HARTFORD, Conn. — At one point Tuesday night, Dan Hurley was so thrilled to see a play made, he ran over to the scorer’s table and planted a kiss on Aiden Mahaney, who was waiting to check in.

At another point, he put his arms around both Butler coach Thad Matta and referee Pat Driscoll.

At another, the FS1 cameras caught him barking at a referee who was walking away. “Don’t turn your back on me, I’m the best coach in the (bleeping) sport,” he seemed to say.

After UConn’s 80-78 overtime victory, Hurley sheepishly admitted that for one of the few times in recorded history, social media lip-readers were more or less correct.

Hurley riffed on the pattern of Big East officiating, though not referees themselves, for several minutes after the UConn win and lamented what was caught on camera, soon to be all over the internet.

Losing always takes its toll on Dan Hurley. This year, so does winning.

“I’ve created this for myself, I’m not the victim,” he said. “I wish they would not have the camera on me 90 percent of the time. Unless they feel like it’s driving ratings, and more (disagreeable people) on Twitter can put clips of me from a game and they can say ‘What a monster.’

“I just wish they’d put the camera on the other coach more. I had a moment with coach Thad where he was so far out of the box, I figured I’d just go over and have a pow-wow with him and Pat. I just wish they would show these other coaches losing their mind in Big East games that I’m coaching.”

Hurley craves more respect from officials because he is, to be honest, the best, or certainly the most successful coach in college basketball. For that very same reason, the cameras will remain trained on him. He and Taylor Swift have virtually the same odds of convincing networks to stop showing their every in-game reaction.

Hurley does have a point, though, when he says officials are allowing opponents to grab and hold his players as they try to move without the ball. There was another big discrepancy in fouls in the Butler game, 21 to 13 against the Huskies, and the way teams are defending, or being allowed to defend, restricts the “freedom of movement” that became UConn’s championship signature the last couple of seasons.

“If it’s because they don’t like me, that’s a problem because it’s an integrity-of-the-game issue,” Hurley said. “You can’t come into a game saying ‘I’m not going to call fouls because I don’t like this coach’s demeanor.’ Our ability to move off the ball is critical to how we play ... but we got held and fouled and happens every single game. Every single game. For all the success we’ve had the last couple of years, I don’t think there’s a program that’s won as much as we’ve won that at times gets as bad a whistle.”

When asked what the refs say when Hurley points out that, as back-to-back champs, he should get a better shake, he responded, “I don’t think Jay had to say that.” (Jay is Jay Wright, the comparatively mild-mannered Villanova coach who retired with two titles).

Let’s limit the relitigating of Hurley’s not-so-excellent adventure in Hawaii. Hurley may be right, maybe UConn gets hosed more than a championship team and coach should, but I just don’t know that saying it out loud is the way to change that. It’s not the best look.

But I also refer back, as I frequently do on this topic, to one of the pearls I picked up from Joe Torre during my years in the Yankees dugout. You can’t pick and choose what you like or don’t like about someone; you take or leave the whole package. Watching Hurley from the much closer reporters’ vantage point at XL, it’s just as concerning to see him put his hands in his pockets and try to restrain himself, as if he is self-conscious about the cameras. Hey, he has to be who he is, let all hang out … within reason. Who he is works, and he should not worry about what people say on the internet. … But he does, he’s only human, and that’s part of this complicated package, too.

UConn is 14-5, and 6-2 in the Big East. The two conference losses were on the road at Villanova, when Alex Karaban missed two free throws in the final seconds that could have won the game, and last Saturday to Creighton, a close game to the end. UConn has had more games decided by five points or less so far this season (nine) than the Huskies had in their two championship seasons combined. They are 5-4 in those games.

They have won some games they could have lost, including overtime wins over Xavier and now Butler, 1-7 in the league, which wiped out a 15-point deficit and could have dealt the Huskies a crushing blow were it not for nine missed free throws.

You could also argue that if freshman Liam McNeeley, a potential NBA lottery pick who was instrumental in the Huskies’ critical December wins, were playing, they could be on a 12-game winning streak.

Make no mistake: this team is flawed. For whatever reason, the ball does not move as crisply on offense and the defensive problems may be unfixable. UConn did block seven shots in the first half and held Butler to 40.7% shooting, but in the second half and OT, the Bulldogs shot 50%. There are several players who do only one or two things well.

McNeeley could return from his high ankle sprain before the end of January and fix a lot of things, but with two games left against both Marquette and St. John’s, road games at Xavier (Saturday), Creighton and Providence, the Huskies could end up in the last place a two-time champ wants to be: on the bubble.

If the Huskies are going to contend for a three-peat, it will have to be an out-of-nowhere scenario more similar to the 2011 and 14 champions than the ’23 and ’24 versions.

The championship pedigree has shown up at times this season — in the nick of time, like when the Huskies made critical plays down the stretch Tuesday night. They seem to lack the killer instinct to put teams away, but they have shown a survival instinct.

So the record and the standings tell one tale, the eyeballs tell another. The best news is on the calendar, with six weeks and a dozen games left for Dan Hurley to figure it all out.

“We’re spoiled, I’m spoiled, the staff is spoiled, the fans are spoiled,” he said. “We’re all spoiled with the level of ball we’ve played here the last couple of years. I’m not down. That was a tiring game to coach. We haven’t had to coach games like this. We’ve just dominated and devastated people in these games and now we’re realizing what it’s like to have a good team, a really good team, that has to fight for wins and overcome adversity.”

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