The first branch of UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley’s coaching tree, at least from his time in Storrs, sprouted last month, as longtime assistant Luke Murray became the head coach of Boston College.
However, while UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma has made it a priority to schedule his former players’ and coaches’ programs, Hurley and Murray have no interest in reuniting on opposing sidelines. Murray made an appearance on Jon Rothstein’s “Inside College Basketball” podcast Thursday morning, confirming that there are no plans for Boston College and UConn to meet in the near future.
“I don’t think so,” Murray told Rothstein about a potential Boston College-UConn matchup. “I heard his answer, it doesn’t sound like he wants to do it, so I’m fine avoiding the Huskies.”
Murray’s connection with the Huskies dates back a decade before he arrived in Storrs, when he earned his first Division I assistant coaching position under Hurley at Wagner and later followed him to Rhode Island. He’s been an instrumental part of UConn’s recent national success as the team’s “offensive coordinator,” constructing the nation’s third-most efficient offense since 2023 to become one of the sport’s most coveted assistant coaches.
Hurley has still not hired an assistant coach to replace Murray, who is the son of legendary actor Bill Murray, nearly two months after Murray’s departure, and he was more animated in batting down the suggestion of scheduling his former understudy during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show in April.
“He’s like a brother to me, Luke,” Hurley said. “And I couldn’t imagine Bill Murray not wearing my team’s hat, or rooting against me now. He’s like a brother, so I’ll never schedule Luke.”
As it stands, Boston College wouldn’t exactly meet Hurley’s selective non-conference scheduling criteria, as the Eagles finished the 2025-26 season with a lowly 11-20 record, extending the program’s NCAA Tournament drought to 17 seasons. Should Boston College and UConn meet one day, however, Murray hopes that Huskies fans will be seeing double, looking to model his program in Chestnut Hill off UConn’s emphasis on player development and deliberate offensive philosophy.
“The standard that he sets every single day, the expectation across the board for players and staff alike to meet, I think that’s the first thing that I think about when I think about transitioning things from Connecticut to BC,” Murray told Rothstein. “And then the style of play, secondly, in terms of the way that we’re going to play offense in particular, that’s the model for us, and it’s going to be how we recruit.”
