As I’m sure many of you have heard, the URI men’s basketball coach, Dan Hurley, has left the University of Rhode Island…for good. The Rams had an amazing run this season, going 26-8 overall. They won the A-10 regular season championship AND made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament. Dan Hurley has been with this team for the past six seasons and has made them ten times better during his stay.
As the season progressed, no one would have thought that Dan Hurley was going to leave Rhode Island; he constantly said how the rams were his family and, no matter what the media was saying, he was going to keep building the program.
Hurley is leaving URI to take over the men’s team at UConn in Storrs, Connecticut. UCONN’s coach, Kevin Ollie, was fired after their season ended which made this the perfect time to bring in Hurley.
Being a Connecticut native and having UConn men’s season tickets, I’m not sure how I feel about going to a UConn game to watch Hurley coach. URI is my home now, and I think it’s sad that he’s leaving such a great group of players behind. UConn went 14-18 this past season, not very good at all (just in case you don’t understand sports lingo). Coach Hurley did an amazing job building up URI’s program, and I’m sure that is one of his main reasons for heading to UConn; to save their team from the drought of losing they are in. The $3 million salary is an added bonus.
I am sad and upset to see him go, as I’m sure the rest of URI is. I’m so glad I got to witness the team make the NCAA tourney in both my years so far at URI. I hope that we will be able to make it again next year, and show Hurley what he left behind! No one knows who URI will be bringing in to coach the boys yet, or if one of Hurley’s staff members will be staying with us. For now all we can say is, “good bye Coach Hurley.”