After leading the Connecticut Huskies to their fifth national championship, coach Dan Hurley has agreed to a new six-year contract, the school announced Thursday.
Sources told ESPN that the new deal guarantees Hurley nearly $33 million, putting him among the highest-paid coaches in men’s basketball. The new contract runs through the 2028-29 season and includes incentives for athletic and academic success that could push the full value of the deal even higher.
Hurley, who has earned a reputation as one of the nation’s top program-builders and recruiter at Wagner, Rhode Island, and UConn, resurrected a Huskies program that had fallen on hard times. After reestablishing UConn as a Big East power upon the school’s reentry into the conference in 2020, Hurley delivered the program’s fifth national title with a dominant March run that ended with a title victory over the San Diego State Aztecs, 75-59, in April.
“I am thrilled to have Dan Hurley leading our men’s basketball program,” athletic director David Benedict said in a statement. “The work he and his staff have done over the past five years in rebuilding our program, which culminated in the Huskies once again reaching the pinnacle of college basketball, has been nothing short of remarkable. I know all of UConn Nation is ecstatic that Dan will continue to lead this program for the foreseeable future.”
Despite losing three key players expected to be selected in Thursday’s NBA draft, guards Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson Jr. and center Adama Sanogo, the Huskies are expected to be a preseason top-10 team once again in 2023-24. The Huskies have two sophomore 2024 first-round projected picks in center Donovan Clingan and forward Alex Karaban.
“I want to thank the players and staff who helped make this climb possible. Coaching at the University of Connecticut is an honor, and we intend to build on our success as one of the premier programs in college basketball,” Hurley said in a statement.
In his five seasons at UConn, Hurley has posted a record of 104-55 (.654) and reached the NCAA tournament, the ‘Big Dance’, in three straight seasons. He is 255-160 (.614) in 13 seasons at the Division I level since finishing a nine-year run as a high school coach at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, New Jersey.
Hurley is part of one of the most famous coaching families in basketball, including his father, Naismith Hall of Famer Bob Hurley Sr., the retired coach at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, and older brother, Bobby, the coach at Arizona State. Bobby was also an All-American point guard at Duke University.
