{"id":606015,"date":"2026-02-16T08:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T08:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/606015\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T08:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T08:57:13","slug":"hurley-sounds-off-on-low-energy-home-crowds-at-uconn-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/606015\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurley sounds off on low-energy home crowds at UConn games"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORRS \u2013 Ed Cooley\u2019s<\/a> head was on a swivel during the national anthem Saturday night, surveying the crowd at Gampel Pavilion<\/a>. His team locking arms and facing opposite the student section, the Georgetown coach was shocked to see sections of UConn\u2019s on-campus arena unoccupied.<\/p>\n

Cooley has made comments about the UConn fanbase before. Three years ago, before Dan Hurley\u2019s first national championship run and while he was still at Providence, Cooley notably called the Huskies\u2019 fanbase \u201cextremely spoiled\u201d for the success of its programs, saying, \u201cdon\u2019t be arrogant with it\u201d and \u201cappreciate winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten seconds into his opening statement on Saturday night, after UConn survived his Hoyas, 79-75, Cooley had more to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I was surprised that there was empty seats up in the (student) section,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, you have a national championship team, this place should be sold out every day. I just was shocked, that actually shocked me. You have a top 10 team on a Saturday night game, this place should\u2019ve been bouncing off the wall on a Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n

He made a similar comment to Hurley after the game, and this time the Huskies\u2019 coach agreed with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the Basketball Capital of the World, there shouldn\u2019t be criticisms of our crowds at games,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cWhen I saw Ed during the handshake line, Ed asked me what was up with the crowd. There was just a lot of empty seats, I think the section behind our basket was empty. It should be a madhouse when we play here at the Basketball Capital of the World.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hurley has been known to encourage the crowd to get loud during games \u2013 it even got him ejected once<\/a>. But he is starting to get fed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve kind of given up on that a little bit. You know, I\u2019ve done that and I don\u2019t get the same response,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we first got here, we played in front of paltry crowds\u2026 I remember playing at the XL Center in front of 7, 8, 9,000 people versus Tulsa or in here versus South Florida \u2013 I\u2019m not (bleeping) on them, those are all really good programs, but just the state of where we were getting 5 or 6,000 people. I mean, we\u2019ve given our fans two national championships out of the last three years. We\u2019re 24-2 and 14-1, and we\u2019ve been ranked at the top of the rankings the whole year.\u201d<\/p>\n

This season in particular, home games have been a short respite from the hostile environments UConn has faced on the road, where \u2013 just about \u2013 every opposing team and fan base makes the most of their shot at one of the top teams in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we look at the environments that we play in when we wear the UConn jersey, Xavier is a madhouse when we go there, Creighton is a madhouse, when we play St. John\u2019s now in the Big East road game, that\u2019s not Storrs South no more. That environment that we played in was a serious, serious, nasty environment, intense environment, we were at a major disadvantage in terms of the atmosphere,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cFans can criticize me all you want, I\u2019ve got some (bleeping) equity. I got two national championships here in the last three years. We\u2019ve given you the season that there\u2019s a lot of programs across the country whose fans wish they had going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not (trying to hype the crowd) anymore though,\u201d he said. \u201cI asked the players to try to do it\u2026 It\u2019s not a (bleeping) social event, right? Like, this is the Basketball Capital of the World, we need our fans to come to the game and be loud as (bleep) from the start. It needs to be a madhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STORRS \u2013 Ed Cooley\u2019s head was on a swivel during the national anthem Saturday night, surveying the crowd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,4157,217,926,925,2495,80725,22721,25028,2680,2679,68003,231,772,1544,38130,80724,80723,2681],"class_list":["post-606015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-big-east-mens-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-connecticut-news","tag-ct-news","tag-dan-hurley","tag-dan-hurley-uconn-crowds","tag-ed-cooley","tag-gampel-pavilion","tag-hartford-courant","tag-local-news","tag-max-image-preview","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-peoplesbank-arena","tag-uconn-basketball-crowds","tag-uconn-crowds","tag-uconn-mens-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116079482844503278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}