RALEIGH, N.C. -- Dan Hurley held back tears after Sunday's 77-75 loss to Florida as the UConn coach came to terms with the end of a 13-game NCAA tournament winning streak and "a historic run."
UConn, winners of the past two national championships but a heavy underdog to top-seeded Florida on Sunday, utterly frustrated the Gators throughout most of the game, leading by as much as four in the second half, but Walter Clayton Jr.'s two late 3s proved to be the daggers that finally felled the giant.
"There's some honor, I guess, in the way that this went down," Hurley said. "It's a tough loss. We played in a manner that gave us a real chance to win. Credit Clayton. He made some NBA-level 3s off the dribble to beat us. It took that for somebody to put us down in this tournament after winning obviously a bunch in a row."
Hurley said he watched as Arkansas toppled second-seeded St. John's on Saturday and projected what could be a manageable path back to the Final Four should the Huskies escape Florida.
For the first 30-plus minutes Sunday, that seemed a real possibility, as the Huskies held Clayton in check and tormented Florida's ball handers.
"We dragged them into the type of game that we wanted to drag them into," Hurley said. "We kind of dragged them into a Big East, low-possession game. We dragged them into a game that was the only way for us to give ourselves a chance to win."
Instead, it was Clayton who shifted the game with his pair of 3s. Clayton hit the first with 2:54 to play, flipping a 61-59 deficit into a one-point Florida lead. His 3 from the corner with 1:07 left extended the lead to four and, while UConn scraped until the end, felt like the moment the Huskies' dynasty came to an end.
"When it was kind of nut-cutting time, [our players] stepped up and made big plays," Florida coach Todd Golden said. "I think it was more about our guys stepping up and winning the game than UConn not pushing through. Our guys made big-time winning plays down the stretch."
After the game, Hurley and Golden embraced on the court, a moment in which the two-time championship coach seemed to pass the torch, telling Golden he'd be rooting for Florida the rest of the way.
For the Gators, the win had a similar vibe -- ugly, excruciating and predictably physical against a team desperate to keep its run alive.
"We all know the reality, if you're going to make a deep run in March, you've got to catch some breaks, and you've got to win some games like this to be able to push through and stay alive," Golden said. "Theoretically, beating a team like UConn, that's used to winning this time of year, in the fashion that we did should be really good for us moving forward."
As Florida moves on, Hurley said he's prepared for a mental reset at UConn, noting that unless the Huskies had won it all again, the disappointment he felt Sunday was inevitable.
"There's a lot of rewiring and things I've got to do in the offseason because you just get caught up in this tidal wave of success that we've had," Hurley said. "You lose perspective. You struggle with the ego at times because you've been on this incredible run. It will be nice to get to a normal offseason and just get back to myself as a coach ... and just focus on the upcoming season and make better decisions with all aspects of coaching."
Hurley had become a lightning rod for critics over the past year for his notorious debates with officials, which continued into Sunday's game, where frustration over a lack of a foul call on an Alex Karaban drive had Hurley frantic on the sideline, bellowing toward the official during multiple timeouts.
In the aftermath of Sunday's loss, however, Hurley's frustrations turned into tears rather than outrage.
After two straight championships and 13 consecutive tournament wins, he said there was a feeling that this loss represented more than the end to the 2024-25 season.
Hurley said he thought he was on the hot seat three years ago before this run began. Now, he wasn't quite ready to see it end, he said.
"You have no idea the company [we're in] and what we've accomplished," Hurley said. "So we can take some solace in that. But today was -- to be that close to getting to a Sweet 16 ... the bracket could've really opened up for us."