After entertaining a strong pursuit from the Los Angeles Lakers to become their next head coach, Hurley declined a reported six-year, $70 million contract offer and will return to UConn, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first announced Monday.

“I am humbled by this entire experience. At the end of the day, I am extremely proud of the championship culture we have built at Connecticut,” Hurley said in a statement. “We met as a team before today’s workout and our focus right now is on getting better this summer and connecting as a team as we continue to pursue championships.”

UConn practiced from 2-4 p.m. on Monday, beginning shortly after the news was made public, and then Hurley and his staff left for a recruiting trip to the NBPA Top 100 Camp in Orlando.

Hurley, 51, has now turned down reported big money from one of the NBA’s most storied franchises and one of college basketball’s top programs, Kentucky, in the same offseason as he looks to contend for a third consecutive national championship with the Huskies.

BREAKING: Connecticut’s Dan Hurley has turned down the Los Angeles Lakers’ six-year, $70 million offer and will return to chase a third straight national title, sources tell ESPN. LA would’ve made him one of NBA’s six highest paid coaches. pic.twitter.com/hEXo3o00SR

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 10, 2024

“We are thrilled that Dan Hurley has made the decision to stay at UConn and continue building upon our championship tradition. He has helped return our men’s basketball program back to the pinnacle of the sport, including back-to-back NCAA Championships, and we’re grateful for his loyalty to UConn,” Athletic Director David Benedict said in a statement. “We look forward to Dan’s continued leadership on and off the court at UConn. He will continue to bring great pride to Husky fans everywhere as we work toward a three-peat.”

The declined offer would’ve made Hurley one of the NBA’s six highest-paid head coaches.

“As swept away as Hurley became by the Lakers’ courtship and vision for him, he ultimately couldn’t walk away from a chance to make history and pursue a third straight NCAA title. Even before Lakers talks, Hurley already had a UConn offer to become one of highest paid NCAA coaches and those talks will continue, per sources,” Wojnarowski posted to X.

The Lakers, hiring to replace Darvin Ham, reportedly had Hurley “at the forefront” of their head coaching search from the beginning of the process and were preparing a “massive, long-term” contract offer for the back-to-back NCAA champion, Wojnarowski first reported Thursday morning.

Dom Amore: It was business, but in the end Dan Hurley couldn’t tear himself from UConn

Hurley met with Lakers’ VP and GM Rob Pelinka and owner Jeanie Buss in Los Angeles on Friday and flew home Saturday morning. He took in a Billy Joel concert at Madison Square Garden with his wife, Andrea, and assistant coach Luke Murray Saturday night and spent Sunday weighing the decision. UConn had the weekend off from summer practice.

The Lakers’ brass made a “compelling case” and presented a “compelling vision” for him to become their next head coach, according to Wojnarowski, and Hurley left Los Angeles “extremely impressed,” but still thinking about what he has built in Storrs over the last six years.

“Our MVP Coach is staying in CT. Now let’s get ready for a (three-peat), because Connecticut knows champions are built here!” Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont posted to X.

Hurley signed a six-year, $32.1 million contract extension after winning the 2023 national championship, which made him the state’s highest-paid employee. After winning again in April, and being named the 2024 Naismith and Big East Coach of the Year, he is expected to finalize a new extension that will put him among the highest-paid coaches in college.

“Look, he’s the very best in the business. Everybody knows that and we’ll make sure that he’s the top paid college coach,” Lamont told reporters in Fairfield on Monday, before Hurley’s return was made public. “I think it’s not about money for him. He’s always wanted to do something in the pros. Going for the three-peat at UConn is pretty good too.”

Hurley’s teams are 292-163 over his 14 seasons coaching in college at Wagner, then Rhode Island and UConn.

UConn is 141-58 (.709) and has made four consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances under Hurley. The Huskies went 68-11 over the last two years without losing an NCAA Tournament game, winning a record 12-straight by 13 points or more.

Hurley returns to the roster he built to make history, to contend for a third NCAA championship in a row – something that hasn’t been done in more than 50 years.

Hurley is set to fly out for a meeting with Lakers Vice President and GM Rob Pelinka and owner Jeanie Buss about the historic franchise’s head coaching vacancy on Friday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first reported on NBA Countdown Thursday evening. Wojnarowski broke the news of Los Angeles’ plan to offer the reigning back-to-back NCAA champion a “massive, long-term contract” early Thursday morning.

“They’ll start to dig into what a Hurley-Laker partnership would look like. Hurley knows Rob Pelinka, they have spent time together in the past, talked basketball, but this will be his first time meeting with Jeanie Buss,” Wojnarowski said.

“The Lakers would love to get a deal with Dan Hurley wrapped up this weekend. I expect these talks will move quickly, there’s a lot of traction here between Hurley and the Lakers, but they certainly have more talking to do about whether there’s a fit here. Dan Hurley, back at Connecticut, has a chance, obviously, to win a third-straight NCAA championship.”

According to Fox Sports’ John Fanta, Hurley met with the team Thursday morning and confirmed the reports, before holding practice at noon, about five hours after Wojnarowski’s initial report.

“It’s business as usual for now,” he told the players, according to Fanta.

UConn, Fanta reported, has offered the 2024 Naismith Coach of the Year “a lucrative new contract that would make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the country, featuring significant widespread benefits for him.” He received a new six-year, $32.1 million contract after winning the 2023 national championship, worth about $5 million annually.

Hall of Fame Kansas coach Bill Self earned about $9.63 million per year as the highest-paid coach in college basketball during the 2023-24 season, according to a USA Today database. Self was followed by John Calipari at Kentucky ($8.54 million), Michigan State’s Tom Izzo ($6.2 million) and Auburn’s Bruce Pearl ($5.72 million).

“The Los Angeles Lakers are targeting Connecticut’s Dan Hurley to become the franchise’s next coach and are preparing a massive, long-term contract offer to bring the back-to-back national champion to the NBA, sources tell ESPN,” Wojnarowski posted to X Thursday morning.

Hurley, who’s been working with UConn on a new contract since leading the program to a second consecutive national title this spring, turned down a reported pursuit from Kentucky after the departure of John Calipari this offseason. Now one of the most coveted coaches in the sport, Hurley said after UConn’s April 13 championship parade that he has “no desire to coach college basketball anywhere else.”

“Maybe down the road, you hope you can mature enough emotionally to, much later in my career, try to take a shot at the NBA – down the road, way down the road – but I’m not gonna coach anywhere else in college,” he added that day.

The Lakers, who dismissed second-year head coach Darvin Ham after their first round exit in the Western Conference playoffs, are hoping to shorten that road with a “massive, long-term contract offer,” according to Wojnarowski’s report.

There are at least six NBA coaches who are paid more than $10 million per year, according to USA Today. Steve Kerr, the four-time champion leading the Golden State Warriors, recently became the NBA’s highest-paid coach at $17.5 million annually. He is followed by legendary San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich ($16 million) and Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra ($15 million).

It is unknown what “massive” might mean in Hurley’s context, but in Los Angeles it could rival what Kansas’ Bill Self gets as the highest-paid coach in college basketball ($9.63 million annually). The salary floor for NBA head coaches is in the $4 million range – 19 college coaches, according to USA Today’s database, made at least that much during the 2023-24 season.

Hurley signed a six-year deal with UConn for $32.1 million, about $5 million per year plus incentives (similar to the $5 million salary Ham was paid by the Lakers, according to the Athletic), following the 2023 national championship, and was the seventh-highest-paid coach in college this past season, the USA Today database shows. That contract, which made Hurley the state’s highest-paid employee, is expected to be ripped up after Hurley led the Huskies to a second-consecutive title in April.

Dan Hurley met with his players at UConn this morning and informed them he's been in talks with the Lakers, a source tells Fox Sports. Hurley didn't want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it's business as usual for now.

— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) June 6, 2024

“The Lakers have had preliminary contact with Hurley and the sides are planning to escalate discussions in the coming days, sources told ESPN. Hurley has been at the forefront of the Lakers’ search from the beginning of the process, even while the organization has done its due diligence interviewing several other candidates, sources said,” Wojnarowski reported.

Shams Charania, an NBA insider for The Athletic, reported Tuesday that the Lakers were “zeroing in” on ESPN analyst JJ Redick, who had a 15-year NBA career, as the front-runner for the job.

According to Charania, the Lakers’ search “has been seriously focused on” Redick and James Borrego, the associate head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans, over the last couple of weeks. Current NBA assistants Sam Cassell (Boston Celtics), Chris Quinn (Miami Heat), Micah Nori (Minnesota Timberwolves) and David Adelman (Denver Nuggets) have also interviewed for the opening, according to both ESPN and The Athletic.

“Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka and governor Jeanie Buss are eager to formally discuss with Hurley their vision of marrying his dominant program – built upon both his tactical acumen and elite player development – with the storied Lakers brand, sources said,” according to Wojnarowski’s report, which noted that Hurley “has expressed to the Lakers a desire to explore the full picture of a partnership with one of basketball’s winningest franchises, sources said.”

Lakers superstar LeBron James has expressed his fondness for Hurley and his style in recent months. After Hurley appeared on JJ Redick’s podcast, ‘The Old Man and the Three,’ and discussed where he gets some of his offensive concepts, James posted on X, “He’s so DAMN GOOD!!! Along with his staff. Super creative with their O! Love it.”

He’s so DAMN GOOD!!! Along with his staff. Super creative with their O! Love it

— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 19, 2024

Hurley was asked about his potential new contract on Wednesday night after he spoke on a panel alongside legendary UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma at the UConn Coaches Road Show in Stamford, and said “it’s complicated.”

“There’s a business side of it which you allow your agent to advise you on… I’m not a businessman, I’m not good at that, I’m a one-trick pony. It’s probably taken more time than I think any of us would’ve liked, but it’s not something that’s ever been a rush for me,” he said. “When you’ve won back-to-back championships, you’re not calling your agent worried about the status of your contract. You’re more worried about recruiting, scheduling.

“You sacrifice a lot to do this job, it’s a high-pressure job… It’s a total commitment, a lot suffers because of it – your family, any chance at any type of a social life, it consumes everything that you have and there’s a price you pay for it. And you also have a market as a coach when you’ve accomplished a lot of things. Trying to find that sweet spot is something.”

As fast as he started talking about a three-peat, Hurley got busy in recruiting and scheduling, reloading a roster that is set to lose four of five starters using the transfer portal and landing one of the program’s top all-time high school recruits in Liam McNeeley.

Hurley was also “ecstatic” after Alex Karaban – who he said Wednesday could have an “All-American, Big East Player of the Year” type of season – made his decision to return for a chance at the three-peat, withdrawing from the NBA Draft just a week earlier.

The Huskies, 68-11 over the last two historic seasons, will enter 2024-25 as one of the top five teams in the nation, should Hurley decide to stay.

“We wholeheartedly believe that we’re right where we want to be where we’re going to be one of the best teams again. We’re very, very confident,” he said Wednesday night, about 12 hours before the Lakers reports came out. “If I didn’t think we were that good, I wouldn’t necessarily sound like this.”

Hurley met with his players Thursday morning and informed them that he has been in talks with the Lakers, FOX Sports’ John Fanta reported Thursday afternoon. “Hurley didn’t want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it’s business as usual for now,” Fanta posted on X.

After the Illini took down No. 2 seed Iowa State on Thursday night, center Coleman Hawkins said he has a “higher level of respect” for the Huskies program. Point guard Marcus Domask agreed.

“I have a lot of respect for them and what they’ve done,” Domask said. “We’ve played a lot of college basketball (and) played a lot of teams that are supposed to be us.”

Added coach Brad Underwood: “It’s not overly complicated. They are who they are, we are who we are. It’s a quick turn. Danny (Hurley) and his staff do an incredible job offensively, they run a lot of sets. Nothing that we haven’t seen throughout the course of Big Ten play and postseason.”

Illinois, the Big Ten Tournament champion, has won its last seven games and 10 of 11 with the only loss in that stretch coming against No. 2 overall seed Purdue, 77-71. The third-seeded Illini rolled over No. 14 seed Morehead State and No. 11 Duquesne in the first and second rounds before holding off Iowa State in a gritty game in the Sweet 16 on Thursday night.

UConn, the Big East regular-season and tournament champion, won its ninth consecutive NCAA Tournament game and tied the all-time record set by Michigan State from 2000-01 with a 30-point blowout of No. 5 seed San Diego State.

“I haven’t watched their tournament run very much. I’ve watched a lot of games. Honestly, I watched the exciting games but they’ve been blowing out teams, so I haven’t really followed much attention to them,” said Domask, a graduate transfer from Southern Illinois. “We’ll be watching a lot of film. We have watched a lot of film. So we’ll have a good understanding for what they do.”

Saturday’s matchup will be a battle between the nation’s top two offenses, according to KenPom. The two programs have flip-flopped as the Nos. 1 and 2 most efficient in the nation since the NCAA Tournament began.

“Illinois is one of the best teams in the country,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “We expect a 40-minute war going into every game that we go into. I know you all saw the end of that clip when I came into the locker room and said, ‘We keep blowing these teams out.’ Well, they missed the first part of that which was, ‘Man, I don’t know how we’re blowing these teams out in this setting. You guys are special.’ ”

Illinois, averaging 84.2 points per game, hasn’t been blown out. In fact, the Illini haven’t lost a game by double-digits this season.

Star Terrance Shannon Jr. leads the way offensively, averaging 23.5 points per game. He was reinstated in late January after missing six games due to an indefinite suspension over a rape charge in December for an alleged incident that happened three months prior. He has maintained his innocence and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on May 10.

Domask averages 15.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4 assists, and Hawkins, a 6-foot-10 stretch-five, averages 12.3 points and 6.1 rebounds while attempting more than six 3-pointers per game and has made a career-best 37.9%.

The big difference: UConn’s defense is also elite, ranked sixth on KenPom to Illinois’ 84th.

“I think we’ve made it look easy in these past two tournaments, but it’s hard,” Hurley said. “We do the hard things really, really well, like the defense, the rebounding, the way that we play at the offensive end of the court.”

UConn is 6-6 all time in the Elite Eight.

What to know

Site: TD Garden, Boston

Time: 5:09 p.m.

Series: UConn leads 2-1

Last meeting: Dec. 27, 1994 — UConn 71, Illinois 56

Records: UConn 34-3, Illinois 29-8

TV: TBS – Kevin Harlan, Dan Bonner, Stan Van Gundy and Andy Katz

The top-seeded Huskies will meet No. 3 Illinois on Saturday at 5:09 p.m. with a berth in the Final Four in the line. The Illini knocked off No. 2 Iowa State, 72-69, in Thursday’s late game.

Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer and Stephon Castle led the way in the national championship rematch, combining for 51 points as the reserves helped UConn grow its lead to as many as 32 late in the second half.

“We suck at winning close games, so we’ve got to go with the alternative,” head coach Dan Hurley said. “The group, we’ve got a killer instinct. We play every possession with great desperation, we’ve got NBA-level players that are incredibly well prepared by (assistants) Luke Murray and Kimani Young… And obviously we’re very comfortable in tournament play, we’re hard to prepare for.”

The win tied UConn’s record for wins in a season (34-3), which was set in 1999, when the program won its first national championship.

UConn has won nine consecutive NCAA Tournament games by an average of 22.8 points and is the first reigning national champion to make it past the Sweet 16 since Florida won back-to-back titles in 2007.

Newton reasserted his All-American status with 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists while Spencer scored 16 of his 18 points in the first half, adding five rebounds and three steals. Castle, the freshman, recorded his first double-double of the year with 15 points and a career-high 11 rebounds.

Steph with AUTHORITY #MadeForMarch | #MixForSix pic.twitter.com/tqdj7k0smP

— UConn Men's Basketball (@UConnMBB) March 29, 2024

Jaedon LeDee went shot-for-shot with the Huskies to start the game, but Newton ripped an offensive rebound away from him around the 14-minute mark and sparked a 12-2 run that was fueled by a pair of layups and a 3-pointer from Spencer.

LeDee finished with team-highs in points (18) and rebounds (eight).

Alex Karaban made two 3-pointers in the first four minutes, the second with his heel touching the center court logo, as UConn finished the first half with more made 3s (5-for-14) than it had for the entirety of the Round of 32 game against Northwestern (3-for-22). The Huskies finished the game 10-for-26 (38.5%) from beyond the arc while shooting 46.2% (30-for-65) from the field.

But UConn’s offense went quiet as it fed the ball inside to Donovan Clingan, looking to draw a third foul on LeDee but instead missing a series of shots at the rim.

“It was too tempting not to give him a couple of opportunities there. But that guy, sometimes it’s hard for a 7-foot-3 guy to score against a freak athlete who is super strong, who can kind of leverage them a little bit. He had that low leverage,” Hurley said.

UConn shot just 2-for-16 from the field over a seven-minute stretch and San Diego State got to within four before Spencer ended a three-minute scoring drought with a midrange jumper. Spencer scored UConn’s last seven points of the half to make it a 40-31 lead at the break.

Clingan went into the locker room at halftime with just two points (1-for-6) and three rebounds, taking a moment for a deep breath to clear his mind.

“(I) realized I had to go out there and dominate because my team needed me,” he said. “Once I got my groove back I feel like I defended at a high level.”

The Huskies’ big man scored six points on three shots and had five rebounds with a block in 10 second half minutes. He helped hold LeDee to just three points on 1-for-8 from the field after the break.

Castle was the catalyst that helped the Huskies pull away. Using his physicality to dominate the glass on both ends, he scored six straight points to build a 16-point lead with less than 13 minutes to go.

“I just saw that I kind of missed out on a couple of opportunities to kind of grab some offensive rebounds, make some more plays for my teammates,” Castle said. “The second half I just tried to make up for those and just try to do whatever I can to win my matchup and help my teammates.”

Hassan Diarra came in to give Spencer a break and immediately made his mark, scoring all 10 of his points in the second half while pestering San Diego State’s ball-handlers as he finished with four rebounds, four assists and a steal in 20 minutes played.

Survive and ADVANCE.#MadeForMarch | #MixForSix pic.twitter.com/nMK6Z2ajKK

— UConn Men's Basketball (@UConnMBB) March 29, 2024

The Huskies finished the game with a 50-29 rebounding advantage, 21-12 on the offensive end.

Castle found Clingan (eight points, eight rebounds) for a dunk that knocked the Aztecs out as UConn’s lead grew to 21 with seven minutes to play.

The Huskies outscored San Diego State 42-21 in the second half and continued to build on their lead with the game in hand.

“With about 13 seconds left I allowed myself to enjoy it,” Hurley said. “As I screamed to get the ball to Andrew (Hurley’s) hands so he could dribble out the clock. That’s been another superstition: ‘Get him the ball, please.’”

UConn is now 13-6 in Sweet 16 games all-time and advances to the Elite Eight for the 13th time, where it holds a 6-6 record.

“The way the defending champs have fared in recent history, it’s kind of been against the odds in terms of the season we’re having, following up the national championship with an even better season. Winning the Big East regular season by multiple games and setting a program record now for wins on the season and winning the Big East Tournament and now getting to an Elite Eight,” Hurley said. “This team has defied what past champions have done and taken this program to a completely different level.”