INDIANAPOLIS — There are no words for moments like these.
Or at least none that Dan Hurley prepared.
But three minutes after the end — after the wrong-colored confetti rained inside Lucas Oil Stadium, crowning Michigan’s 69-63 national championship win over UConn — Hurley had to say something. There’s no stopping the hurt when you finish second, not on the final Monday night of the college basketball season, but it’s a coach’s duty to at least dress the wound.
To saddle up next to four-year starter Alex Karaban — who won a mind-boggling 126 games in four years in Storrs, who won two national championships and led UConn to within 40 minutes of a third — and pull him in tight, on a winding walk down a back tunnel.
To whisper the only thing that could maybe, possibly, transcend the magnitude of a career-ending loss:
“You know I love you, man.”
There is much to love: not just about this one game, or season, but everything Karaban has represented for UConn over the past four seasons. He’s almost an era unto himself. “Face of the program,” junior Jayden Ross called him, a single teardrop running long down his left cheek. From the time Karaban stepped on campus in January 2022, the plucky 6-foot-8 son of Eastern European immigrants oversaw the entire evolution of the place.
From a program eight years removed from its last national championship to the preeminent program of the 21st century and unquestionable blue-blood status.
From Big East afterthought, to the conference’s standard setter.
From a school uncertain if Hurley was the coach to lead it back to the promised land, to one that could — and maybe should — build him a statue in Storrs when he eventually hangs up the whistle.
“Florida won the national championship last year. I’ll probably get in trouble for this. Michigan won the national championship this year,” Hurley said. “But (Karaban) helped to make UConn, I think, right now — we’re probably the premier program in college basketball.”
Hard to argue, when in the past four NCAA Tournaments, UConn either won it all (in 2023 and 2024) or lost to the team that did. In the process, the Huskies became the first program since Duke in the 1990s to play for three rings in four seasons.
And just like those Blue Devils — who history remembers as an all-time college hoops dynasty — this chapter of UConn basketball, one that ends with Karaban’s exit, should be similarly revered.
“It’s gonna be a proud chapter,” a teary-eyed Karaban said, clutching at the navy jersey he would eventually take off for the last time. “It sucks right now. But it’s going to be a chapter that everyone’s going to look back (on) and see the incredible stuff that we’ve done.”
That he’s done. And that UConn has accomplished by extension.
Now, perhaps at some point in the next few weeks, Hurley and his program will bemoan the things that cost them a third banner in four seasons. They will swallow the pill, rewatch the Wolverines’ win and relitigate the list of shortcomings they can never correct.
Early (and persistent) foul trouble on starting guards Solo Ball and Silas Demary Jr., both of whom entered Monday night already battling injuries.
A cold shooting spell to start the second half, 11 straight missed 3s, on a night in which Hurley estimated his Huskies needed to make 13 or 14 to outscore Michigan’s mighty interior attack.
A missed transition layup by Ball with 2:02 to play, which would’ve made it a 4-point game late, with the Huskies’ cresting a wave of momentum.
And — painfully, lastly — Karaban’s missed 3 with 17 seconds left, a falling-away front-rimmer that would’ve cut the deficit to 1, with more than enough time to muster one last dusting of tournament magic.
“I mean, there were so many opportunities,” Ross said. “But we went out on our shield.”
Alex Karaban played all 40 minutes and scored 17 points in his final game of four seasons under Dan Hurley at UConn. (Trevor Ruszkowski / Imagn Images)
That the Huskies did — and in doing so, in gobbling up 22 offensive rebounds against Michigan’s monstrous frontline, they proved their staying power. Karaban will be gone next year, yes. Tarris Reed Jr., too: the Michigan transfer whose maturation and interior scoring willed UConn to this point, despite a host of injuries and not much external belief that this team could emerge from a loaded East Region
But Ball and Demary could be back. Freshman Braylon Mullins, too, whose buzzer-beating heave against Duke in the Elite Eight will never be forgotten in the Constitution State or elsewhere. So could Ross and Jaylin Stewart and 7-foot-1 freshman Eric Reibe.
Yes, maybe this chapter of UConn basketball ends in Indianapolis, but the program at large?
Let’s just say, good luck stopping the Huskies from ascending back to this point — possibly as soon as next spring. After the run Hurley orchestrated the past three weeks, after the nation left his program for dead following inexplicable losses to Marquette and St. John’s, would anyone really be surprised to see UConn in Detroit next April at another Final Four?
“I’m not that arrogant of a guy that’s gonna say, ‘Hey, I’ll see you here next year for the championship game.’ I mean, this thing is hard, man. This is a hard, hard tournament,” Hurley said. “There’s some great teams that didn’t get to this last night — but (I trust) just the culture and the commitment. I’m confident in the roster we’ll be able to put together.”
And one other thing, which Karaban can say for the coach who changed his life.
“As long as coach Hurley is here,” Karaban said, “then I believe in UConn.”
As he, and the rest of the sport, should.
Of course, as Hurley said, reaching this point is never a given. Nobody bats 1.000 on transfer portal evaluations, as Hurley learned last season. Assistant coach Luke Murray, one of Hurley’s most trusted advisers and a key architect of UConn’s offense, is leaving for Boston College.
Next season will be a test of sorts. The more things change, can UConn simply endure?
With Hurley calling the shots, a roster ripe for retention and the necessary resources to plug any depth chart holes that arise, almost certainly.
“It’s UConn,” Ball said. “We’re going to be right back to it.”
But that does not make this night any easier. While Hurley wrapped his arm around Karaban, Ball followed a few steps behind, head buried in his jersey. Celebratory cheers from Michigan fans echoed down the concrete halls, a haunting soundtrack before two metal locker room doors slammed shut.
Temporary shelter, at least, from the reality beyond.
Some 20 minutes later, after an NCAA-granted cooldown period, Hurley and several starters emerged from the locker room for interviews. UConn players slid into the shadows of a nearby golf cart, while Hurley told CBS’ Tracy Wolfson the brutal truth:
“We came here to be out there,” Hurley said, pointing down the hall, toward the Michigan celebration, “doing what those guys are doing.”
Losing protocols, not something the Huskies are familiar with.
And not something they plan to be.
