STORRS — As the summer winds down and the college sports calendar begins again, UConn coach Dan Hurley is again using his stature in men’s basketball to call for reform, clarification.
“We have meetings with compliance, and when compliance says something is illegal, we can’t do it. A player is ineligible based on the rules, our reaction as a university is not to go find a lawyer in Willimantic or some place,” Hurley said Friday during a long talk with state reporters.
“The part of it, there’s all different parts to what’s happening now. Whether we get something done in Congress, from a government standpoint, or collective bargaining, we can’t go on like this.”
Hurley, 53, has led UConn to the national championship game in three of the last four years, winning it in 2023 and ’24, so he can speak as one of the faces of his sport. On social media last week, he posted, “Somebody please come and fix college sports, it’s a complete (poop emoji) show.”
So he was looking to give his views following UConn’s open practice for donors at the Werth Center.
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The NCAA has tried to establish eligibility rules. Most recently, simplifying things so that every athlete can play five seasons within five years of high school graduation. But this, as has been the case in most other similar instances, has been challenged in the courts. Recently, an injunction could give a large number of players whose careers were to be ended by the five-in-five rule the chance to apply for another year.
“We can get into what’s best for the athletes,” Hurley said, “what’s truly best for the student-athletes, because it’s players, and kids in high school who also get affected by this. There are people that are losing. It’s not a victimless situation. Kids 17 or 18 years old may lose out on opportunities, so it’s not victimless.”
Hurley said his roster is set with his 15 players, so he is not looking to add, even though some of those older players have listed UConn among the schools where they’re interested to go to jump back into the college game. He has generally maintained a formula that emphasized player-development, with incoming freshmen, such as Colben Landrew and Junior County. He values transfers who are early in their careers such as Nik Khamenia, Na’jai Hines and Oskar Giltay, all coming to Storrs as sophomores, and retaining players, such as Solo Ball and Jayden Ross, who have been in the program four years. He’s been very selective with older transfers.
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The UConn coach bristles at the thought of schools adding 23- or 24-year-old players on the eve of the season.
” At some point, you’ve got to care about the sport,” Hurley said. “Especially if the sport has given you a lot. Doing things to hurt the sport so that you can win a little bit more, you’ve got to look in the mirror a little on that. … The art of what we do has been cheapened a little bit. You can put together teams that can compete and not have to identify and develop young talent.
“Now, you can screw up high school and portal recruiting, not have a very good team, and now start plucking from a group of players in August and put together a team.”
Hurley says coaches have been getting frequent texts about rules changes and adjustments all summer.
“Now let’s unleash 80 players into the sport in the first week of August,” he said. “We can’t go on like this. And anyone who acts like it’s great, it’s good for college basketball, they’ve already taken the stance that this is what they’ve wanted, and now they’re just defending their position. It’s total chaos and it’s not sustainable. Rules are being changed about how you can put together a roster like five weeks before the season starts.
“It’s not, ‘Oh, look at us, we’re above everybody else. We have compliance that tells us who is eligible and who’s not eligible, so our options are high school players, guys who are in the portal who fit into what the NCAA told us we can work with, we’re going to put together the best team we can the following year.”
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One player who could be affected by the uncertainty is Ball, a senior, who is planning 2026-27 as a redshirt year as he recovers from wrist surgery. If five-in-five is implemented, there are no redshirts, so he could return to action this season if his recovery goes well.
“It potentially can,” Hurley said. “Solo at some point, when he gets healthy, we’ll see where he’s at in December, January, because he’s a long way away as far taking a shot or dribbling the ball, but that’s something he’s going to have to consider as he gets healthier.”
The bipartisan Protect College Sports Act has been working through a long process in the Senate, with adjustments and amendments ongoing.
Notes: The Huskies ran through a spirited workout. Giltay, the center from Stanford, returned this week after several weeks recovering from a sprained ankle and Hurley was encouraged by his production. Team Gray, coached by Kimani Young on Friday, has been losing more scrimmages than winning, but prevailed in overtime with a winning shot by — guess who? — Braylon Mullins. … GM Tom Moore, whose retirement officially begins Sept. 1, was at practice, still texting and making calls.
