Fiery coaches collide in Philly when No. 7 UCLA and No. 2 UConn tip off on Sunday primetime

UCLA coach Mick Cronin and UConn’s Dan Hurley have only faced each other a few times, but they were at different schools and a chase for the NCAA men's basketball championship wasn't on the line.

UCLA head coach Mick Cronin will test his team's mettle against No. 2 seed Connecticut inside the Xfinity Mobile Arena on Sunday night. Read moreNam Y. Huh / AP

by Gabriela Carroll

Published March 21, 2026, 6:06 p.m. ET

Despite the wishes of the Xfinity Mobile Arena crowd, it was all chalk on Friday in Philly’s first set of March Madness games.

With spots in the Sweet Sixteen on the line, No. 3 Virginia and No. 6 Tennessee will face off in the first game on Sunday (6:10 p.m., TNT), with No. 7 UCLA and No. 2 Connecticut serving as the nightcap (8:45 p.m., TNT).

The last time UCLA coach Mick Cronin and UConn’s Dan Hurley faced off was in 2019, when Cronin was at Cincinnati and Hurley was in his second season at UConn. Cronin’s Bearcats beat Hurley’s Huskies, 64-60, in that game. Despite being a pair of historic programs, UCLA-UConn have only met once, in the Elite Eight in 1995.

But while Cronin and Hurley haven’t faced one another much over the years, their reputations for being ... energetic on the court precede them.

Cronin and Hurley are loud and willing to go off on their players, the referees, and the media when necessary. But Cronin said Saturday that he’s not concerned about his reputation.

“You want to win big?” Cronin said. “You think Coach Hurley is not supposed to be intense, but you want to win? Come on, man. We’re not coaching Little League, buddy. Everybody doesn’t get an at-bat. Come on, man. They’re paying us a lot of money to win games.”

Hurley pointed to a number of legendary, championship-winning coaches, including Villanova’s Jay Wright, who were harsh when required, but also inspired a huge amount of passion in their players and staff.

“When I look at Mick and coaches like Mick, all the coaches I have either modeled myself after or admired, are the ones who can balance holding their players to the highest standard, where the players have that respectful fear of their coach, and they love playing for their coach, you know?” Hurley said. “I think it takes a special coach to pull that off.”

A big part of the UConn culture, which has led Hurley and the Huskies to two national titles in 2023 and 2024, is building “responsibility, discipline, efficiency, productivity, work ethic, and standards.” Winning a championship requires a culture of accountability, Hurley said.

Both Hurley and Cronin are the sons of high school basketball coaches. Hurley’s father, Bob Hurley, was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame after winning 26 state championships in 39 years at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, and Cronin’s father, Harold “Hep” Cronin, coached for decades at La Salle High School in Cincinnati.

Growing up in the gym, as Hurley and Cronin did, put them on an early path to success in the industry. If it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, Cronin said, he’d already gotten there with coaching by the eighth grade, growing up knowing the language and schemes he’d need early on. At 19, when Cronin started assisting, he finally realized just how much he’d learned about coaching just through spending time with his father.

That coaching background also adds to the emotion Hurley expresses on the court.

“You just have a special relationship to your team, to your players, to the outcome, to the lifestyle of being a coach when you’re a coach’s kid,” Hurley said. “It’s so personal for coaches like me and Mick, which is where you see, at times, emotional reactions to things that happen on the court because it truly feels like, personally, it’s your world, your team.”