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UConn men’s basketball head coach Dan Hurley, 51, recently shared what criteria he looks for when recruiting players, and you might be surprised by it. Hurley, who just won his second straight national title, obviously looks for players who are talented, but he also scouts their parents.

“There’s measurable talents you have to have — the height, the speed, the skill set. But we spend a lot of time really focusing on the parents. Are they going to be fans of their son or are they going to be parents? Are they going to hold them accountable, have an expectation that when something goes wrong that it’s not the coach’s fault? That their son’s got to work harder, he’s got to do more, he’s got to earn his role,” Hurley said when breaking down how he evaluates parents during the recruiting process in an interview on CBS. “We’ve got a real old-school culture here of accountability. I’m an old-school coach in terms of the tone that I take with my players in practice. The expectations I take with effort, the focus on winning and ‘we’ over ‘me.’” He further added, “Have they played on seven different travel teams? Have they transferred to four or five different high schools? When you talk to the parents in the recruiting process, are they constantly complaining about the coaches after a bad game or are you having a conversation where their son has got to do more, got to play harder, he’s got to work on his skills. They tell on themselves. They drop hints. You’ve got the wrong type of people around the inner circle of your players, they’ll sink your program.”

While some coaches focus solely on recruiting only elite players, Hurley made it clear that he wants players with a strong support system. He focuses on players whose parents will hold them accountable and keep them in line.

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