UConn's Dan Hurley acknowledges friction with St. John's Rick Pitino but also praises him
St. John's head coach Rick Pitino, left, and UConn head coach Dan Hurley shake hands after an NCAA men's basketball game on Saturday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Peter K. Afriyie
The recent contentiousness and gamesmanship between St. John's coach Rick Pitino and Connecticut coach Dan Hurley added a lot of color to Saturday’s Big East game between their teams at the Garden. It was evocative of the era when the Big East first rose to prominence.
But when the game was over and the top-ranked Huskies had downed the Red Storm, 77-64, before a sellout crowd of 19,812, Hurley said that despite what’s been going on, “I respect the hell out of him.”
A week after St. John’s four-point loss to UConn in Hartford, Pitino suggested that the teams play at Carnesecca Arena next season instead of the Garden. He said he had his reasons, and it was clear that something about the way Hurley worked the officials in that game had irked him.
UConn was having none of it and reached out to the Big East, which would have to approve such a decision. The conference said the game will be played at the Garden.
“It's a fascinating league: We’ve got Rick Pitino [coming] into this league and we already have all these incredible coaches that have coached in Final Fours, national championship coaches, national coaches of the year like [Georgetown’s Ed] Cooley,” Hurley said before adding to the list Xavier’s Sean Miller, Marquette’s Shaka Smart and Butler’s Thad Matta.
“Some of the stuff we do, we [tick] each other off,” he added. “Like recruiting sometimes: You don’t like the way somebody recruited a player and you hold on to that [stuff]. Same thing with in-game: [Pitino] might not like how I coach, with the refs, with the emotion. It causes friction.”
Nevertheless, he called their conflict “good.”
“It brought a lot of interest into this game,” he said. “It packed this arena. And I am sure a lot of people watched.”
Pitino wasn’t especially interested in the subject of a burgeoning rivalry with the Huskies, saying, “I don’t think we’re anywhere close to being a rival with them . . . It maybe could become a rivalry someday, but it’s not now.”
Hurley doesn't think the two will bury the hatchet now that the regular-season series is over.
“I don’t think we’re going to become best friends this summer,” he said. “There are Big East meetings — [but] I don’t golf. So we’re probably not going to become best buddies. But I respect the hell out of him.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
