Stop: Life, Leadership and what is needed to be great.”
Hurley loyalty to the title did not stop – but he almost did that in the spring. The news was reported for the first time on Wednesday by athletics. After they had risen to the top of College Hoops by guiding Uconn to Back-to-Back National titles in 2023 and 2024, the pressure to weigh three times and not to do so-hurley to consider briefly to stop the profession. Thinking came to the heels of A dramatic season 2024-25 that was often guided Through Harmful headlines.
“I thought about leaving,” Hurley writes in the book, on September 30. “Take a gap year. Return as head coach of the Uconn Huskies.”
CBS Sports reached to Hurley, who was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday.
The Huskies ’24 -25 season started notorious with a 0-3 catastrophe at the Maui Invitational after debut as a top-five team. CBS Sport Got exclusive access to the Husky’s in the midst of that tournament free -outIncluding Hurley’s first notorious encounter With civil servants last season.
UConn recovered from that Maui-Zinking by successively Baylor, Texas, Gonzaga and Xavier to beat any NCAA tournament teams in December and reached 12-3. But UConn went 6-6 through a seven-week stretch from Big Oost and eventually landed an 8-seed in the NCAAs. The Huskies ended 24-11 after almost disturbing final national champion Florida in the second round. That loss made way for another Hurley -Misstep, When he was caught on the camera The court leaves and say to a Baylor team that waited to play in the next game: “I hope they don’t f — you like them F ——– us.”
The 52-year-old Hurley has largely reconciled since then, public and private. Earlier this summer, he spoke to CBS Sports for almost an hour, while he recruited on the road, and told the highlights and lows of last season. More than three months away from the end of the season, Hurley said he was in a much better headspace, found time to charge and renew his goal. He is excited and optimistic about his selection for 2025-26. That’s now.
But here his mentality was early in the spring. An excerpt from the book, via athletics:
“I knew my mind and I knew my body, and I could feel that I was completely cooked,” Hurley writes. “Just burned. I didn’t even know how I was standing. I stared at the office walls, muttered, performed a brutal review of our season. I didn’t have a strong enough schedule. I was not a good leader. I left everyone in Maui in Maui. A little better in Maui? What if we hadn’t blown up that game against Seton Hall?
“It was unhealthy to ruminate in this way. I was unhealthy. I had to go hard to the city, to my standard Hideaway, Dorado Beach in San Juan. I had to do some healing, not thinking about basketball for a few days. But that was not possible in this new ERA.
“At that time I wasn’t even sure that I would return for the 2025-26 season.”
Hurley’s former coaching agent, Jordan Bazant, has been a high-ranking TV director at FOX Sports for years and according to the book, the two who are concerned with a conversation ‘about what commenting’. In the end, Hurley moved from the thought and bought again with UConn. By revealing this, however, Hurley makes it clear that he had thoughts about leaving UConn for two consecutive offseason. In 2024 he rejected famous ages to coach the Los Angeles Lakers.
His moment of break is hardly shocking. College Basketball has seen Jay Wright, Tony Bennett, Roy Williams and others – including Nick Saban in University Football, in particular – departing on an accelerated timeline because of the enormous changes in the sport and the tumult that has come with Transfer Portal Freedom and Nil -Mempowerment for players.
Hurley’s perilous situation is like many other coaches in college sports. But for now he seems to be a new life and ready to try to get UConn back to the top of the sport. After a few impressive Portal Pick -ups, the return of forward Alex Karaban and guard Solo -Bal, plus the addition of the No. 11 First -year class In 2025, Hurley’s Huskies will be ready to be arranged in the top 10 this preseason and should compete with St. John’s for Big East Supremacy.
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