It may not be what you think it was.
In the latest episode of the Brotherhood Podcast, Cooper Flagg and Caleb Foster both talk about being recruited by schools that talked Duke down. This convinced both of them to take Duke more seriously and ultimately commit to the Blue Devils.
In Flagg’s case, you have to wonder whether it was UConn and if it was, well, that’s pretty interesting.
We’ve always liked Danny Hurley. That partly comes from brother Bobby obviously as Bobby had a spectacular career at Duke. He was just incredible. And after we became aware of what their dad, Bob Sr., did at St. Anthony’s, it just made us admire the family even more.
Those guys are all basketball lifers and brilliant coaches.
And for a long time, that may have been a problem for Danny because he didn't have an easy time living up to the family name.
At Seton Hall, he was expected to be as good as Bobby. He wasn’t and couldn’t be. He stepped away for a time out of...frustration? Anger? Shame?
When he began coaching, he was naturally compared to his father, who is an icon. And he has spoken openly at times about his struggles with mental health. We’re just guessing here but it wouldn’t surprise us to learn that he has dealt with depression and anxiety, both of which were surely a part of what happened at Seton Hall.
In fairness, that name is a lot to live up to.
But the younger Hurley has enormous love and support from his family and he met an ideal wife in Andrea, who looks after his quirks and foibles. He’s won back-to-back titles and life...life is good.
So why do we get the sense that Duke is rattling around his brain more than it should be?
It’s partly a series of comments he’s made about trying to get Duke on the schedule. He clearly sees Duke as the preeminent program, the dragon left to slay, and it’s also a chance to maybe even things up with Bobby a bit.
That’s kind of crazy to say because the brothers are quite close. Look back at that earlier period in life and Bobby is setting an all-time standard for college point guards and winning back-to-back titles while Danny...Danny is having his first mental health issue, or at least the first public one.
It was kind of heartbreaking really. It’s impossible to not respect the family and we really wanted him to do well at the Hall. But living up to Bobby? That was a long shot at best and most likely impossible.
And to be clear, we’re pretty sure that Danny was rooting for Bobby 100 percent but perhaps transferring his resentment and sense of inadequacy to Duke.
And it’s still there. And it wouldn’t surprise us at all if that’s what Flagg was talking about.
Come to UConn, Cooper. Help me us slay the dark blue dragon.
But Duke won’t oblige, which must be really frustrating.
We’ll say this again: we have the greatest respect for the Hurley family and we have always wished the best for Danny. His struggles at Seton Hall became public and were, we’re sure, doubly difficult because of that. If Duke can’t win it, we have no problem with UConn excelling.
At times though you just sense this massive, swirling turmoil that the guy struggles with, a combination of tortured genius, questions of self worth given the massive accomplishments of his father and brother and perhaps a sense that he can never fully live up to that. Beating Duke would help, but only temporarily.
Danny can be obnoxious and rub people the wrong way. His dad is like that at times too, but his dad is made of iron and Danny clearly crumbles at times.
He always manages to pick himself up though and show, again, that he’s a genius of a coach. We hope that at some point he’ll see what the rest of us see, that he’s more than lived up to what his family surname implies, that he’s as brilliant a coach as the game has seen in decades.
In 1981, Sport’s Illustrated’s Frank DeFord wrote a phenomenal piece about Bob Knight, basically weighing his coaching brilliance against his self-destructive personality.
Hurley might understand that. We’re not suggesting that he’s abusive as Knight was - for one thing, his players clearly adore him - but rather that his demons at times get the best of him too. We’d love it if he found peace with all of that. We’d love it if he could see that he has made himself great and that the entire basketball world sees it.
In short, we’d love it if Danny could be happy.
