MAUI INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY NOVAVAX

November 27, 2024

Dan Hurley

Lahaina Civic Center

UConn Huskies

Postgame Press Conference

Dayton 85, UConn 67

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. Dan, obviously the defense has not been there. How do you get better? Being smarter, better intensity?

DAN HURLEY: I mean, it's so many things. It's so many things. I can't remember the last time we got out-rebounded by 16. I mean, that's what we do to people.

But there's discipline mistakes, which is bad coaching. Just not being in the right spots. There's obviously the free throw discrepancy thing that's gone on the whole time we're here, which is a by-product of a lack of discipline and other factors.

It's scary that a five-point game with five minutes to go turned into that. When you come to a tournament like this, and it's three games in three days, it starts to go bad, there's no way of fixing it 'cause there's no time to. You just have to deal with the situation.

It was a humbling trip obviously for the program that's accomplished what we've accomplished.

Q. Figuring out the rotation, still continues to be a challenge?

DAN HURLEY: It's tough to do. We just looked so young compared to them. I mean, minus Alex and Samson, Hassan, we have a lot of younger players. The older guys that we brought in, we're not going to be very actual if we can't get more out of them.

I just think we need to get back and we need to regroup both from a psyche standpoint and come up with a different plan defensively for the most part.

Q. With Maryland Eastern Shore and Baylor, what is the most fixable in the short-term?

DAN HURLEY: I don't know. We're a pretty efficient offensive team. We missed a lot of open shots. Liam had some great looks and some things at the rim. I think offensively we'll be fine. Defensively, though, man, it's been a disaster here for us.

The amount of times we just have been driven, I don't even know overall what the whole free throw thing was like through the three-game stretch out here, how much we were outscored at the free-throw line. We were minus 20 today, so...

Q. Where do you start to regroup from a psyche standpoint? Long flight, quick turnaround.

DAN HURLEY: Yeah, listen, this UConn team that has lost three in a row out here is not the UConn team that we've been. It's the UConn team that we are right now that I think is going to get a lot better. We're relying on a lot of young players. The burden of wearing the uniform after back-to-backs right now looks like it's weighing heavy on the group.

I think right now we just got to try to focus on becoming a good team and becoming a tougher team. To allow a five-point game, obviously there was a flagrant one there, that was a game that we were missing lobs in transition, blowing opportunities.

Right now we're a shell of what we've been.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.