Dan Hurley gets candid as UConn exits Big East Tournament following Creighton upset in semifinals: "Got exactly what we deserved"

Defending champions UConn Huskies fell short of a repeat after an upset 72-61 loss against Creighton on Friday. With the loss, the No. 3 Huskies go out of the race in the Big East Tournament, whereas Creighton sets a date with top-seeded St. John’s in the championship game Saturday night.

Huskies coach Dan Hurley didn't hold back words on their loss on Friday.

"I think the two teams that are deserving to play for the championship are gonna play," Hurley said. "We were the third best team, I guess, in the regular season. And the third best team doesn't deserve to play for a championship.

Hurley then went on to talk about an uninspiring first-half performance which saw the Huskies trailing by nine points (46-35) at halftime.

"Obviously, that first half defense performance was not worthy of having a chance to play on Saturday night at MSG," Hurley added. "Against a team like St. John's this year, I mean, we got exactly what we deserved."

The Huskies coach also gave props to Creighton forward Jasen Green, who scored 19 points on the night. Interestingly, his season average is 4.7 points per game only.

"Credit Green, obviously, you're gonna lose if five point a game score is at 17 at halftime," Hurley said. "And obviously let Neil get going early. But yeah, we got what we deserved, and we deserve to be going home."

Creighton's Jamiya Neal broke unwritten rule, apologizes to Dan Hurley

Creighton was up by a meaningful margin and a last-second dunk from Jamiya Neal broke one of the held-up unwritten rules in the game of basketball. Neal soon realized that as he offered an apology for the unnecessary dunk when the team was already up by seven at the time.

“I got caught up in the emotions of the game. Just a lot of emotions going on. So I would like to apologize for that,” Neal said. “I respect Coach Hurley and those guys over there. They have a great, great program... Yeah, I apologize. Just got caught up in the moment and I shouldn’t have did it.”

Hurley was already off to shake hands with Creighton coach Greg McDermott when the fancy dunk took place.

Huskies players did express displeasure on Neal for a brief moment before brushing it off with hugs and hand shakes.