"It's a unique challenge": Dan Hurley admits Zach Edey's dominance creating roadblocks to UConn's championship dreams

Dan Hurley and UConn are standing on the cusp of their second straight national title. They won it all last year and would surely want to repeat those heroics against the Purdue Boilermakers on Monday night. But Hurley admitted that Matt Painter has one weapon that might foil the plans that he and his crew will be coming up with.

The Huskies head coach raved about the dominance of the Boilermakers star Zach Edey on Sunday. Just ahead of the national title game, he revealed how his team plans to keep Edey quiet. But he also admitted that one size fits all plan won't work against the program which is playing in its first national championship game in 55 years.

Here is what the UConn Huskies men's basketball head coach Dan Hurley said about the Purdue Boilermakers center Zach Edey ahead of the crunch game.

“It's a unique challenge. He’s a unique player. I don't think that one thing is going to work in the game. I think you’ve got to try to keep him off balance. Matt, unfortunately for us, really constructed a great roster around such a unique player,” Hurley said in the pre-game press conference(10:30).

Hurley pointed out that his opposing team’s blind spot last year was their subpar three-point shooting which allowed defenses to surround Edey. According to him, Painter has fixed the issue and that strategy is no longer viable. He also talked about the center getting fouled a lot and getting on the free-throw line a lot more than he liked.

Edey has averaged around 24.9 points per game this season while giving 2.1 assists per game. His rebounds are also off the charts with 12.2 per game.

Dan Hurley talked about importance of confidence while coaching a brand like UConn

More often than not, Dan Hurley drops confident diamonds in his responses to the media during his press conferences. In a recent appearance on the ‘Pat McAfee Show,' he revealed the reason behind him being so bullish while talking to the media. He said coaching a brand like the Huskies required swagger and confidence.

"When you're the coach of a big brand program you gotta have some swagger & confidence because people are gonna be on your a*s anyway,” he told the NFL kicker turned ESPN analyst.

Dan Hurley is best known for his quote in a 2020 press conference that sounds quite like a prophecy four years later. He had dared the opponents to come and get wins at that point as he was confident that an era of dominance for the Huskies was coming. It did and here we are seeing them in their second-straight national title game after winning it last season.