Dan Hurley ejected from Villanova game

With 4:53 remaining in the first half of the UConn men’s basketball game against Villanova, Husky head coach Dan Hurley was ejected following consecutive technical fouls. Associate head coach Kimani Young took over in his place.

The first technical foul came after Hurley slammed the scorer’s table in reaction to a play that he thought should have been a foul call on Villanova. He earned the second technical — and was ejected from the game — immediately afterward for riling up the crowd in at a sold-out XL Center.

Hurley had been doing his usual chirping at the referees and has had some technical fouls called in the recent past, as well as a recent jive at the officiating that was reprimanded (lightly) by the Big East.

These technical foul calls seemed to indicate that referees have their eye out for Hurley’s antics. The first technical was a soft one while the ejection afterward was an extreme overreaction from the referees.

UConn fans can yell about how egregious these calls are, and rightfully so. But Hurley needed to cool off after the first technical, for nothing else but to give his team the best possible shot at winning. Cheering on the crowd after getting a technical foul is not illegal and not worthy of another technical in any way, but refs are the dictators of this universe and we just have to live with their erratic behavior.