HARTFORD, Conn. — The long-decided season-opener was over, and Cam Turley of the men’s basketball staff hand-delivered the ball in play as time ran out to the players in the UConn locker room.

“Cam came in and gave us the ball and we thought it was pretty cool,” senior Jayden Ross said, after the Huskies’ 86-46 victory over Gardner-Webb Monday night. “He gave it to Silas, and Silas put it under a towel. Coach came in and gave us his postgame speech and after we said, ‘We got something for you.’ We hand him the ball and there was a lot of applause, and he kind of looked at us funny.

“He said, ‘I’m here for bigger stuff than this.’ And he just chucked it out the door, like it was worthless.”

Maybe Dan Hurley did not think much of his 200th victory as UConn coach, maybe he was trying to send a message to his latest team that it was talented enough to aspire big, keep the players hungry. Or maybe he just didn’t want the attention.

OK, that last one was a reach. But whatever his reason, Hurley was not in a mood to celebrate this milestone win, most notable for the short time, and by extension the high winning percentage, .727, it took in reaching it.

“I took the 200th win ball they gave me and threw it out into the hallway,” he said. “I don’t want that (crap). … ‘Cuz I don’t care. What am I going to do with it?”

The ball was retrieved and secured, because a basketball program that just sold a used urinal from the coaches’ office for four grand wasn’t going to let such a piece of memorabilia bounce away for free.

Indeed, Hurley has paid a price to get that ball, and the price gets ever steeper.

“Number 1, it’s hard to get the head coaching job at UConn,” Hurley said. “It’s hard to do enough in your career. For me, to coach at every level, it’s hard to put yourself in position to be offered the job, accepting the job, it’s hard enough to do that. And it’s hard to keep the job that long, to get to 200. At a place like this, with coach (Jim) Calhoun, and Geno (Auriemma) and Kevin Ollie as a national championship coach, to get the job is hard and to be here long enough to get 200, I think I’ve got a good shot at 300, I’m not sure about 400. I may be cooked by then.”

Hurley’s eight seasons plus one game at UConn have been extraordinary by even the highest standards. At 53, with two championships and three Final Four appearances — Hall of Fame credentials — behind him, every indication more such glory lies ahead, Hurley seems more settled. He’s still plenty intense, mind you, never satisfied, mind you, but more under control over the last year or so. Last week he signed a two-year extension aimed at keeping him at UConn through 2032.

In this day and age, as Hurley would go on to elaborate, coaches are under fire from everywhere, and it can be a swift fall from head of the parade to the hot seat, as was Ollie’s experience after winning the national championship in 2014.

Hurley, who replaced him in March 2018, almost literally spelled out what would come, a rough first year, which became the third sub-.500 season in a row. A series of excruciating losses in the second year followed. It was after such a loss at Villanova in the middle of that year that Hurley made his most famous prediction, “You better get us now, because it’s coming.”

Things turned the corner in February 2020, and UConn is 174-50 since, the only things slowing the climb were COVID and one shocking loss to New Mexico State in the NCAA Tournament. The ascent to the top was complete at the end of March Madness in 2023 and since then, Hurley has accomplished something much harder, and rarer. He has stayed there, while staying put, adapting to an industry model that is the polar opposite of what it was when he dove into college coaching.

He didn’t talk to Kentucky when that job was open. He said “Thanks, but no, thanks,” to the Lakers. Feeling fried when the three-peat didn’t happen, he toyed with getting out and trying TV, but he has stayed and produced. One must wait ’til sunset to judge how splendid was the day. Hurley’s career is a little past noon, perhaps, but what a glorious morning it was.

If Hurley’s 200th win had come one game sooner, in the national championship game against Michigan last April in Indianapolis, he certainly would not have been so cavalier with that game ball. But now he is in the midst of another fight, a light, mid-major appetizer devoured in the season-opener, a rematch with the defending champs up next in Boston on Friday night.

The doubleheader at PeoplesBank Arena showed off the UConn programs in a most promising light. The women beat Cornell 100-35, their stars Sarah Strong and Jovana Popovic shining. They also have Michigan next, on the road and in the first of several big tests in the early going.

The men, with Braylon Mullins scoring 20 points in 25 minutes, looking rather good doing it, and other pieces falling into place left Hurley only with the usual things a coach carps on after early season games like this. But what we are seeing indicates this team, too, has championship potential, so Hurley is just not wired to stop and reflect on his coaching journey at a moment like this.

“Maybe at Sea Girt (on the Jersey Shore) over the summer, having a beer, just chilling, maybe,” Hurley said. “When you have coached where I have coached at, the starting point for me (10 years in prep school), like I wasn’t a preordained golden boy coach that started getting these big jobs at a young age. Like, I grinded it out, got to the college level, I grinded it out at Wagner, a mid-major. I’ve only been coaching at this big-time level for nine years. You look around sports, the coaches who lose their job midyear, the pressure on coaches these days when things start going bad, with social media and fan bases.

“Coaches get devalued a lot by a lot of people in the media, and player-empowerment is very, very important, but as colleges coaches, people that really are un-informed and have no idea what goes into the running a big college sports program, coaching at this level, it’s all on the head coach’s shoulders. You carry the pressure of everything that’s going on in your program and you’re the one, when the results are not positive, it’s untenable.”

Now, you see the full picture. The 200th victory ball? A souvenir a guy like Dan Hurley can toss aside, sign it and auction it off. But that chip on his shoulder? That’s the keeper.

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