Money, and history

 Well, then. Guess the past really isn't past, just like Faulkner used to tell us.

Guess history still matters to some folks -- even in a day when so many know so little of it, and the unscrupulous are hard at work rewriting it as a fairy tale. This does not include Dan Hurley, apparently.

To the University of Connecticut's profound relief.

Hurley shocked a lot of people when he decided to turn down the Los Angeles Lakers and their choke-a-horse offer yesterday, opting to stick with UConn and the groves of academe. Or, this being 2024, the groves of Professional Basketball Lite, which is only marginally distinguishable from the full-bodied version.

Smart guys everywhere thought Hurley would surely make the jump to L.A. and the NBA, on account of he'd apparently expressed a desire to someday coach in the Association and, what the hell, if it didn't work out, he'd have a fatter bank account and job affairs from every major college program in America. But what do the smart guys (and even the less smart guys, like, say, me) know?

Turns out the lure of history trumped the lure of LeBron, and, hand-in-hand with that, the lure of unfinished business. It's been half a century since John Wooden and UCLA reeled off seven straight NCAA titles, back when it wasn't nearly the task it is today. No one since has managed so much as a three-peat; Hurley and UConn, having gone back-to-back, now have the chance to do that.

So, Hurley will remain in Storrs, and deal with the blinding migraine Professional Basketball Lite has become. Unfettered NIL deals ... the virtually unregulated transfer portal ... yeah, bring it on. The three-peat awaits.

Well. That and a rather hefty salary bump.

This raises an obvious question: If college kids have become untrammeled money grubbers, as so many grumblers grumble they now are, who do you think they learned it from? 

Yes, they're choosing schools these days based on how much jack their NIL collectives are willing to cough up, but their coaches have been doing the same thing forever. And so Dan Hurley will stick with UConn, as Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont -- the governor, for pity's sake -- promises the Constitution State will "make sure he's the top-paid college coach."

This for a guy who's already making north of $5 million a year to coach basketball at an academic institution.

Know what that makes Dan Hurley?

A history nerd, sure. And perhaps the most adroit transfer portal strategist ever, because no one leveraged his own personal portal better than Hurley, whether he intended to or not.

See, kids? There's still a lot to learn from the grownups.