UConn head coach Dan Hurley has the reputation of being a confrontational hot head. And yet, in the aftermath of Michigan basketball taking down the Huskies in the national championship on Monday night, Hurley was nothing but magnanimous.
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Straight out of the gates after the Wolverines cut down the nets, Hurley sat up at the podium and gave credit where credit is due.
"No. 1, congratulations to Michigan," Hurley said. "Just an incredibly talented, incredibly imposing team physically. Obviously, well-coached, great staff. Just overall, just a tremendous university with what they're able to accomplish in sports."
Though there are certainly some detractors (mostly upset rival fans -- and some coaches), Hurley isn't among them.
There's a narrative that Dusty May's colleagues can't stand him, that Michigan isn't doing things the right way, that, despite having the No. 1 strength of schedule and still having a 36-3 record, that the Wolverines aren't as good as they are.
Hurley isn't having any of that, saying that the rightful team won the national championship -- a hard admission given that his own team was in the game and finished as the runner-up.
"Well, it's one of the better teams that I've played, certainly since I've been a college basketball coach," Hurley said. "Like when I was back at Rhode Island, I coached against an Arizona team with Aaron Gordon, Hollis Jefferson, Nick Johnson, and T.J. McConnell. I've coached against some teams with a lot of good players.
"I mean, they're legit. I mean, they definitely deserved to win the national championship. They're clearly the best team in the country this year.
"They're just so hard to score against at the rim. I could talk about the threes that we missed, and I thought we had a lot of good threes that we missed. But they just made it so tough on us around the rim. I mean, there was probably what even got us more than the missed threes was some of those rim shots, solos, transition basket. I think they cut it to four. Could have put some serious game pressure on them.
"They changed so many shots around the rim. They were just so tall."
Certainly, that's not going to stop the narratives emanating from the detractors. But to have the man who's usually considered a hothead take a sanguinary approach and praise his adversary in this situation, that speaks louder than the noise.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Dan Hurley praises Michigan after national championship