ALBANY, N.Y. — The Connecticut men’s basketball team is a hardly a Cinderella story.
The program has won four national titles since 1999 — more than any other school during that time — has a coach who comes from a New Jersey family of basketball lifers and features one of the most famous fans of this March Madness.
Actor Bill Murray was a fixture behind the Huskies bench, mingling with fans, getting plenty of air time and cheering on the Huskies as they beat Iona and Saint Mary’s to advance to the Round of 16, where they’ll face Arkansas in Las Vegas on Thursday.
Murray has a personal interest in the Huskies because his son, Luke, is an assistant under head coach Dan Hurley, the Jersey City native and former Seton Hall guard. Earlier this season, Luke Murray served as the head coach during a game at Seton Hall after Hurley tested positive for COVID.
“Well, he can pay his own bills and everything, that’s really exciting,” Bill Murray, 72, told SNY’s Alexa Datt when Luke was at Rhode Island under Dan Hurley. “But he’s good at what he does, he’s pretty good at what he does. And I get a kick out of it. He wears a tie. Who wouldn’t be proud of their son in a tie? You know, you think he would’ve just had dirty fingernails and big rubber boots, but he’s all right.”
Approached by a reporter after UConn beat Rick Pitino’s Iona team last Friday, Murray was at the center of a group of celebratory Connecticut fans but politely declined an interview, saying it is now his policy not to talk about his son’s basketball career and, in return, Luke does not give interviews on the entertainment business.
“I want to know more about you,” he said. “I’d rather hear about you, I hear myself talk all the time.”
Want to bet on the NCAA Tournament?
See the best NJ Sports Betting sites
Luke Murray has coached with Hurley at Connecticut, Rhode Island and Wagner, and has had coaching stints under Chris Mack at Xavier and Louisville. At each stop, Bill has been there to support him and enjoy the games, even if that means repeatedly changing school colors over the years.
“I didn’t even know he was over there because I look at my wife mostly” when things are “going bad,” Hurley said after the Saint Mary’s win. “Obviously, I’ve seen him in the highlights and he’s an awesome guy.”
Dan Hurley and Luke Murray have a lot in common: They are the sons of famous fathers, and have a deep passion for basketball and an intense desire to compete. Bob Hurley Sr. is one of three high school coaches in the Naismith Hall of Fame. He hasn’t coached since St. Anthony’s High School in Jersey City closed in 2017 for financial reasons. Now he and his wife, Chris, spend much of their time supporting Dan and their older son Bobby Hurley, the former Duke point guard who won back-to-back national championships in the early 1990s and now coaches at Arizona State.
Still, when it comes to famous fathers, even Bob Hurley Sr. is a fan of Bill Murray’s films
“Oh, he’s a talent,” Hurley Sr. said, his eyes lighting up. “Starting with Meatballs, Groundhog Day, Caddyshack — all great, great movies. He’s a talented man, funny guy. Everything about him is great. But it’s a different venue, we’re sitting there suffering and worrying about UConn, not anything else.”
Bill Murray had dinner with some of the players’ families one night in Albany, but Hurley Sr. and those close to the team try to give him his space.
“The last thing when I go to games, I don’t want to bother him,” Bob Hurley Sr. said. “I want to get in my seat and I want to try to analyze this game for the next two hours.”
What can get lost in the Murray Mania is the bond between father and son, and the fact that Luke, 38, is a highly respected basketball mind. He has played a key role as a strategist and recruiter at every stop of his career.
“Luke Murray is a superstar,” said Mack, the former Xavier and Louisville coach. “No detail goes unnoticed with Luke. Whether it’s working with our perimeter players, scouting, or recruiting, Luke excels. He’s one of the most organized, detailed and high-energy recruiters that I’ve ever been around.”
Luke Murray began to get deep into basketball in the summer of 1998, when he was a 13-year-old living with his mother, Margaret, in Manhattan but would spend time with his father, who lived in Nyack, N.Y.
By then, Luke was developing a fascination with the game. He subscribed to The Bob Gibbons Report, which provided stories and rankings on high school basketball players to a thirsty audience in the pre-Internet age. He was so obsessed that he had his father to drop him off at the prestigious ABCD Camp, held each July at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack, N.J.
Yes, the same Fairleigh Dickinson that stunned No. 1 Purdue on its way to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The camp was run by Sonny Vaccaro, who signed Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant to multi-million dollar sneaker deals, and is now the subject of the new Ben Affleck film, “Air,” in which Matt Damon portrays Vaccaro despite looking nothing like him.
The ABCD Camp over the years offered college basketball coaches, street agents, reporters and fans the opportunity to watch and mingle with players like Tracy McGrady, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony while they were emerging basketball phenoms.
“I just loved going over there,” Luke Murray said in an interview in 2017. “It was close to my house [in Nyack], so I’d go over there and watch Tracy McGrady and all the stars who have come through there over the years. I’d hit the little Burger King at lunch.”
Luke recalled that his father would periodically come into the gym to watch the action as he was picking Luke up.
“He came in late when it would end and watch some guys,” Luke said. “I remember he watched Dwight Howard and was impressed with Dwight Howard.”
Once he got to Fairfield University, Luke began coaching with the New York Gauchos AAU program, which over the years featured New York stars Pearl Washington, Chris Mullin, Rod Strickland, Mark Jackson and Stephon Marbury, among others. When the Gauchos had the chance to land a young Kevin Durant one summer, Luke Murray argued for it.
“And he politely reminds me that I said no,” recalls Emanuel “Book” Richardson, who ran the team then and still works with them now. “He reminds me that Derrick Rose wanted to play with us at [an event] and I wasn’t sure. So he would always remind me of that.”
Now Luke Murray is still identifying and developing talent while his father is still watching him proudly.
And that’s all she wrote.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting us with a subscription.
Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.
Ad Choices