Friendly Enemies Clash In Final Four

By PHIL CHARDIS

Special to uconnhuskies.com

PHOENIX – UConn men's basketball Coach Dan Hurley coaches at his best with a chip on his shoulder. Some slight by the opposing team's coach or player or fans, be it real or contrived, always fuels the Huskies' fiery leader, which he, in turn, can pass along to his team and the motivation, has been evident in performance.

But that chip is going to be difficult to manufacture in Saturday's NCAA National Semifinal game against Alabama (8:49 p.m., TBS).

Alabama Coach Nate Oats happens to be one of Hurley's closest friends in the business and Oates also has a close bond with Hurley's older brother, Bob, whom Oats worked under on the Buffalo coaching staff. In fact, the only team that Dan Hurley might have more difficulty coaching against might be his brother's Arizona State's Sun Devils.

So, no slights involved – the coaches and players are just going to have to be motivated by a chance to play for the National Championship.

"I would say you would rather not play Bob or Nate or anyone you're close to maybe in the first round of the tournament, or maybe in an Elite Eight game," Hurley said Thursday. "This one, I think I'm excited to compete against a friend in such a big spot. This is the Final Four, I think it kind of changes it a little bit for me because we've both done something incredible with the season.

"Somebody that I really care about is going to play for a national championship, preferably me. I also care about Nate, too, to a much lesser degree."

Oats owes his college coaching career to the Hurleys, dating back to his days as a high school coach at Romulus High School in Michigan. Dan Hurley and Bob as his assistant, were recruiting guard E.C. Matthews out of Romulus and were totally impressed by the way Oats ran his program.

"He was running a college program in high school, just like my dad," Hurley said. "If you went and watched St. Anthony's, the way the program functioned from the pregame meal that my dad was literally cooking on his own, to game day shootarounds, and film sessions. The quality of what my dad was doing at the high school level was the quality of what the top programs in college were doing, obviously based on the resources available.

"That was the thing I noticed about Nate when we recruited E.C., was like this guy is wired different … different level of energy about him, just the way he shows up when you meet him. Then just the way he ran his program. I went and watched them in the state tournament game, one of the most detailed video scouts that you'll see. In the back, they had spaghetti cooking on the stove. You could see that he was a high-level guy that just happened to coach high school."

When Bob Hurley took over as head coach at Buffalo, he asked Oats to join his staff. As Bob moved on to take over at Arizona State, Oats became head coach at Buffalo. Four successful years later, he accepted the head job at Alabama and here we are with the Crimson Tide making the Final Four for the first time in school history.

"It's ironic that my first Final Four that I make, the first one Alabama makes, coaching against Danny Hurley, brother Bobby is the one that got me in this business," Oats said. "If it wasn't for Danny and Bobby, I wouldn't be here. We're playing each other in Bobby's town down here in Phoenix. Kind of funny how it comes full circle. It would be nice if I wasn't having to play against Danny's team because it's a pretty good team."

Oats was not about to leave a successful high school program for just any job.

"I got to the point I was not going to go into college if I wasn't pretty confident the guy I was going in with was going to be successful," Oats explained. "I was pretty confident the Hurley family was going to be successful, Bobby Hurley being part of it, was going to be successful in his college coaching. I didn't want to have to move getting fired year after year after year. I've been fortunate, we haven't been fired from anything yet."

No. 1 overall seed UConn is 35-3, riding an 11-game winning streak, while Alabama is 25-11 with four straight wins.

"Danny's ultracompetitive, as I'm sure you all know," Oats said. "Not quite sure what happened with the plane. Wasn't me. I didn't send anybody over there to mess with the mechanics. I'm sure he's conjured that up in his head already (smiling)."

Nope – no conspiracy theories, no slights, no causes, no shoulder chips – not when such a close friend is on the other bench. This one has to be played strictly for the massive prize at the end.

University of Connecticut Athletics

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