Dan Hurley couldn’t help but laugh on Monday night when he was asked about the officiating after their loss in thenational championship game.
“Is there a fine?” Hurley turned to ask when the topic was brought up in the interview room at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, clearly joking around.
Hurley was plenty animated on the sidelines throughoutUConn’s 69-63 loss to Michigan on Monday night in the national title game, which actually marked the program’s first-ever loss in the championship game after winning the previous six.
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That’s been pretty normal for the Huskies head coach, however, and it’s been a recurring trend throughout the NCAA tournament.Hurley went head-to-head with a referee without penaltyat the tail end of their wild win over Duke in the Elite Eight, and he wasbooed hard by Illinois fans after their win over the Illiniin the semifinals on Saturday.
UConn was called for 22 fouls on Monday night, compared to just 13 against Michigan. Three key UConn players — Silas Demary, Tarris Reed and Solo Ball — all had two fouls each in the first half. Demary ended up fouling out, too.
“I just thought the two fouls on those three guys in the first half, I thought we had a real good chance to go into the half with the lead … [that] really put us down at the half,” Hurleysaid on TBS after the game. “We just had to make more shots. We had great opportunities, I thought, from three. If you make three or four more, you have a great chance to win it. But how are you disappointed at all in your group?”
Michigan led the entire second half and held on late to grab the six-point win behind 19 points fromElliot Cadeau, who was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. Alex Karaban led UConn with 17 points and 11 rebounds, but the Huskies went just 9-of-33 from behind the arc as a group. They did out-rebound Michigan, 46-39, and had 22 offensive rebounds.
But despite the foul discrepancy, Hurley didn’t place any blame on the officiating. The crew that worked the game, he said, was an “all-star group.”
“It’s such a physical game. Michigan is so physical,” Hurley said. “I just thought, again, it’s not the reason that we lost the game.”
