During the UConn men's basketball team's NCAA Tournament matchup against Florida in the round of 32, Huskies coach Dan Hurley was seen telling his assistant coach, Luke Murray, to "shut up" in the middle of the game.
The moment was one of multiple controversial comments from Hurley during the 77-75 loss, along with Hurley yelling about the referees after the game.
A couple weeks after that moment between him and his assistant coach, Hurley laughed about the clip and explained what was happening in the moment.
"When I saw the clip, it's just how casually I said to him to 'shut up.' ... Luke's been with me since Wagner, the Wagner days then a second tour of duty at [Rhode Island} and now back with me a third time," Hurley said on Pardon My Take. "Obviously we've got a great give and take relationship that way. There was something I wanted to do on the court and then Luke was just telling me either something that he saw or wanted to do, but I was so focused on what I wanted us to do that I just quickly wanted to tell him to 'shut up.'"
Dan Hurley telling his assistant to shut up on the sideline was an all time clip pic.twitter.com/5OlFlhvwXP
— Pardon My Take (@PardonMyTake) April 7, 2025
"I'm an a— at times," Hurley continued. "It's just who I am. I'm from Jersey, when you're from North Jersey, New York, New York City area, I don't think it's as offensive to people outside of that area, people in the Northeast, I think they understand me more that way. I think there are people though that live in the Midwest or maybe if they're from parts of the West Coast, that they just don't understand human beings like me—that we can get as intense, or as emotionally charged, or you could put as much as yourself into a competitive endeavor and take the results as badly.”
During his appearance on Pardon My Take, Hurley also cleared up that he does believe Florida beat his Huskies "fair and square," not because of the referees.
"Florida's fans already hate me because I blamed it on the refs," Hurley explained. "So I didn't give [them] their proper respect on having beaten us fair and square. Which, they did beat us fair and square. I'd like to get that out there."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dan Hurley Reacts to Viral Clip of Him Telling UConn Assistant Coach to 'Shut Up'.
