Dan Hurley sounds off on referees after losing championship

UConn Huskies head coach Dan Hurley saw his team lose a physical national championship heavyweight bout 69-63 to the Michigan Wolverines. The Huskies were hampered throughout the game by foul trouble, resulting in Michigan attempting 12 more free throws and shooting an impressive 89% from the line.

After the game, Hurley was asked for his opinions on how the game was called.

“That’s an all-star group there,” Hurley said. “Kip and Jeff obviously and James, who we’re familiar with as well. It’s such a physical game. Michigan is so physical I just thought, and again it’s not the reason why we lost the game obviously, plus 13 at the free throw line, plus 12 in attempts.

“I just thought the first half, foul trouble, I thought we were positioned if we didn’t have that foul trouble to potentially go into halftime with a lead. You go in with a lead and they make a run you’re down five instead of 11. But we also too, a problem for our team has been undisicplined fouling at times. But it’s hard to ref that game. We both played so hard. That’s not an easy game to officiate and if I could have those three guys ref every game the rest of my career I would sleep well at night.”

Fans reacted to Hurley’s comments on social media.

“He’s not upset with the officiating because his strategy was to foul every single time down the court because he knew they couldn’t call a foul every single time,” one fan wrote on Twitter.

“Respect to hurley for this one, especially after seeing all the uconn fans whining,” someone else added.

“As a UConn fan who won’t defend Dan’s past interactions with officials but is irate with the officiating tonight… hopefully this was his penance. UConn’s been by and large dogged by officiating the past 2 years, it’s no surprise but this was egregious and he took it on the chin,” another fan added.

It’s a shocking turn for Hurley, who has had some strong feelings for officials in the past.