Dan Hurley snaps with UConn champs Donovan Clingan & Stephon Castle after major NBA Draft success

It has been an eventful few weeks for UConn coach Dan Hurley. From winning a second consecutive national championship with the Huskies to turning down a lucrative coaching offer from the LA Lakers, it has had everything.

On Wednesday evening, the charismatic Hurley was celebrating a different milestone after two of his stars were picked in the first round of the 2024 NBA Draft.

Huskies' standouts Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan were picked No. 4 and No. 7 by the San Antonio Spurs and the Portland Trail Blazers respectively.

Their former UConn coach took a picture of himself with the two stars and posted it on Instagram, captioning it:

"Beautiful night for these Champs!" Hurley wrote.

Dan Hurley hypes his former UConn stars

The charismatic Dan Hurley went on a speaking tour both before and after the 2024 NBA Draft. He hyped up his former UConn Huskies stars who helped lead the program to back-to-back national championships.

First up, while speaking to ESPN's Jeremy Woo, Hurley highlighted how he had mentored Donovan Clingan to adapt to the league.

"What we talked to him (Clingan) about was, don't get caught up in mastering the game inside and out," Hurley said. "We'd show him [Denver Nuggets star] Nikola Jokić, from an offensive standpoint when he was younger. So that Donovan would understand that when Jokić was 19, that wasn't what he was doing right now.

"You're watching what he's doing right now and thinking I should be doing that right now. Well, that's not what he was doing [at that age]. If he was, well f--k, he wouldn't have been drafted in the second round."

While speaking to Taylor Rooks after the draft, Dan Hurley was full of praise for former UConn star Stephon Castle. The latter was picked by the Spurs.

“He’s in the right organization. They coach their players hard and he (Stephon Castle) wants to be coached hard…He’s got great vision, he’s got a great handle, physically strong so he’s gonna be in the paint all the time…I think he fits perfectly into this positionless basketball where you can put him on the ball a lot,” Hurley said.

The more prospects from the UConn Huskies are picked in the first round of the NBA Draft, the more talented players will want to play for Dan Hurley. He has built a reputation as a talent whisperer capable of molding NBA-ready players.