This year’s UConn men’s basketball team looks strikingly different from the last.

Under coach Dan Hurley, who memorably turned down the Los Angeles Lakers head coaching job last fall to stay in Storrs, the Huskies have endured an anxiety-ridden rollercoaster of a 2024-25 season that has them teetering on the NCAA tournament bubble. 

UConn suffered through some early season woes, which included an embarrassing last-place finish at the 2024 Maui Invitational and an uninspiring stretch of games in the wake of star freshman Liam McNeeley’s ankle injury.

In February, the reigning back-to-back NCAA champs hardly look dominant or consistent enough to vie for the historic three-peat this year and have had to fight for most of their victories—they’ve played 15 Big East games so far, and all but two games have been decided by eight points or less.

Amid UConn’s agonizing up-and-down struggles, Hurley seemed to call out his own players in a guest appearance on Mad Dog Sports Radio this week. 

The ordinarily impassioned coach was as fiery as ever when talking about his team’s coachability, appearing to suggest that this year’s squad couldn’t take “hard coaching” as much as his previous squads could.

“I realized that I couldn’t coach this team as hard as I've coached some of my other teams,” Hurley said. “When you have guys like Cam Spencer, Andre Jackson, Donovan Clingan, these guys could take hard coaching. This year, our confidence got rattled so early in Maui, you know, I've had to build this team up. I don’t think any of us were prepared for the level of scrutiny throughout the year that’s come with the success we’ve had the last two years. I think that’s been heavy for all of us.”

The Huskies currently own a 18-8 overall record (10-5 in Big East) and are coming off two very different results with a deflating loss to last-place Seton Hall and a thrilling comeback win over Villanova. Time will tell which version of the Huskies will come to play in the NCAA tournament—assuming they make it in.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dan Hurley Says His Players Can’t Take ‘Hard Coaching’ Amid UConn’s Season Woes.