PHOENIX – In his press conference with reporters in Phoenix on Thursday, Alabama head coach Nate Oats poked fun at UConn’s Dan Hurley, and the travel debacle the Huskies dealt with overnight.

“It wasn’t me, I didn’t send anybody over there to mess with the mechanics,” Oats said. “I’m sure he’s conjured that up in his head already.”

That is exactly the type of kindling Hurley uses to light an extra fire under his team. After landing in Phoenix at 3:14 a.m. Pacific Time, 6:14 a.m. Eastern, Thursday morning, while the other three teams settled into their hotel rooms to rest, the Huskies already have enough fuel.

Hurley kept his thoughts tame when his press conference came around, about 12 hours after landing. With all the time sitting around, not moving, the reigning national champion head coach stopped “complaining and cursing and muttering” and started telling himself “‘You don’t really deserve to show entitlement.’”

Final-Four-bound UConn men encounter long travel delay, arrive in Phoenix in the wee hours

“Once that edge wore off…” he said, “I’m lucky to be here, we’re lucky to get an opportunity to come play in the Final Four, and who doesn’t deal with problems with the airlines?”

Anyway, Oats, a friend of Hurley’s for more than a decade, is allowed to crack that joke.

“If it wasn’t for Danny and Bobby (Hurley) I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “We’re playing each other in Bobby’s town down here in Phoenix. Kind of funny how it comes full circle. It would be nice if I wasn’t having to play against Danny’s team, because it’s a pretty good team.”

Hurley met Oats in August, 2012, when the latter, two years younger, was coaching and teaching at Romulus High School, just outside of Detroit.

Oats visited Rhode Island on a successful recruiting trip for one of his players, E.C. Matthews, before Hurley’s first season as head coach. The Hurley brothers, Bobby an assistant on that staff, recognized Oats as a talented high school coach who was ready for the next step.

“He was running a college program in high school,” Dan Hurley said. “The thing I noticed about Nate when we recruited E.C. was like, this guy’s wired different, No. 1, he’s got a different energy about him just the way he shows up when you meet him. And then just the way he ran his program, I went and watched them before a state tournament game have one of the most detailed video scouts that you’ll ever see and then in the back they had spaghetti cooking on the stove.”

Bobby took Oats out of his comfort zone and brought him along as an assistant when he became the head coach at Buffalo the next season. Once Bobby left for Arizona State in 2015, Oats took the keys. His final Buffalo team beat Bobby’s Arizona State team in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament and, about a week later, Oats was hired to lead Alabama.

His Crimson Tide, which was highlighted by No. 2 overall NBA draft pick Brandon Miller, played UConn in last year’s Phil Knight Invitational. Hurley and the Huskies won, 82-67.

Now, in his ninth season as a Division I head coach, Oats looks to extend his seventh NCAA Tournament trip on a stage that neither he nor the Alabama program has ever walked. And he’ll have to face a Hurley brother, again.

UConn’s players got the day off from speaking with media because of the lack of sleep, but were in the 73,000-seat NFL stadium – home of the Arizona Cardinals – for a practice that was a bit shortened.

“Listen, these guys (in high school) were getting in a van, driving 14 hours to the Peach Jam and playing two hours later, so there’s no excuses,” Hurley said. “We’re in the Final Four here, man, with a chance to advance, to repeat as national champions and make history. We’re way past that (stuff).”

Hurley, who typically prefers not to play against coaches he has a relationship with, is looking forward to the matchup with Oats Saturday night.

“You’d rather not play Bob or Nate or anyone that you’re close to maybe in the first round of the tournament or maybe in the Elite Eight, but this one I think I’m excited to compete against a friend in such a big spot. The Final Four I think kind of changes it for me because we’ve both done something incredible with the season,” Hurley said.

“And then, somebody that I really care about is going to be playing for the national championship, preferably me. I also care about Nate too, to a much lesser degree.”