Dan Hurley: College Basketball in 2026 Is 'Total Chaos

Dan Hurley isn’t about to jump into the transfer

portal, now that the ruling of a Colorado judge has made six or seven dozen players

eligible to play – at least for now, unless another court overturns that decision – in the 2026-27 season.

He made that clear Friday in speaking with reporters

after a team scrimmage. He’s got the 15 men he plans to do battle with in the

upcoming season, a campaign loaded with one A-list competitor after another

until the rigorous Big East season begins.

Simply, Hurley will not be pursuing any of the members

of the Class of 2022 who have been granted a fifth year of eligibility.

"Our team is on the floor," he said

without hesitation.

Dog Days 😤 pic.twitter.com/DTb16mSNBV

— UConn Men's Basketball (@UConnMBB) August 1, 2026 Get to know the names

Fans already know some of them: Demary ,

Mullins, Ross, Ball, another Ross.

Then there are the freshmen: Landrew. County.

And the transfers: Hines ,

Khamenia, Machowski, Nash and Shaw, Amosoz, Giltay and Džafic .

This is the roster Hurley and his staff put together

in the weeks after their loss

in the championship game of the Men’s NCAA Tournament. A team created after they said goodbye

to five seniors and to four players who decided to search for a different landing

spot in the transfer portal.

Each new player seemingly was selected to fill a

role – experienced players either envisioned by Hurley as a starter or a

necessary depth piece, freshmen intended to develop into standout college

players.

An old-school coach assembled his team in an

old-school manner.

The new school isn’t for Hurley

Hurley has been coaching long enough that he knows

the way college sports used to be – before NIL, before agents, before shared

revenue, before the transfer portal and the havoc all of that has brought.

On Friday, he passionately conveyed his feelings

about teams that are continuing to tinker with their rosters in the wake of

last week’s ruling in Colorado.

👀 https://t.co/TYQ1XBn2u4 pic.twitter.com/obvbNKKvUf

— UConn Men's Basketball (@UConnMBB) July 29, 2026 "The art of what we do has been cheapened a

little bit," he said in his Friday media availability, speaking about the coaching

profession. "You can put together better teams, teams that can compete and

not have to identify young talent, develop that talent.”

“Now,” Hurley continued, “you can screw up high

school recruiting, you can screw up portal recruiting and not have a very good

team, and start plucking from a group of players in August and put together a

team.”

The ramifications of that? A team assembled at the last

minute, denied the time over the summer to jell. Players who had been

working hard to gain an advantage in the battle for a starting spot, for example, suddenly finding themselves with a new role.

“Now, let's unleash 80 players into the sport in the

first week of August. We can't go on like this. And anyone that acts like it's

great, it’s fine, it's good for college basketball, they've already taken the

stance that this is what they've wanted, and now they're just defending their

position. It's total chaos and it's not sustainable."

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