The Dan Hurley era at the University of Connecticut was first announced in March 2018, but it officially started with a win over Syracuse in October of that year. The underdog Huskies won a close game against their rival at Madison Square Garden and Hurley, previously at tiny Wagner College and a prep school in Newark, was aggressively pumped. The resulting video is the first time Hurley went viral for his intensity. As the buzzer sounded, one of his players gave him a chest bump so aggressive ribs could have been bruised. Hurley let out a primal scream. Then, instantly relaxed, he calmly shook the Syracuse coach’s hand in the postgame line. It was an announcement of character as much as it was the trumpeting of a big win. Connecticut, meet Dan Hurley. This is your new coach, and he’s a different kind of dude.

Now in his eighth year as head coach of UConn, Dan Hurley is the same overeager maniac that he was after his first big win as Huskies coach. Immediately after Braylon Mullins’s game-winning three in UConn’s comeback against Duke in the Elite Eight, Hurley seemed to have an out-of-body experience. Like eight years ago, the video went viral. Hurley’s suit jacket had become askew in the midst of his euphoria, and as the UConn sideline erupted in cheers, a ref accidentally bumped into him. Nose to nose, he and Hurley looked like they were on the set of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video, ready to face off against one another in a street fight. Mullins’ shot and the Blue Devil blunder that led to it were memorable, yet all anyone on Twitter could seem to talk about was Hurley’s moment with the referee.

The son of legendary New Jersey high school basketball coach, Bob Hurley Sr., Hurley comes from hoop royalty. His brother, Bobby, played for Duke under the indomitable Mike Krzyzewski and was a coach himself for many years. The Hurleys are a tough bunch of Irish men: Whenever Hurley Sr. yelled, the whole gym heard it. But they have heart. When St. Anthony’s—the school where Hurley Sr. coached for 39 years—would close its doors for the night, Hurley Sr. would let in Jersey City kids looking to stay off the streets. Dan Hurley shares that humanity. In some ways he’s an anachronistism, a callback to when coaches like Krzyzewski, Bob Knight, and John Thompson felt like the biggest stars in college basketball. Coaches have become politicians, program leaders, and mentors that rightfully help young men chase their dreams; Hurley is a traditional, empty-gym college basketball coach who is, first and foremost, intense with the X’s and O’s. But, as evidenced by him winning two national championships in his first eight seasons at UConn, with another one potentially on the way, he also runs a damn good program.

Hurley is not the architect of UConn basketball—that’d be Jim Calhoun, who coached the Huskies from 1986 to 2012 and introduced the world to Ray Allen, Rip Hamilton, and Kemba Walker—but he is the protector of it. UConn was an elite program under Calhoun but fell on hard times after he retired, save for a magical 2014 championship run as a seven seed. Guided by Hurley’s signature brand of fire and brimstone, the Huskies have reasserted themselves as a national powerhouse.

To any St. John’s fan, of course, Hurley is the enemy. While the Red Storm’s coach, Rick Pitino—a man whose own name carries a ton of weight in college basketball circles—and Hurley certainly do respect one another, their competition has made for great theater within the two fanbases. Hurley can be petty towards officials, overly sensitive, and childish. St. John’s fans like myself can hear him whining from our seats. Where Pitino is elder, flashy, Italian, self-obsessed, and from New York, Hurley is understated, Irish, also self-obsessed, but from New Jersey. He’s a perfect cultural fit for UConn, a program that, despite hanging more championship banners than Duke, Kansas, and Indiana, sometimes goes under the radar when college basketball fans discuss the great blue-blood programs. UConn basketball attracts Northeast talent, and with Hurley’s attention to detail, they defeat teams that might have more talented or more expensive rosters. Hurley is a demonstrative screamer, which can be off putting to the pearl clutchers at home, but he loves his players—as I can personally attest. I met him at a NBA Draft party once, and he could hardly contain his excitement about his former point guard, Stephon Castle, landing in San Antonio with Victor Wembanyama.