Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Vin’s Inside Scoop: Rhode Island would shake up A-10 with Hurleys

dan-hurley

Mike Miller

This marks the first post by Vin Parise, college basketball insider for SportsTalk and NBC Sports.

All signs from the state of Rhode Island still point to Wagner’s Dan Hurley as Jim Baron’s coaching successor at URI.

Hurley took over a dormant five-win program and made the Seahawks from Staten Island, N.Y. relevant again. Wagner won 25 games this year and finished 2nd behind LIU-Brooklyn in the Northeast Conference. Hurley has qualities that URI loves. His name is hot in coaching circles, he’s respected nationally in college hoops and the northeast recruiting contacts are perfect for Kingston, Rhode Island. But the greatest story that possible awaits Rhody fans is not only Dan himself, but his own flesh and blood as well.

Both brothers at Rhode Island - Dan and Bobby.

That’s what the University of Rhode Island may have very soon. Both played for their Hall of Fame father Bob Sr. at St. Anthony High School in Jersey City, N.J. Both played in college at Seton Hall (Dan) and Bobby (at Duke) and Bobby excelled beyond that as a lottery pick with the Sacramento Kings. Younger brother Dan, with a 256-42 career head coaching record in high school and college, excelled with the clipboard.

Rhode Island has Billy Baron and other young, promising players. Baron is the son of a coach. It’s a world that can be frustrating, demanding and sometimes awkward; especially when that coach has been fired. The Hurley brothers know all about being a coach’s son and the drama that can go along with it.

This story can be so much more than just the Wagner coach getting the URI job. It’s a young head coach and basketball lifer that would see a lot of himself in Billy Baron. It could be about an associate head coach who’s also one of the best point guards in college basketball history. It’s a story about a guy who in 2001 thought he’d coach high school for the rest of his life like his Dad.

Dan Hurley looks at himself and his brother Bobby as a team. And this team may very well take the A-10 and the Ocean State by storm.

Follow Vin Parise on Twitter @VinParise.