I’m not an X and O guy like many of you, but I remember in the early Hurley days, a lot of complaints about our offense and how we just ran a weave and high hedge endlessly. Now, anlmost overnight, we run the best offense in CBB.
Is it the players, is Hurley evolving, is Murray a mad offensive scientist, is it the cultural buy-in? Am I answering my own question by saying it’s all of the above?
This is a fair question to ask. There was more than one "debate" that went on during the first few years, and particularly up through and including our 2-6 run last year into February about why it seemed we could not get over the hump in certain games, against certain teams.
I have always loved Hurley's passion, his energy, his willingness to be all in from day 1 (no coach in the country works harder than Danny), his love for his players, the loyalty that he earns and gets from all of his players and the way we play relentless, in-your-face defense reminiscent of the Calhoun era.
That having been said, there were times that he seemed unable to coach us out of our offensive problems when it went stagnant. In addition, we had well-documented struggles in close games. There were times that he did not use timeouts to try and stop opponent runs and they got bigger... and lastly, there were games where he did not seem to have a feel for what was going on in the game and adjust. The St. Johns game at home in Sanogo's freshman year (2021) will always stick out as a game we gave away by allowing St. Johns to dictate to us the way they wanted to play that game down the stretch of the 2nd half.
The thing is, He did change... with the help of not only Luke Murray, but also Kimani Young and Tom Moore. He proved he was willing to see where he was coming up short, make the necessary changes ,
and as a result he has evolved into the best coach in the country with the best coaching staff in the country surrounding him. Only the best coaches and CEO's have the humility to modify, get even better and also surround themselves with great underlings who have strengths in area where the head coach/CEO is weakest.
@BGesus4 is right... we are living in a fever dream. This is a truly amazing run, and it has been nothing but sheer joy to experience it as a fan.