UConn Huskies head coach Dan Hurley may not have mentioned the Big Ten by name during Big East Media Day on Wednesday, but if you read between the lines it's clear that the back-to-back National Championship winning head coach was taking a not-so-subtle shot at the conference that has been called by many as the best in college basketball… even by former Big East coach Kevin Willard, who left Seton Hall in 2022 to become the head coach at Maryland.

“We’re by far the best college basketball conference in the country,” Willard said during Big Ten Media Day earlier in October. Now on one hand, it makes sense that Willard would stand at the podium and praise the conference in which he coaches. Frankly, it would seem strange if he didn't. But did you really think that Dan Hurley was going to pass on the opportunity to fire back at Willard and everyone else who has overlooked the accomplishments of the Big East, and in particular, the UConn Huskies?

“And people that lay clam to being the best basketball conference in the country without championship trophy evidence of natties, I don’t know how you can stake claim to that when we’ve got four in the last eight years and back-to-back,” Hurley boldly declared on Wednesday afternoon, per Adam Zagoria of NJ.com.

It makes sense that Dan Hurley would feel slighted, specifically when it comes to the Big Ten. UConn played four games against the Big Ten last season — three in the NCAA Tournament versus Northwestern, Illinois, and Purdue, and one in the regular season against Indiana — and in those four games, UConn won by an average of score of 76-57.

Since the Michigan State Spartans won the National Title in 2000, the Big Ten has an 0-8 record in National Championship game appearances. Meanwhile, in that time, the UConn Huskies have been a perfect 5-0 in National Championship games, including 2-0 under Dan Hurley the last two years.

Dan Hurley touts Big East as UConn prepares for three-peat chase 

Connecticut Huskies head coach Dan Hurley cuts down the cut after defeating the Purdue Boilermakers in the national championship game of the 2024 NCAA Tournament at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on April 8, 2024.
© Joseph Rondone/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK

Dan Hurley is a two-time National Champion, but he's also become a champion for the Big East. Once upon a time, it was the Big East that considered by most to be the best in college basketball, but realignment chipped away at the conference. Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Louisville and Notre Dame departed for the ACC. West Virginia left for the Big 12, and Rutgers moved into the Big Ten. Even UConn left briefly, joining the American Athletic Conference in 2013 before coming back home in 2020.

In the decade since this mass exodus, the Big East has slowly built itself back up, adding schools like Creighton (formerly of the Missouri Valley), and Xavier and Butler (the Atlantic 10), all of which have rich recent basketball history. It helped too that Villanova won National Titles in 2016 and 2018, helping to maintain the reputation of the Big East as a basketball stronghold.

Even still, the Big East remains something of an afterthought when compared to their power conference contemporaries.

“I can already see it in the AP Poll, the lack of respect that the Big East gets,” Hurley said.

The disrespect begins with the fact that for the second consecutive season, despite the fact that they enter as the defending champions, the UConn Huskies are not the No. 1 team in the preseason AP Poll. This year, UConn was ranked 3rd behind Kansas and Alabama. Last year, the Huskies were ranked 6th in the preseason poll.

But even beyond UConn, it's possible, if not likely, that the Big East as a whole is being overlooked. Heading into the 2024-25 season, the Big East only has three teams ranked in the top 25, despite having what Hurley calls, “the best roster of coaches in college basketball.”

The time for talk is almost over. Soon enough, UConn and the rest of the Big East will have the opportunity to continue to prove the naysayers wrong.