University of Connecticut men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley took a business-like approach into the locker room immediately after his Huskies earned a trip to the program’s fifth-ever National Championship Game.
“I’m not that excited fellas, really, to be honest with you,” Hurley told his team after the Huskies earned a victory in their Final Four matchup against the Miami Hurricanes. “Because we knew we were going to be playing on Monday.
“It’s hard to come in here screaming and yelling because you guys have just been so dominant,” Hurley continued.
The Huskies now will take on San Diego State in the National Championship Game on Monday night. The Aztecs earned a trip to the title game after a buzzer-beating win against Florida Atlantic on Saturday.
Connecticut’s 72-59 win over Miami was its smallest margin of victory in this year’s NCAA Tournament. The Huskies previously defeated Iona by 24, St. Mary’s by 15, Arkansas by 23 and Gonzaga by 28 in the Elite Eight.
“This is all automatic at this point,” Hurley told FOX’s John Fanta when asked about his message to the team. “We don’t need to do anything special at this point. We don’t need a Kemba (Walker) moment or a Kemba performance where one guy bails us out. We just need to play to our identity, the four phases of the game we do a great job in.
“And again, going into these games if we can get to our top quality and play to our identity, in some instances, there’s not a lot the other team can do if we’re just doing what we do best.”
Oddsmakers certainly like what they’ve seen from Hurley’s Huskies, too. UConn was the betting favorite to win the championship entering the Final Four, and now entering the title game, FanDuel Sportsbook currently has the Huskies as a 7.5-point favorite against San Diego State.
