Dan Hurley Was the Loudest Coach in the Tournament. The Guy Who Beat Him Was the Quietest.
Dan Hurley Was the Loudest Coach in the Tournament. The Guy Who Beat Him Was the Quietest.
Michigan 69, UConn 63. The Wolverines are national champions for the first time since 1989. Dusty May, in his second year at Michigan, just won the whole thing.
Dan Hurley did not.
And if you watched this tournament, the result makes more sense than the bracket ever did.
The act
Dan Hurley’s 2026 NCAA tournament was a highlight reel of everything wrong with Dan Hurley.
Earlier this season, he was ejected from a game at Marquette after aggressively confronting referee John Gaffney. The Big East fined him $25,000 for unsportsmanlike behavior.
During the tournament, he received a formal warning for charging onto the court to argue a call.
In the Elite Eight, after Braylon Mullins hit the game-winning three against Duke, Hurley went forehead-to-forehead with referee Roger Ayers in what everyone watching saw as a headbutt. He later said he thought the official was coming over to “chest-bump” him. Ayers was not assigned to work the Final Four.
After UConn beat Illinois 71-62 in the semifinal, the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium booed Hurley during his postgame interview. He looked confused. “Are they booing? I don’t know what they’re booing.” Then he headbutted his own player, Braylon Mullins, in what seemed like a callback to the referee incident.
Yahoo Sports ran a piece on him this week with the headline: “When is enough, enough?”
Former Michigan coach John Beilein publicly criticized his sideline behavior.
And Hurley’s response to all of it? He told reporters before the Final Four that he’s not changing. He said he came to Indianapolis “for rings, not watches.”
He left without either.
The resume
Three national championship games in four years. That sounds like a dynasty. It sounds like the resume of a generational coaching talent. But look closer.
The 2023 and 2024 titles came with historically stacked rosters. The 2024 team had Stephon Castle, who went fourth overall in the NBA Draft, and Donovan Clingan, who went seventh. Four of the five starters were drafted, including two lottery picks. UConn won every game in the 2024 tournament by at least 14 points, breaking their own record from 2023 when they won every game by at least 13.
When you have that much talent on one roster, you’re supposed to win. Those margins weren’t a coaching masterclass. They were a talent avalanche.
And the one year the talent dipped? In 2025, without those rosters, UConn finished third in the Big East, entered the tournament as an 8-seed, and lost to Florida in the second round. Hurley fought back tears in the postgame interview and later admitted he “thought about leaving” UConn altogether. One year after turning down $70 million from the Lakers because he loved college coaching so much.
This year, Hurley restocked through the portal. Tarris Reed Jr. from Michigan. Braylon Mullins. Silas Demary Jr. They were good enough to get back to the title game. Reed was the East Region’s Most Outstanding Player, averaging 21.7 points and 13.5 rebounds in UConn’s first four tournament wins. He had 17 and 11 in the semifinal against Illinois.
But in the championship game, against his former team, it wasn’t enough. Michigan 69, UConn 63.
The guy who beat him
Dusty May was a student manager under Bob Knight at Indiana from 1996 to 2000. He spent years as an assistant at places like Eastern Michigan, Murray State, UAB, Louisiana Tech, and Florida. He got his first head coaching job at Florida Atlantic in 2018. Nobody outside of Boca Raton knew his name.
Then, in 2023, he took FAU to the Final Four. A ninth seed. They beat Memphis, Fairleigh Dickinson, Tennessee, and Kansas State before losing to San Diego State on a buzzer beater. The run was one of the best Cinderella stories in tournament history.
Michigan hired him in March 2024 to replace Juwan Howard. Two years later, he’s a national champion. He was named USBWA National Coach of the Year.
He didn’t headbutt a referee. He didn’t get ejected. He didn’t get booed by a neutral crowd. He didn’t tell reporters he wasn’t changing. He just coached.
Michigan outscored UConn 32-22 in the paint. They shot 15-of-16 from the free throw line. Trey McKenney hit a clutch three to put Michigan up 65-56 with under two minutes left. Yaxel Lendeborg, who sprained his MCL and rolled his ankle in the semifinal against Arizona, gutted out the championship game because he refused to miss it.
That’s what winning looks like when the coach isn’t the main character.
The parallel
Two championship games played this weekend. Two coaches who have become bigger than their results.
Dawn Staley wore a $2,300 Balenciaga jacket with no South Carolina branding to the women’s title game and lost 79-51 to UCLA. Dan Hurley spent the entire tournament headbutting officials, getting booed, and screaming about how he wasn’t going to change, and lost 69-63 to Michigan.
In both cases, the coaches who won did it quietly. Cori Close won her first title in her 15th year at UCLA. Dusty May won his first title in his second year at Michigan. Neither one made themselves the story.
What this means
Dan Hurley is a good basketball coach. He recruits well. He uses the transfer portal effectively. He’s made three title games in four years, and he won two of them. That’s a real accomplishment.
But the idea that he’s some transcendent genius who deserves to act like every whistle is a personal attack on his family took a hit tonight. The two championships came with rosters full of future NBA players. The one year without that talent, they were an 8-seed. And tonight, in a title game against a coach who doesn’t make himself the center of attention, Hurley’s team came up short.
Michigan 69, UConn 63. The loudest coach in the tournament lost. The quietest one cut down the nets.
A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
