No. 6 Connecticut held off Georgetown 79-75 on Saturday to improve to 24-2 on the season. But, as is frequently the case, a Huskies win still featured an irritated Dan Hurley sounding off after the game. And this time, it was about UConn’s fans.
During the postgame press conference, a reporter told Hurley that Georgetown head coach Ed Cooley was surprised by the lack of attendance in the UConn student section at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, CT.
“Is that something that concerns you?” The reporter asked Hurley. “Especially because you like to hype up the crowd.”
“I’ve kind of given up on that a little bit. You know, I’ve done that, and I don’t get the same response,” Hurley said, before going on to say a lot more about the home crowd.
“When we first got here, we played in front of paltry crowds… We played in front of crowds, my first year or two when we weren’t very good; I remember playing at the XL Center in front of [7-9,000] people versus Tulsa, or in here versus South Florida,” Hurley continued. “I’m not sh*tting on them; those are all really good programs, but just the state of where we were getting [5-6,000] people. We’ve given our fans two national championships out of the last three years. We’re 24-2, we’re 14-1, we’ve been ranked at the top of the rankings the whole year.”
“We’re the basketball capital of the world; there shouldn’t be criticisms of our crowds at games,” Hurley explained. “When I saw Ed during the handshake line, Ed asked me what was up with the crowd. There was just a lot of empty seats; I think the section behind our basket was empty. It should be a madhouse when we play here at the basketball capital of the world for our games.
“When we look at the environments that we play in when we wear the UConn jersey- Xavier is a madhouse when we go there, Creighton is a madhouse. When we play St. John’s now in the Big East road game, that’s not Storrs South no more. That environment that we played in was a serious, serious, nasty environment, an intense environment; we were at a major disadvantage in terms of the atmosphere. I could go to Kansas and some of these different places that we play.”
“I try,” Hurley said. “I try to get the crowd… Fans can criticize me all you want; I got some f*cking equity. I got two national championships here in the last three years. We’ve given you the season that there’s a lot of programs across the country [whose] fans wish they had going.”
“I’m not doing that anymore, though,” Hurley added. “I asked the players to try to do it. You don’t come to watch a game. It’s not a f*cking social event. This is the basketball capital of the world. We need our fans to come to the game and be loud as sh*t from the start. It needs to be a madhouse.”
Despite a crowd turnout that Hurley is not happy about this season, UConn is 13-1 at home, with its only loss coming to Arizona (who entered last week unbeaten and ranked No. 1 in the country) in November.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.