HOUSTON — Dan Hurley and his team arrived in town, greeted by the customary Texas-sized welcome, then rolled into NRG Stadium to run through the first day of endless interviews.
At one point Thursday Hurley turned to his assistant coaches and said, “This is kind of a big deal, huh?”
Like the Super Bowl, the World Series and the other major events on the American sports calendar, the NCAA’s Final Four is a big deal, and can be overwhelming to a coach going through it for the first time.
“It’s been pretty amazing to see,” UConn assistant coach Luke Murray said. “Never having gotten to this point before, to be here, to be met with all the pomp and circumstance when we got off the plane, the media requests, just the enormity of it is pretty amazing.”
The national semifinals and final will be played in an NFL stadium, which will be filled to its capacity of more than 72,000 seats. UConn’s home venue, Gampel (10,167) and the XL Center (15,564) seat a fraction of that. One of the participants, Florida Atlantic, plays in a 2,900-seat home gym.
Even if TV ratings are expected to be lower than usual, the semifinals Saturday, during which UConn will play Miami in prime time, will still be among the most watched TV programs of the year.
And the thirst for comments, information, the more offbeat the better, and the opportunity to promote the sport will tug Hurley and his players this way and that, something that started at the buzzer of UConn’s victory over Gonzaga last Saturday in Las Vegas.
Hurley’s admission that he is wearing the same suit and lucky underwear for every game (laundering in between, of course) became a prototypical big-event revelation. A camera crew from CBS has been embedded with UConn throughout the tournament.
Players were driven through NRG Stadium on golf carts Thursday, then run through a virtual car wash of interviews and commitments. There are more than 1,000 reporters roaming the hallways, and still more interviews to come Friday.
“I just thought about playing the game,” UConn’s Andre Jackson said. “It wasn’t about all the other stuff. But to be around all the different types of things they do surrounding the Final Four is definitely something I never really imagined. It’s a great opportunity.”
UConn players meeting with the media today. Hassan Diarra with his…
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