With an 80-78 overtime victory over Butler on January 21, UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Harley attracted national attention for what he said, not what his team did.
At the time of the game’s suspension, the TV camera was cut by the Husky coach and umpireed what he believed was a missed call.
“Don’t turn your back on me,” Harley told the officials who began to leave while Harley spoke to him. “I’m the best coach in f–ing sports.”
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After all, he may not even be the best coach at his own meeting.
On Sunday, Harley’s UConn team fell to Rick Pitino and 9th St. John’s 89-75 at Madison Square Garden in New York, wiping out the regular season of the two-time reigning champions to Red Storm. Due to losses, the Husky are 4.5 games behind No. 1 St. John’s in the Big East, effectively eliminating them from the regular season conference championship race.
If so, people rarely doubt Harley’s achievements and his abilities as a coach.
The 52-year-old won at every stop in his career, from Wagner to Rhode Island to turmeric. He took over the Husky’s involving program and turned it into a juggernaut that won each of the last two NCAA championships. UConn not only won the 2023 and 2024 titles, but dominated in doing so, compiling a 68-11 record in these two seasons, and at least 13 each of the 12 NCAA tournament games Earned with points.
However, his team didn’t meet that standard because he is famous for claiming to be the best coach in the sport.
In eight games since their narrow victory against Butler, the Husky are only 4-4. Before that comment, UConn was 13-5.
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The recent rut includes a loss at Xavier, which is widely predicted to miss a cut in the NCAA Tournament. And even more worrying, it was at the final spot in the Big East, just 6-18 before defeating the Husky. The victory over UConn is Seton Hall’s only victory in the last 11 games, a stretch that dates back to January 9th.
“I want them to have more cameras on the other coaches,” Harley said after Butler’s game. “…I want to show that these other coaches at other Big East Game officials are losing their hearts. I demonstrate that I am.”
There’s no shame in being defeated by Pitino, a Nicemith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame who has won national championships in two different programs and can lead St. John’s to the Final Four. Semi-finals. The Harley team wasn’t playing well even in the Butler game. Also, after a 12-3 start of the season, they lost two of the previous three.
But whether it’s hub arrogance or his reconstructed team, Harley’s loud insistence is that the program has no effort to go with the noble benchmark that set the previous two seasons. It may not be the case, but it is not particularly aging.