Dan Hurley’s players recall his angriest practice tirades: ‘That was my Welcome to UConn moment’ INDIANAPOLIS — Malachi Smith knew what he was getting into when he committed to UConn in the transfer portal last April. After four seasons at Dayton, Smith craved the intensity and success fostered by Dan Hurley’s Huskies. He had heard of stories of head coach’s legendary practice tirades, and it didn’t take long for him to become the focal point of one.
Hurley was instructing Smith about passing reads during an early season practice when the senior guard gave a nonchalant acknowledgement that he heard the coach’s message.
“I said, ‘OK, bet,’” Smith recalled after UConn’s thrilling 2026 Final Four victory over Illinois on Saturday night. It turned out that was a poor choice of words.
“He told me, say ‘yes, coach,’ and I said, ‘yes coach,’” Smith said. “He said no, say ‘yes fucking coach.’ And I said, ‘yes, fucking coach.’ Ever since I’ve been saying ‘yes coach’ or ‘yes sir.’”
Hurley is 40 minutes away from his third national championship in four years when UConn faces the Michigan Wolverines in the title game on Monday. The first two came pretty easily: the Huskies’ 2023 team won their six tournament games by an average margin of 20 points per game despite being a No. 4 seed. The following year’s team was even more dominant, out-scoring opponents by an average of 23.3 points in the tournament to become college basketball’s first back-to-back national champion since Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators in 2006-2007.
It didn’t always look like this year’s Huskies would be playing on the final day of the season. UConn lost to an under .500 Creighton team at home in the middle of February. A few weeks later, it lost the last game of the regular season to a terrible Marquette team that finished only 12-20 overall. UConn even entered the NCAA tournament on a sour note after it got drilled by 20 points against St. John’s in the Big East tournament championship game, which finalized its destiny as a No. 2 seed.
Hurley once again has his team peaking at the right time, even without the obvious NBA lottery talent he enjoyed two years ago with Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle leading his team. He’s also had to keep his staff focused even after top assistant Luke Murray accepted Boston College’s head coaching job with the transfer portal already unofficially underway.
“The year hasn’t been a joyride,” Hurley said after the win over Illinois. “We haven’t been a machine of destruction. We’ve been a team that’s had to grind out games like this.”
In what ways have Hurley’s previous two national championship runs changed the head coach? Senior forward Alex Karaban, a four-year starter who is also going for his third ring, scoffed at me even asking the question.
“He hasn’t changed at all,” Karaban said. “He’s the same guy. If anything winning has only made him hungrier for more.”
It seems like every UConn player has a story about the fire that still burns inside of Hurley. When asked about the private moments they’ll remember five or 10 years from now, the Huskies couldn’t hide their smiles thinking back on their coach’s antics.
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA – APRIL 04: Head coach Dan Hurley of the UConn Huskies looks on prior to the Final Four against the Illinois Fighting Illini in the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium on April 04, 2026 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) Getty Images
Tarris Reed didn’t dunk the ball during an early season pick-and-roll drill this winter, and Dan Hurley was completely disgusted by it. He decided the punishment would be to make the entire team run the stairs at UConn’s practice facility.
The Huskies got back to business, and Reed again finished the drill with a layup. Hurley made the team run the stairs again, only this time the whole coaching staff had to do it with them. As his players and coaches were huffing and puffing on the steps, Hurley was ranting. He’s yelling at Reed for not dunking. He’s screaming at the rest of his team for not encouraging their star teammate to dunk more often. He’s also ranting at the coaches for having the audacity to bring in players who don’t dunk the ball in practice or hold their teammates accountable to dunking.
Silas Demary was one of UConn’s biggest additions in the portal this season. Last year’s Huskies were faulty in two areas: at point guard and on defense. Demary helped fix both of those problems when he transferred in after two years at Georgia. Demary could barely hold back his laughter thinking about the first time he tasted Hurley’s wrath.
“It was in August at our first real practice,” he said. “It was a rough practice for me.”
A ball got tipped out of bounds and Demary jogged after it. Bad move.
“He was irate,” Demary recalled on Sunday ahead of the national championship game. “He was pissed off about it.”
Hurley threw a ball beyond the reach of teammate Solo Ball and told him to show Demary how UConn goes after loose balls. Ball sprinted hard after it and immediately dove on the floor to recover it. Then he made everyone get in a line as he whipped balls all over the court and made them hit the floor to dive for it.
“That was my ‘welcome to UConn moment,’” Demary said with a smile.
Jaylin Stewart thought back to a moment during his freshman season on the dominant 2024 championship team. There was a turnover in practice, and Hurley lost it. He decided to deal with this crime against basketball by laying down in the middle of the floor while play continued back and forth.
Stewart was a top-100 recruit out of high school, but he hasn’t much played in his first three years at UConn. He’s an opportunity to transfer out and find more playing time at another program every offseason, but he keeps coming back. Why?
“Coach believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”
Stewart actually found himself on the floor during a crucial stretch in the second half of UConn’s Final Four win against Illinois. The Illini were starting to make a comeback with about 12 minutes left when Stewart checked in for Karaban. Ball found him spotted up behind the arc. Stewart lined up the shot and knocked it down for a big three.
Hurley loves his players even if he also likes to show them up in practice by cursing them out and wearing his emotions on his sleeve. There may be times when Hurley’s antics start to wear thin, but overall message never gets lost.
“We want rings and not watches,” Smith said on Saturday night. (Hurley) has been saying that every day. So that just makes us lock in.”
#Dan #Hurleys #players #recall #angriest #practice #tirades #UConn #moment
INDIANAPOLIS — Malachi Smith knew what he was getting into when he committed to UConn in the transfer portal last April. After four seasons at Dayton, Smith craved the intensity and success fostered by Dan Hurley’s Huskies. He had heard of stories of head coach’s legendary practice tirades, and it didn’t take long for him to become the focal point of one.
Hurley was instructing Smith about passing reads during an early season practice when the senior guard gave a nonchalant acknowledgement that he heard the coach’s message.
“I said, ‘OK, bet,’” Smith recalled after UConn’s thrilling 2026 Final Four victory over Illinois on Saturday night. It turned out that was a poor choice of words.
“He told me, say ‘yes, coach,’ and I said, ‘yes coach,’” Smith said. “He said no, say ‘yes fucking coach.’ And I said, ‘yes, fucking coach.’ Ever since I’ve been saying ‘yes coach’ or ‘yes sir.’”
Hurley is 40 minutes away from his third national championship in four years when UConn faces the Michigan Wolverines in the title game on Monday. The first two came pretty easily: the Huskies’ 2023 team won their six tournament games by an average margin of 20 points per game despite being a No. 4 seed. The following year’s team was even more dominant, out-scoring opponents by an average of 23.3 points in the tournament to become college basketball’s first back-to-back national champion since Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators in 2006-2007.
It didn’t always look like this year’s Huskies would be playing on the final day of the season. UConn lost to an under .500 Creighton team at home in the middle of February. A few weeks later, it lost the last game of the regular season to a terrible Marquette team that finished only 12-20 overall. UConn even entered the NCAA tournament on a sour note after it got drilled by 20 points against St. John’s in the Big East tournament championship game, which finalized its destiny as a No. 2 seed.
Hurley once again has his team peaking at the right time, even without the obvious NBA lottery talent he enjoyed two years ago with Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle leading his team. He’s also had to keep his staff focused even after top assistant Luke Murray accepted Boston College’s head coaching job with the transfer portal already unofficially underway.
“The year hasn’t been a joyride,” Hurley said after the win over Illinois. “We haven’t been a machine of destruction. We’ve been a team that’s had to grind out games like this.”
In what ways have Hurley’s previous two national championship runs changed the head coach? Senior forward Alex Karaban, a four-year starter who is also going for his third ring, scoffed at me even asking the question.
“He hasn’t changed at all,” Karaban said. “He’s the same guy. If anything winning has only made him hungrier for more.”
It seems like every UConn player has a story about the fire that still burns inside of Hurley. When asked about the private moments they’ll remember five or 10 years from now, the Huskies couldn’t hide their smiles thinking back on their coach’s antics.
Tarris Reed didn’t dunk the ball during an early season pick-and-roll drill this winter, and Dan Hurley was completely disgusted by it. He decided the punishment would be to make the entire team run the stairs at UConn’s practice facility.
The Huskies got back to business, and Reed again finished the drill with a layup. Hurley made the team run the stairs again, only this time the whole coaching staff had to do it with them. As his players and coaches were huffing and puffing on the steps, Hurley was ranting. He’s yelling at Reed for not dunking. He’s screaming at the rest of his team for not encouraging their star teammate to dunk more often. He’s also ranting at the coaches for having the audacity to bring in players who don’t dunk the ball in practice or hold their teammates accountable to dunking.
Silas Demary was one of UConn’s biggest additions in the portal this season. Last year’s Huskies were faulty in two areas: at point guard and on defense. Demary helped fix both of those problems when he transferred in after two years at Georgia. Demary could barely hold back his laughter thinking about the first time he tasted Hurley’s wrath.
“It was in August at our first real practice,” he said. “It was a rough practice for me.”
A ball got tipped out of bounds and Demary jogged after it. Bad move.
“He was irate,” Demary recalled on Sunday ahead of the national championship game. “He was pissed off about it.”
Hurley threw a ball beyond the reach of teammate Solo Ball and told him to show Demary how UConn goes after loose balls. Ball sprinted hard after it and immediately dove on the floor to recover it. Then he made everyone get in a line as he whipped balls all over the court and made them hit the floor to dive for it.
“That was my ‘welcome to UConn moment,’” Demary said with a smile.
Jaylin Stewart thought back to a moment during his freshman season on the dominant 2024 championship team. There was a turnover in practice, and Hurley lost it. He decided to deal with this crime against basketball by laying down in the middle of the floor while play continued back and forth.
Stewart was a top-100 recruit out of high school, but he hasn’t much played in his first three years at UConn. He’s an opportunity to transfer out and find more playing time at another program every offseason, but he keeps coming back. Why?
“Coach believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”
Stewart actually found himself on the floor during a crucial stretch in the second half of UConn’s Final Four win against Illinois. The Illini were starting to make a comeback with about 12 minutes left when Stewart checked in for Karaban. Ball found him spotted up behind the arc. Stewart lined up the shot and knocked it down for a big three.
Hurley loves his players even if he also likes to show them up in practice by cursing them out and wearing his emotions on his sleeve. There may be times when Hurley’s antics start to wear thin, but overall message never gets lost.
“We want rings and not watches,” Smith said on Saturday night. (Hurley) has been saying that every day. So that just makes us lock in.”
![Caitlin Clark’s fourth quarter heroics nearly lead Fever to win INDIANAPOLIS — For three quarters of Friday’s game against the Mystics, Caitlin Clark could hardly hit a shot. In the fourth quarter, she could hardly miss.Clark scored 17 of her 32 points, including five 3-pointers, in a wild final frame of regulation and dragged the Fever back into a game against the Mystics they looked set to lose. Her fifth 3-pointer was the biggest of the night as it forced overtime in the waning seconds.Even though Clark’s heroics would not be enough as the Fever fell to Washington in the extra session in one of the best finishes of the young WNBA season, it still highlighted just how quickly things can change with Clark on the floor.“I felt like I could have made another like five [threes],” Clark said postgame. “They’re all like right there and, obviously, it’s great to break through and get some to go down.”Clark hit a pair of threes on successive possessions midway through the first quarter. As it would turn out, those would be her only two makes through the first three periods.Clark was an ice cold 2-15 from the field and 2-7 from three heading into the fourth, mirroring the Fever’s offensive struggles as team as they were shooting just 32.8% from the field in that span.But back-to-back threes from Clark in the first 90 seconds of the fourth were a precursor of what was to come in the final 10 minutes.Clark scored or assisted on 11 of the first 12 points of the period. The only point she didn’t directly create was a Monique Billings free throw…which came on a foul after a Clark pass. She would go on to assist or score on 18 of the first 21 points for the Fever as they pulled themselves back into the game.Her third three gave the Fever a short-lived 70-69 lead. By the time she connected on her fourth three, the Fever trailed by four with just over 90 seconds left. That deficit grew to eight with 51 seconds left, leaving Indiana in need of a miracle.After a Myisha Hines-Allen layup, a Mystics turnover led to a Kelsey Mitchell 3-pointer, cutting the deficit to just three. The two teams traded free throws, leaving the Fever down three with 5.1 seconds left.A great play design from Indiana head coach Stephanie White created just enough room for Clark to get off a shot as she drifted out-of-bounds. It was all the space she would need as the shot found nylon, tying the game with 1.7 seconds left.“That’s like the hardest thing as a basketball player is when you’re not making shots to really stay in it,” Clark said. “So I’m certainly proud of myself. Really, really battled.”The Fever were given one more scare in the wild fourth quarter as Sonia Citron’s half-court heave swished through the net, but it came after the buzzer, sending the sides to overtime.Unfortunately, all those heroics to force the extra session were for naught as the Mystics responded again, building a multi-possession lead in the closing minutes. Again, though, they left the door open as missed free throws and a timely 3-pointer from Lexie Hull gave Indiana a chance in the final seconds.However, a desperation shot from Mitchell fell short at the buzzer, allowing Washington to escape with a dramatic win.For the Fever, as much as they can take away from their fight in the fourth and overtime, it was the middle quarters that were the most costly. Indiana shot 10-42 in the second and third periods, including 3-19 from range.“If we don’t have three clunky quarters, we don’t force ourselves into basketball heroics,“ Clark said. ”We don’t want to play that way. Like I know it’s exciting for the crowd, but we should have had ourselves in a position, especially after the first quarter, to control this ballgame and we really didn’t.”Friday was the second time in three games the Fever have eclipsed 100 points. Ironically, they have lost both of those contests, a sign of both how great this team can be offensively and how much work they still have on the other end.“We put a lot of pressure on our offense to be perfect when we don’t consistently defend,” head coach Stephanie White said. “Again, this is on us as coaches. This is our responsibility. We’ve got to be disciplined the entire game. We’ve got to be disciplined every possession. We’re taking chances. We’re fouling shooters who are about to shoot tough shots. We’ve got breakdowns in coverages. We’ve got to find combinations of players and rotations that’s net efficiency can be good.“We can’t wait to play defense in situations where we feel good and we’re making shots. It seems like we’re making shots and everything’s flowing and we’ve got energy on the defensive end, and when we’re not, we don’t. It’s got to be the other way around. The energy has to be dictated on that end of the floor and that’s a mindset.”As dramatic and exciting as Friday’s fourth quarter was, the game as a whole highlighted where the Fever need to grow. No team wants to have to rely on “basketball heroics” to potentially win a game.But it was also a sign of just how special Clark can be and how quickly she can deliver those heroics to try to save the Fever from defeat. #Caitlin #Clarks #fourth #quarter #heroics #lead #Fever #win](https://i1.wp.com/platform.sbnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/05/gettyimages-2275874262.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.732984293194%2C100%2C78.534031413613&w=1200&ssl=1 "Caitlin Clark’s fourth quarter heroics nearly lead Fever to win INDIANAPOLIS — For three quarters of Friday’s game against the Mystics, Caitlin Clark could hardly hit a shot. In the fourth quarter, she could hardly miss.Clark scored 17 of her 32 points, including five 3-pointers, in a wild final frame of regulation and dragged the Fever back into a game against the Mystics they looked set to lose. Her fifth 3-pointer was the biggest of the night as it forced overtime in the waning seconds.Even though Clark’s heroics would not be enough as the Fever fell to Washington in the extra session in one of the best finishes of the young WNBA season, it still highlighted just how quickly things can change with Clark on the floor.“I felt like I could have made another like five [threes],” Clark said postgame. “They’re all like right there and, obviously, it’s great to break through and get some to go down.”Clark hit a pair of threes on successive possessions midway through the first quarter. As it would turn out, those would be her only two makes through the first three periods.Clark was an ice cold 2-15 from the field and 2-7 from three heading into the fourth, mirroring the Fever’s offensive struggles as team as they were shooting just 32.8% from the field in that span.But back-to-back threes from Clark in the first 90 seconds of the fourth were a precursor of what was to come in the final 10 minutes.Clark scored or assisted on 11 of the first 12 points of the period. The only point she didn’t directly create was a Monique Billings free throw…which came on a foul after a Clark pass. She would go on to assist or score on 18 of the first 21 points for the Fever as they pulled themselves back into the game.Her third three gave the Fever a short-lived 70-69 lead. By the time she connected on her fourth three, the Fever trailed by four with just over 90 seconds left. That deficit grew to eight with 51 seconds left, leaving Indiana in need of a miracle.After a Myisha Hines-Allen layup, a Mystics turnover led to a Kelsey Mitchell 3-pointer, cutting the deficit to just three. The two teams traded free throws, leaving the Fever down three with 5.1 seconds left.A great play design from Indiana head coach Stephanie White created just enough room for Clark to get off a shot as she drifted out-of-bounds. It was all the space she would need as the shot found nylon, tying the game with 1.7 seconds left.“That’s like the hardest thing as a basketball player is when you’re not making shots to really stay in it,” Clark said. “So I’m certainly proud of myself. Really, really battled.”The Fever were given one more scare in the wild fourth quarter as Sonia Citron’s half-court heave swished through the net, but it came after the buzzer, sending the sides to overtime.Unfortunately, all those heroics to force the extra session were for naught as the Mystics responded again, building a multi-possession lead in the closing minutes. Again, though, they left the door open as missed free throws and a timely 3-pointer from Lexie Hull gave Indiana a chance in the final seconds.However, a desperation shot from Mitchell fell short at the buzzer, allowing Washington to escape with a dramatic win.For the Fever, as much as they can take away from their fight in the fourth and overtime, it was the middle quarters that were the most costly. Indiana shot 10-42 in the second and third periods, including 3-19 from range.“If we don’t have three clunky quarters, we don’t force ourselves into basketball heroics,“ Clark said. ”We don’t want to play that way. Like I know it’s exciting for the crowd, but we should have had ourselves in a position, especially after the first quarter, to control this ballgame and we really didn’t.”Friday was the second time in three games the Fever have eclipsed 100 points. Ironically, they have lost both of those contests, a sign of both how great this team can be offensively and how much work they still have on the other end.“We put a lot of pressure on our offense to be perfect when we don’t consistently defend,” head coach Stephanie White said. “Again, this is on us as coaches. This is our responsibility. We’ve got to be disciplined the entire game. We’ve got to be disciplined every possession. We’re taking chances. We’re fouling shooters who are about to shoot tough shots. We’ve got breakdowns in coverages. We’ve got to find combinations of players and rotations that’s net efficiency can be good.“We can’t wait to play defense in situations where we feel good and we’re making shots. It seems like we’re making shots and everything’s flowing and we’ve got energy on the defensive end, and when we’re not, we don’t. It’s got to be the other way around. The energy has to be dictated on that end of the floor and that’s a mindset.”As dramatic and exciting as Friday’s fourth quarter was, the game as a whole highlighted where the Fever need to grow. No team wants to have to rely on “basketball heroics” to potentially win a game.But it was also a sign of just how special Clark can be and how quickly she can deliver those heroics to try to save the Fever from defeat. #Caitlin #Clarks #fourth #quarter #heroics #lead #Fever #win")
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