The UConn Men’s Basketball Huskies are just one win away from being only the eighth team in college basketball history to win back-to-back National Championships. Many basketball fans have seen the Huskies plow through their competition all year including in their March Madness pool. The dominance by UConn is nothing but the truth and it all starts with their coach, Dan Hurley.

This Huskies squad has rolled through their first four tournament games by an average of 27.8 points and has many people questioning how this is even possible. It’s possible with a head coach who has their players prepared for moments before they even happen. In multiple interviews former players of UConn and current analysts have expressed exactly how prepared they are. Internet personality and sports analyst Jon Rothstein, said on CBS Sports that “Practices at UConn are much more difficult than the games and that’s the way Dan Hurley wants to craft it.” Hurley’s philosophy of making his players go through the most stressful and brutal conditions in practice will make it easy to transfer over come game time.

Hurley’s grit and obsessive attitude towards winning in an industry that is extremely hard to be so consistently dominate dates back to his father, Bob Hurley Sr. Hurley was a dominant force in talent-rich New Jersey for more than 40 years. In 45 seasons, St. Anthony won 26 state titles, four national championships, 13 New Jersey Tournament of Champions trophies, and produced more than 150 Division 1 players. The Naismith Hall of Famer, regarded as one of the greatest high school coaches of all time, passed up multiple chances to stay in Jersey City and never did give college a try. This new generation of Hurley’s seems to be a tribute to what Hurley Sr. left behind.

In a documentary that took a deep dive into Dan Hurley and UConn and where their mastery comes from, Hurley said he believes that “championship program was built with men that ran everywhere”. This old school coaching style is something his father was extremely passionate about. Many coaches and programs tell their players what they want to hear vs. what they should hear to improve themselves and the team, but that’s not how Dan runs his program Storrs, Connecticut saying “I’m honest about what your roll is going to be, I’m honest about how hard I’m going to coach you”. There’s most definitely a method to coach Hurley’s madness and it has shown from his early days at Wagner University to his second consecutive Final Four appearance with the University of Connecticut.

Like I said, it’s no coincidence UConn is one win away from it’s second consecutive championship appearance and is looking to be the first back-to-back champions in seventeen years. The best programs have the best coaches, and when you have a coach like Dan Hurley who has been through the basketball gauntlet since he was a kid watching his pops dominate the high school level you better buckle up because he’s coming. His quest for nothing but success is what attracts recruits to come to UConn and player under him. Dan Hurley is the definition of a winner who demands the best from every player he coaches.

The Huskies are 6.5 favorites over Purdue on Monday night.

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