Why UConn's Dan Hurley didn't consider Knicks coaching job: 'I'm a college coach'

Joe Arruda, Hartford Courant on Jun 26, 2025

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NEW YORK — Dan Hurley was the No. 1 story in sports for about four days last summer as he flew out to Los Angeles and received a massive offer to leave UConn and become the Lakers’ next head coach. Hurley ultimately declined the offer, choosing to stay on the East Coast and continue building on his back-to-back national championship success with the Huskies.

The whole saga put pressure on him, his team (which was fully formed and on campus when the news came out), and the university, which signed him to a new six-year contract a few weeks later, valued at $50 million with additional incentives.

When the New York Knicks fired their head coach, Tom Thibodeau, after a run to the Eastern Conference finals this June, Hurley — a New Jersey native — was naturally brought up as a potential candidate.

“Not another summer of that,” he told The Hartford Courant’s Dom Amore a day after the job opened.

Hurley was in New York City Wednesday night, sitting with Liam McNeeley and his family as they waited to hear his name called as the 29th overall pick in the NBA draft, then talking with reporters in a hallway at the Barclays Center. The Knicks still hadn’t hired a coach, so the question naturally came up again.

“Where’s Liam? Can I just take my pictures and drive back?” Hurley said, half-joking, when he heard it asked by Roger Rubin of Newsday.

“No, no. I mean, the way that this year went for me personally and how tough it was on UConn — all of us, the staff, the players, the fans, just everyone that supports us — I mean, as soon as this year was over, your total mindset was like, try to regroup mentally because this year was a lot. And then get locked in on putting together a championship roster and play this season the way that we should have played this past year,” Hurley said.

There will certainly be more NBA job openings down the line, and Hurley’s name will likely be part of many more conversations, but last summer wasn’t the right time and this one wasn’t either.

The Huskies’ head coach spoke for more than 20 minutes, past midnight, on everything from the roster he’s built to contend for a third national championship in four years, to the growing rivalry with Rick Pitino and the gauntlet of a schedule he and his staff put together for the upcoming season. Everything he didn’t want to leave.

“So yeah, no, that’s not even something I thought about (or) considered,” he said. “I’m a college coach.”