Dan Hurleyfinds himself in an all too familiar situation on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis whenConnecticut men's basketballtakes on Illinoisin the Final Four.
It is the third Final Four in the last four seasons that the 53-year-old coach has led the Huskies to during their six-year rise back to being one of thetop college basketball programsin the country.
He holds a 17-3 record in March Madnesswith the Huskies,and is looking to become the seventh Division I men's basketball coach to win at least three national championship titles. Remove the first two seasons that Hurley led the Huskies tothe NCAA Tournament,both of which were first-round exits, UConn is 17-1 in its last 18 March Madness games.
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The Huskies' success under Hurley has not only established him asone of the top coaches in the countryand garnered interest from the NBA (hello,Los Angeles Lakers), but it has also bumped their resume upon the blue blood rankings list,which can see them move past Duke with their seventh title in program history.
But Hurley's success and rise in his profession also put a spotlight on his roots and how he got started in coaching, which, if you know anything about the Hurley family, all started in a gymnasium in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Here's what to know about Hurley's family tree:
Dan Hurley family tree
Who is Dan Hurley's dad?
Dan Hurley is the son of legendary New Jersey high school basketball coach Bobby Hurley Sr., who is alsoenshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Bobby Hurley Sr. spent nearly four decades as a high school basketball coach at St. Anthony's in Jersey City.In his 39 seasons at St. Anthony's,Bobby Hurley Sr. won over 1,000 games and 28 state championships while turning the program into a national powerhouse. He also led St. Anthony's to 18 undefeated seasons.
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As noted by CT Insider, Dan Hurley went head-to-head against his dad for nine seasons from 2001 to 2010 at the high school circuit, as the UConn head coach started his career at St. Benedict's Prep in Newark. Bobby Hurley Sr. retired from coaching after the 2016-17 basketball season, when St. Anthony was forced to shut down due to declining enrollment and finances.
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The two-time NCAA national championship coach fielded multiple questions about being a byproduct of a high school basketball coach, and whether his intensity on the sidelines comes from that, ahead of UConn's second-round game vs. UCLA, whereDan Hurley went up against Mick Cronin,whose dad was also a high school coach.
"If you don't like me, you'd hate my dad. I bet Mick would say the same thing. We're coach's kids. For me, growing up in Jersey, North Jersey, Jersey City, I coach the way my dad would be coaching this college. Whether you would like that or not," Dan Hurley said. "You just have a special relationship to your team, to your players, to the outcome, to the lifestyle of being a coach when you're a coach's kid.
"It's so personal for coaches like me and Mick, which is where you see, at times, emotional reactions to things that happen on the court because it truly feels like, personally, it's your world, your team. The outcome of the game, it manifests itself sometimes in how we behave."
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Following UConn's win over Duke in the Elite Eight, Bobby Hurley Sr. told college basketball reporter Adam Zagoria that the Huskies' come-from-behindwin against the Blue Devils, which featureda buzzer-beaterfromBraylon Mullins, "the singularly most incredible moment" he's seen in person following a college basketball game.
"In the times I've been around it, this is the singularly most incredible moment (I've seen) following college basketball. I don't think I've ever been around the game where we were on the right end of a last-second shot," Hurley told Zagoria.
Who is Dan Hurley's brother?
Dan Hurley's brother is Bobby Hurley Jr., the former Duke All-American guard under Mike Krzyzewski and recently fired Arizona State basketball head coach.
Bobby Hurley Jr. helped guide the Blue Devils to a pair of national championship titles in 1991 and 1992, while recording career totals of 1,731 points, 1,076 assists, 306 rebounds, and 202 steals in 140 career games. His 1,076 career assists used to be the NCAA all-time career record, but he was recentlysurpassed by Purdue guard Braden Smith.
Who are Dan Hurley's sons?
Dan Hurley has two sons, Danny and Andrew, with his wife, Andrea.
His son Danny attended Seton Hall University, his father's alma mater, while Andrew was a walk-on for his dad at UConn and a member of the Huskies' back-to-back national championship teams in 2023 and 2024. Andrew Hurley iscurrently a graduate assistant on UConn's coaching staffand will earn his MBA this spring.
Dan Hurley: College basketball's most animated head coach
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Dan Hurley family tree: UConn coach son of legendary HS basketball coach
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