The emotions of March Madness were on full display on Sunday at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina following UConn basketball’s loss to No. 1 seed Florida.
In the seconds following the defending back-to-back national champions’ loss, Huskies coach Dan Hurley shouted out to Baylor coaches and players in the tunnel that he hoped the officials ‘don’t [expletive]’ them with fouls like they ‘[expletive]’ UConn.
But that wasn’t the only heated moment in the tunnel. UConn director of communications, Bobby Mullen, confronted a local reporter, Charlotte Sports Live’s Joey Ellis, asking him to take down the viral video of Hurley expressing his displeasure of the officiating in the game and if he didn’t, he would ‘ruin his life.’
The incident took place in the tunnel of the arena seconds after the loss, with Hurley — one of college basketball’s more emotional coaches — walking off heated.
Mullen, who was hired at UConn in 2023 after serving as the Big East Conference’s senior director of digital and social media for four years, provided a statement Sunday to Charlotte Sports Live on the incident.
‘The lasting image of Coach Hurley leaving the court should’ve been his walking off the court arm-in-arm with his seniors, overwhelmed with emotion,’ Mullen’s statement to Charlotte Sports Live read. ‘Instead, a reporter, who was in an area he should not have been, recorded on his cell phone a private comment made to members of another coaching staff.’
According to The New York Post, Mullen also went to X (formerly Twitter) after the game to what appeared to be explaining his side of the situation. That post was shortly deleted by Mullen, per The Post and several other outlets.
‘PR man yells at reporter. News at 11,’ Mullen wrote in a post on X that is now deleted. ‘I have a journalism degree and I know the difference between reporting and seeking out ‘gotcha’ moments. My temper flared a bit in a moment of weakness after a loss, but I think the journalists I work with regularly would vouch for me.’
On Tuesday, Ellis went to X to provide an update on the matter, saying that Mullen and he spoke on Tuesday, where Mullen apologized and that the matter is closed.
‘Just a quick (and hopefully final) update: Bobby Mullen and I spoke a short time ago, during which he apologized for his behavior. I accepted it … and life rolls on,’ Ellis wrote on X on Tuesday.
UConn’s loss to Florida on Sunday ended the Huskies’ hopes of becoming the first program since UCLA to win three consecutive national championship titles. Florida will play in the Sweet 16 of the West Region on Thursday, March 27 at 7:39 p.m. ET against No. 4 Maryland.
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