Dom Amore, Hartford Courant UConn Reporter

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Download the app or visit carvana.com today. Dom, how are you, man? Thank you for taking the time. Good. Good, JR. How are you? Good evening.

I'm very well. A little bit of a shock and a surprise that we even got to this. This kind of surprised everybody at the end of last week.

Yeah, I really did. You know, he seemed to be closing in on signing a new contract. Things seemed to be going well.

And then something just changed. It seemed, the nearest I can figure, it seems that the news a couple of weeks ago of the revenue sharing and the lawsuit settlement with the NCAA may have thrown him into a little bit of a, I don't want to say a panic, but I think he was very concerned about Yukon's ability to compete going forward against maybe more resourced programs. I think he may have overreacted to that a little bit. But apparently the Lakers had expressed some interest earlier.

And then all of a sudden on Thursday morning that the bombshell hits. I'm not sure what to make of it. I assume it was a negotiating ploy to get something more from Yukon, if not more salary than some type of resources that maybe he wasn't comfortable with. But if it wasn't, if that's not what it was, then it didn't make much sense because, frankly, the Lakers offer, you could tell I'm a Hartford guy. The Lakers offer, once we learned what it actually was, didn't represent much of a raise over Yukon's last offer. It's really a perplexing thing that didn't really add up while it was going on.

And when it finally ended, you kind of looked back and thought, what just happened? Why was that even necessary? Don Memorial is here with us from the Hartford Courant. What was that previous offer before the Lakers engaged him? He turned down 60 or 70 mil. What do you think a future offer or extension might look like?

Well, I think the numbers that we've seen were six years for 50 million at Yukon. I could see maybe a little bit more than that. Perhaps they will make them the highest paid, something maybe with a higher average annual value than what Bill Self gets, which is about nine. But they're not far from that anyway.

So I think that was it. But we could be talking, JR, about maybe more money for his assistance. We could be talking about maybe more resources for NIL, for recruiting, maybe some guarantees that they're going to have enough money for the revenue sharing if and when that comes to pass. It's not necessarily the salary, I think, that concerned him. If it was, because the salary, again, not much different, really. When you consider twice as many games, it's not even a race. Yeah, you're doing more work. More stress.

Yeah. The Lakers are never really a fit for what he was about. I think if he does go to the NBA, and he will one day if he wants to, and I think he does, he needs to be with a young team that's already been blown up that he can rebuild his way.

That, I think he could do. As far as going into a situation where he's supposed to win now with veterans who are already set in their ways, be a very difficult adjustment for them, to him, and for him, to them. I don't think the Lakers were the right place for him. And the other thing is, knowing him like I do, he convinced his three or four kids to transfer or stay at UConn or come back for next year.

And they committed for next year. And for him to pull the plug on them and bail out in June, I think it would have eaten him up inside what was said and thought and what he thought about doing that. And I think he wouldn't have felt right doing that. And that was the main reason, even if the Lakers' offer was $100 million, as originally rumored, I wasn't sure that he would really leave UConn and leave those kids in the lurch like that. He has a lot of integrity.

That's sincere. And I think sometimes that integrity hurts him as a businessman, because he gave up all of his leverage by not talking to Kentucky when they wanted to talk to him. And I think maybe he thought, as a businessman, he needed to talk to the Lakers and maybe get UConn to move the needle a little bit. And Dom Amore is here with us.

Hey, that's a classy individual. I mean, actually, to have a coach to think about his recruits, I mean, we've seen how that story goes a lot of times. We know you win two national championships.

You can walk on water just a little bit. There can't be ill will in the community by anyone saying, hey, coach, why did you do this? Were there people that were kind of worried about things? No, I think most people felt like, you know, if he were going to another college, there would be. But I think a lot of people felt like, hey, you know what?

Our guys might go to the Lakers. I think people people would have rooted for him and be happy if he did it. It's just that, you know, JR, it's June.

It's the 10th of June when he made his decision. And that would have put UConn in such a terrible spot. They would have probably had to name an interim coach. Players would have had 30 days to transfer. So some probably some very important players would have found other homes and transferred out. You know, Kamani Young, I think, would have been named the coach. And he's very capable, very competent. And I think there's going to be a great head coach, maybe even at UConn, but not taken over in June under those circumstances.

Now, now, if this happens again next year, there will be there's there's time to maybe adjust and prepare and have some kind of a plan in place if it happens. But I think for this to come out of the blue, it really would have hurt UConn terribly if he left in June. And now I don't think people would necessarily have resented him for going to the Lakers. But I think when they saw what what eventually was going to unfold, the chaos that would have enveloped the program.

Yeah, then there might have been some hard feelings later on, but not right now. Now, right now, everyone in Connecticut is just so thrilled that he's back and that he's here. He's really, really well loved in Connecticut. He really is. He's a lunatic, but he's Connecticut's lunatic.

Don Memorial is here with us from the Hartford Courant. We've heard a lot about their potential to go out there and go and three-peat. How realistic do you find that to be for this upcoming season? Well, I would say that it's obviously the most realistic of any quest to three-peat that we've seen in a long time, because it's been so long since anyone's repeated the fact that he's done it twice. The fact that he's been able to really put a new team together with transfers and win the second time gives you the belief that he could do it again. If he's done it twice, he could do it again.

So you have to give him the benefit of the doubt that it's on the table. It's a possibility. But I think we all know that winning a championship even once is very hard. And I use the analogy that who would have dreamed, if you're old enough to remember, which I am and you're probably not, but who would have dreamed in 1975 that UCLA would win one championship the next 50 years?

I mean, you thought that that program was going to go on winning forever, no matter who the coach was, no matter what players came and went. You know, it's hard to do. So the fact that UConn has won six and that they've won the last two doesn't mean that they're ever going to win another one in your lifetime or mine. But having won the two and having him in there and knowing that he kind of seems to have something figured out in the way of a formula using the portal and the various avenues for fulfilling talent, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt, JR, that he can do it again. Very hard to do even once, very hard to do twice.

But if he's done it twice, why can't he do it a third time? Well, Dom, you talk about Dan Hurley sticking around at UConn and maybe some concerns there about the changes in the college landscape when it comes to NIL and finances and payouts and lawsuits and what have you. I think this might be a question that's applicable to any public school.

UConn is a public university. How is this going to affect some of these state-run schools that now have to start shelling out money, probably eventually down the line to athletes? Like, is this not going to blow up the system even more, scaring some of these coaches away? Yeah, I mean, it's got the potential to do that. It certainly does. I think it's certainly going to scare away older coaches who are set in their ways and maybe don't want to adapt to it.

Dan, I think, is young enough to adapt to it. But the one advantage that UConn has, and in fact the Big East has in that landscape, now UConn is the only public school in the Big East, I know. But the one thing is that every athletic department, I guess, can give up to $20 million, can have up to $20 million to distribute. But in most places, the lion's share of that is going to go to football. So UConn may actually have more money to dole out to its basketball players than a lot of other schools that really have to put most of their eggs in the football basket. So, I mean, it may kill the UConn football program once it's raw, but I think the basketball program could actually benefit by that because I think most of the people who are going to donate and put money in the kitty are going to be doing it for basketball at UConn. So it's not certain how it's going to cut for what schools. And then the other possibility is that UConn, Hope always springs eternal in Connecticut, JR, that they're going to land in either the Big 12 or the ACC or some amalgam of the Big East and the ACC and live happily ever after where their football program is more respectable and competitive and their basketball programs can continue to do what they do. So, you know, the best way I can answer that, JR, if I had to answer it, is that none of us ever dreamed that college athletics would be where it is today, 10 years ago or 20 years ago. So who can say where it's going to be 10 years from now? This just evolves rapidly and it's spinning in ways that we have no idea where it's headed.

Yeah, it's happened very, very quickly. Hey, Dom Amore, thank you for taking the time to join us from the Hartford Courant. Where can people find you and your work? Well, they can find me at www.courant.com and I'm on X at Amore Current, A-M-O-R-E Current.

So I'm pretty easy to find if people want to find it. So thank you for having me, JR. I appreciate the time and appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts with you.

No problem. We'll catch you on down the line and see what these Huskies do. I think there's going to be some news maybe sooner than later. How long do you think it'll take to get this contract done? Well, they have a press conference on Thursday and I wouldn't be surprised if that's been called to announce it. So if it's not done by the end of this week, it's going to happen shortly because I think for him to make the decision that he made yesterday, I assume that the needle has moved and it's going to happen fairly soon. There we have it.

Well, Don Memorial, thank you. He's getting signed through 2029, so it's not like his contract's up. Yep. Well, we'll see what that money looks like. The money's definitely going to go up. That much we know.

That much we know, yep. Plug in a Hyundai EV and the extraordinary happens. It's not just the ultra-fast charging capability and long range in the IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 or the adventure-seeking spirit of the Kona Electric or the groundbreaking 601 horsepower IONIQ 5N. And it's not just the comfort in knowing that every Hyundai EV is backed by a 10-year, 100,000-mile limited electric battery warranty. Hyundai's EVs transform a low hum into a loud adventure. They bring color to your journey and turn energy into main character energy. So forget everything you thought you knew about EVs and turn the extraordinary into something truly electrifying.

There's joy in every journey. EPA estimated 303-mile driving range for 2024 IONIQ 5SE SEL limited rear-wheel drive and 361-mile driving range for 2024 IONIQ 6SE long-range rear-wheel drive with fully charged battery. Estimated range varies for other models and trims and depends on battery capacity, temperature options and other factors. Limited battery warranty covers defects and materials for 10 years or 100,000 miles, whichever occurs first. See owner's manual for complete warranty details and limitations.

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