UConn’s Dan Hurley criticizes refs for ‘horrible’ calls in loss

Dan Hurley was at it again.

The UConn basketball coach complained for the second straight day about the officiating after the Huskies lost a nail-biter to Colorado in the Maui Invitational on Tuesday night.

UConn dropped consecutive games for the first time since 2022 when they were upset by the Buffaloes 73-72.

Hurley was angered by an offensive rebound pulled down by Colorado’s Trevor Baskin over Liam McNeely with 24 seconds left in the game.

McNeely had been called for an over-the-back foul on Monday against Memphis at the exact same spot, resulting in a controversial reversal.

“Obviously it has a big impact on the game. If it’s called an over back, obviously we go to the free throw line,” Hurley said of the play, which came with the Huskies leading 72-71. “Maybe we shoot a one-and-one. I don’t even know what the bad situation was at the time. That just speaks to how the last two days have gone for us. Yesterday the biggest play of the game was an over-the-back that was called against us. So today it was more violent because the kid – Baskin – pulled Liam’s arm down. I watched the replay of it. It’s ironic.”

Hurley went on to add that his team’s defense had been the biggest problem in the end.

The rebound from Baskin led to the Buffaloes being able to call a timeout with 20 seconds left in the game.

Hurley had to be restrained by assistant Kimani Young during the timeout as he was shaken by what had just happened.

Andrej Jakimovski managed to make it clear with eight seconds left to lift Colorado to victory.

On Monday night, Hurley cursed at a referee and brought a technician over himself before later describing the call to McNeely as a “complete joke” while speaking to reporters.