UConn's Dan Hurley and Tulsa's Frank Haith each were ejected during the Golden Hurricane's 89-83 victory over the Huskies on Wednesday night in Oklahoma.
The coaches received technical fouls during a heated verbal exchange with 11:40 to play and Tulsa leading 61-47. When Hurley went to shake Haith's hand after the T's, another double technical was assessed and the coaches were shown the door early.
Both coaches said they felt the officiating crew overreacted to what Haith called "a competitive discussion." Hurley said he wanted to let Haith know that his team hadn't been getting the call on similar fouls to the one whistled on DaQuan Jeffries. He said the escalation to the ejections was "embarrassing for me, for the university and the conference and shouldn't have happened."
He also noted his surprise to the ejections.
"I've never seen anything like that,'' the first-year UConn coach said. "It was surreal, I would say. ... Watch what happened on TV. It's very clear. I was talking to the official, and then I was engaged by someone on the other sideline. They said my name, in my direction, so I turned and looked [with] kind of a look of surprise.
"I've known Frank for a very long time -- probably 15, 18, 20 years, back to when I was a high school coach and he recruited my players. I feel as though that situation escalated because of the officials and the way they handled the situation.''
Haith concurred that the ejections were not warranted and said he considered Hurley a friend.
The double ejections came just a day after Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin was ejected in the Bearcats' win over South Florida. It was the first time in 426 games as Cincinnati's coach that Cronin was tossed.
"What they did, they almost penalized a group of kids, and they should be suspended," Cronin said afterward. "Instead, the league office is monitoring my press conference right now to see if I say anything wrong. That's the problem with our sport."
It was Hurley's second ejection in his first season at UConn (10-8, 1-4 AAC). He also was tossed Nov. 16 in a loss to Iowa at Madison Square Garden.
Hurley was celebrating his 46th birthday on Wednesday.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.