INDIANAPOLIS — UConn basketball coach Dan Hurley cannot believe the whistle he’s getting during the 2026 NCAA title game against Michigan. Are game officials James Breeding, Jeffrey Anderson and Kipp Kissinger calling a bad game? Don’t know, and that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is this:
Hurley cannot believe what is happening. And on a night where neither team shoots better than 38% from the floor, and both teams have more turnovers than assists, the most compelling figure is Hurley – and his attempts to impact the officiating.
Because Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium, the only place either team can shoot is at the foul line. So this game is going to be decided there.
“Oh my God!” Hurley shouts once, twice, three times during the first half as the fouls mount on his team, sending his starting backcourt to the bench after eight minutes. His starting center joins them eventually. Officials call 11 of the first 15 fouls on UConn, and to shake things up Hurley has tried everything but making eye contact with an official and blowing him a kiss.
Hurley has tried shouting at officials, joking with them, pleading with them. He has singled out Kissinger in an attempt to get him onto his side, then Anderson, but not Breeding. That dude’s already called two technical fouls on him this season. Hurley doesn’t mess with Breeding.
Hurley has waved his hands dismissively at all three officials, laughed at them, turned his back on them. He has even sprinted from the bench to the baseline to help up Anderson after he was knocked to the floor.
Nothing works.
And then it happens.
It’s a media timeout, late second half. Michigan is way ahead – Michigan is going to win this game, 69-63 – and as UConn’s players return to the bench, to the huddle forming on the court, Hurley walks away from his team. He’s staring at one of the giant scoreboards in the upper corner of Lucas Oil Stadium, seeing the score and the foul tally, both of which favor Michigan, and he says it one more time, slowly.
“Oh. My. God.”
And then he stares down Kipp Kissinger. That’s the official he’s been working the hardest, playing the good cop and the bad cop with Kissinger, anything to get a few more whistles out of the guy, and none of it has worked. So now Hurley is staring him down, not talking to his team during the timeout, waiting for Kissinger to notice him – when Kissinger does just that. He notices Hurley staring at him.
Hurley blows him a kiss.
Then he walks to the huddle, laughing. Now it’s Kissinger, staring.
Did that really just happen?
UConn’s Dan Hurley, um, compliments officials?
After it’s over, Hurley is laughing again. He’s just been asked by a reporter about the officiating of a national championship game that has seen UConn called for nine more fouls than Michigan (22 to 13), allowing Michigan to shoot 12 more free throws. The Wolverines outscored UConn 25-12 at the foul line.
Did the officials have a good game or a bad one? It’s a matter of perspective, but the math is clear: Michigan had a 13-point advantage in free throws in a game it won by six.
And now, late in Hurley’s postgame news conference, the moderator calls on Zach Braziller of the New York Post, and announces that this will be the final question.
“Lot of pressure, Zach,” Hurley says, sounding tired. “Come on buddy. Don’t blow it.”
Braziller asks about the officiating. It’s a fair question because of the numbers on the scoreboard, and also because Hurley, in his opening statement, had volunteered that fouls in the first half had impacted the game.
First, though, Hurley had said this:
“Yeah, No. 1,” he’d said, first words out of his mouth on the dais, “congratulations to Michigan. Just an incredibly talented, incredibly imposing team physically. Obviously well-coached, great staff. Just overall a tremendous university, what they’re able to accomplish in sports.”
And then he said…
“I just thought the guys picking up two fouls first half,” he said, referring to starting guards Solo Ball and Silas Demary Jr., before adding center Tarris Reed Jr. to the group, “losing those three guys when we – I thought – had a great chance of going to the locker room with the lead, really put us in a bad spot.”
That’s what Hurley had said to begin his news conference. Now, to end it, he’s being asked for the first time about the whistle.
He bursts into laughter.
“This guy!” he says, referring to Braziller. “Is there a fine (for speaking about officials)? I know there are fines.”
Then Hurley tells us what he really thinks. And like his final attempt to affect the officials – that kiss he blew Kissinger – it’s not predictable.
“Hey listen,” Hurley said, “that’s an all-star group there. Kipp and Jeff, obviously, and James who we’re familiar with as well. It’s such a physical game. Michigan is so physical. It’s not the reason why we lost the game: (Michigan was) plus-13 at the free throw line, plus-12 in attempts.
“I just thought the first half foul trouble – I thought we were positioned, if we didn’t have that foul trouble, to potentially go into halftime with a lead. You go in with a lead and they make a run, you’re down five (points) instead of 11.”
Now Hurley is going to make a confession, then a final statement that will blow your mind.
“But also, too, a problem for our team has been undisciplined fouling at times,” he said. “It’s hard to ref that game. We both played so hard. That’s not an easy game to officiate. If I could have those three guys ref every game the rest of my career, I’d sleep well at night.”
Now it’s a roomful of reporters, staring.
Did that really just happen?
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Michigan point guard Elliot Cadeau, the Most Outstanding Player of the 2026 Final Four, controlled the tempo at both ends – scoring a game-high 19 points and playing stifling defense on UConn freshman Braylon Mullins of Greenfield-Central, using his quickness to offset the 6-foot-6 Mullins’ sizable advantage in height and length. Mullins, the hero of UConn’s last two games, scored 11 points on 4 of 17 shooting – and hit two 3s in the final minutes to get that much.
The enormous Michigan frontcourt of 7-3 center Aday Mara and 6-9 forwards Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson Jr. controlled the lane, proving too long, strong and explosive for the Huskies frontcourt. UConn had shot 56.7% from the floor on two-point field goals this season, but against Michigan’s length the Huskies were just 12 of 35 on 2’s (34.3%), including 4 of 10 on layups.
“They’re just so tall,” Hurley was saying later.
Michigan’s size is the story, or could be, but Hurley wants the whistles to start going the other way. After his starting backcourt of Ball and Demary had joined him on the bench eight minutes into the game, they can’t survive even four minutes of the second half before heading back to the bench – Ball with four fouls, Demary with three. After Demary’s third foul, Hurley’s knees buckle until he’s on his hands and knees.
UConn had pulled within 35-31 early in the second half, but now the Huskies are without their top two guards and they’re turning it over five times in the first five minutes and Michigan opens a 48-37 lead. UConn never gets closer than four. Afterward, a reporter is asking Solo Ball about having to sit out so much of this game, and up there on the podium someone is snorting into the microphone.
Oh, that’s Hurley.
As Ball is answering the question – “It’s definitely frustrating not being on the court for that long,” he says, “and it hurts my team at the moment” – Hurley is whispering something to Reed. Both start laughing, and now Hurley is shaking his head slowly, then more slowly, and finally … in … slow … motion.
This is an emotional night for this UConn team, and this UConn coach. It’s the final game of the season, a failed chance at a third national title in four years, and the last game for perhaps the most beloved UConn player ever, Alex Karaban – whose No. 11 jersey has already been inducted into the Huskies of Honor, the first active UConn player to be so honored.
When the game ended and Karaban dissolved into tears, Hurley pulled him into a hug. Seeing Solo Ball nearby, Hurley pulls him into the group hug before escorting Karaban to the locker room, consoling him the whole way.
This is pain now, but earlier it was fire. Hurley was working on Kissinger several times until Kissinger told him, repeatedly, “stop.” Hurley was working on Anderson several times until Anderson simply walked away. Breeding never got the Hurley treatment, but social media was taking care of him, making “James Breeding” one of the top-10 trending topics nationally on Twitter as the foul differential escalated.
At one point in the second half the tally was 15 fouls on UConn, six on Michigan, and Hurley was furious – or maybe he was just pretending to be. You’ve seen the way he acted Monday night, haranguing the officials all night when he wasn’t blowing a kiss at one of them or helping another up. You heard him calling that crew “an all-star group” and saying he’d love to “have those three guys ref every game the rest of my career.”
With Hurley, you just don’t know what he’s thinking, other than this: He wants to win. He’d been using life-and-death words all week to describe these games, calling them “wars” and “battles” and “street fights,” and then he was acting that way for most of 40 minutes Monday night.
But then comes the news conference afterward, and the other Hurley comes out. The game is over, gone, not coming back. Now he’s back in the real world, this product of a Catholic family who attended mass several times this week in Indianapolis – and he’s listening to his players speak and congratulating them when they say something respectful, something he likes.
Reed, the UConn center whose college career has ended four years after it started at Michigan, of all places, has been asked about that journey. Hurley turns to him. He wants to hear this. He has a feeling where Reed will go and … yup. Here it comes.
“Top of my head,” Reed says, about to quote from the Old Testament, “Ecclesiastes 7:8 – ‘Better is the end than in the beginning.’”
Hurley nods, leans back and makes the sign of the cross.
He has fought for 40 minutes. His players are crying. He has given them everything he has, and the war is over. This doesn’t look like happiness, no. But for Dan Hurley, it looks like peace.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Doyel: Foul discrepancy helps Michigan win NCAA title. And UConn coach Dan Hurley noticed
Reporting by Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
