Dan Hurley’s best moments from The Jim Rome Show

After an instant classic against Villanova, the UConn men’s basketball team is the talk of the sports world. That means mainstream sports pundits like Jim Rome get head coach Dan Hurley on for 17 minutes of unfiltered gems. Below is the transcription of some of The Carpenter’s best moments.

On getting tossed:

• “With a lot of things in life, two things can be true. I don’t feel like my ejection, or at least one of the technicals was warranted. But the other part that’s also true is I have a very formidable team and I’m at a big time program, and I can’t put myself and our program in that type of position again.”

On his mental state:

• “Usually after games I’m spent, but since I didn’t even make it halfway through the game, I have more energy. I only did half my job yesterday.”
• “When we turned it over and they were shooting one and one and it was a four-point game, I was heading toward the urinal in the area I was watching the game in. I said to myself, ‘I think this one is over.’ I quickly pivoted and talked myself into watching. It was excruciating; I couldn’t watch them make the one and ones and then us lose by eight. I was losing it.”
• “Everything the program had been through since the decline, was this emotional boiling point. The arena’s ceiling almost came off. It was almost shot into space when RJ got that charge.”

On the importance of beating Villanova at the XL Center:

• “Playing against Villanova and Jay Wright is like trying to bend steel. But we showed the mettle of team that has a chance to do some things in March.”

On what makes Connecticut so unique:

• “When you live in Connecticut, it’s UConn Huskies all day long. The Celtics and the Red Sox and the Patriots are secondary, it’s a Husky crazy state, and right now the state is going crazy.”

On the Hurley family:

• “My dad is the most intense of us all. When we’d play stick ball, if me and my brother hit one and made solid contact, the next one was coming at your chin.”
• “The ejection is not the look I want. There’s a level of emptiness, because I wish I could have been out there to enjoy more of the night. But when a Hurley does show up for that night’s sporting event, you’re going to get somebody that is fully invested in the moment and is bringing everything they have in their person to winning that battle, and some of the games occasionally feel more like a UFC event than it does a game.”
• “My dad taught me to accept responsibility for everything in life and never take a victim mentality.”

On looking ahead to Georgetown, avoiding a trap game, and the types of personalities he recruits:

• “I’m going to brutalize these guys the next couple of days in practice ... They’re swimming in dopamine right now on social media.”
• “I will reality check their you-know-what, because we can’t throw it back. We’re trying to build something big here and in order to do something big, we have to keep winning. The way you win is relentlessly pursuing the greatest level of preparation.”
• “I recruit guys that let me coach them. I do not recruit cartoon characters that more interested in their brand.”