Big East Media Day

[Umami Zen]

You are correct about DH having transfers as 2 of our best players last year.. He had a high degree of familiarity with both of those guys. One a former player of his and another a star PG for his Dad in HS.

IMO.. DH gets it with the necessity for portal recruiting in the new NCAA.. I still believe he enjoys program building through recruiting.. Replacing 4 of his own recruits with transfers was out of necessity (based on the time of year of those departures-end of season) . Just think he's more aligned with McD's comments than not

 

[NJHoops]

Eh we’ve brought in 4 freshman twice since Hurley has been here and that didn’t stop this off season from happening. Hurley is definitely transfer portal friendly currently. Maybe that changes after this upcoming class?

That article was spot on on how it’s hard to build a program with transfers. With Calhoun it always seemed like upperclassman taught young guys the UConn way (especially PG wise) that kept that position so damn good year in and out. It’s hard to do that with guys constantly coming in and out. This current roster will not have one Hurley recruited PG (unless you want to count Andre). Again, hope that changes with 2023.

Eh, it might help for you to consider things in context a bit, such as when players were recruited and when immediate eligibility for transfers became a thing. I know it’s your thing, but references to Calhoun in this context do not make sense given what college basketball is like. It’s interesting to consider how many of these former coaches would’ve pulled a Wright if they were working today. Fans can keep pining for how things used to be and refuse to see how it really is, but coaches have to keep up. My guess is that about 90% of coaches in the game would prefer to recruit and develop. McDermott’s hailed as the defender of recruit and develop but signed one of the best transfers available for this season. I guess he should have lamented how different things are now and just kept that spot open.

 

[Jbirdp5]

Eh we’ve brought in 4 freshman twice since Hurley has been here and that didn’t stop this off season from happening. Hurley is definitely transfer portal friendly currently. Maybe that changes after this upcoming class?

That article was spot on on how it’s hard to build a program with transfers. With Calhoun it always seemed like upperclassman taught young guys the UConn way (especially PG wise) that kept that position so damn good year in and out. It’s hard to do that with guys constantly coming in and out. This current roster will not have one Hurley recruited PG (unless you want to count Andre). Again, hope that changes with 2023.

There’s a whole lot more nuance to the conversation that you are leaving out. It is obvious to anyone except maybe you that Hurley is a program builder. I think to his credit he has amended his preference for what he feels is the good of the program this off-season.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

There’s a whole lot more nuance to the conversation that you are leaving out. It is obvious to anyone except maybe you that Hurley is a program builder. I think to his credit he has amended his preference for what he feels is the good of the program this off-season.

'There’s a whole lot more nuance to the conversation that you, and spliffy, are leaving out. It is obvious to anyone except maybe you, and spliffy, that Hurley is a program builder.

ftfy.
ok, we're all ears, or at least, i am. please nuance how in the very recent past, having enough guys for a full-court game both coming and going, is program building. there certainly hasn't been any winning, from a program history perspective, to support that thus far. feels more like a bus stop lately. fans like me have trouble cheering for bus stop people. they keep changing and there's no time to develop an attachment to their story. there are soo many great huskie stories over the years, including the ones where our personal hero makes it to a championship. i like those stories.

 

[Jbirdp5]

'There’s a whole lot more nuance to the conversation that you, and spliffy, are leaving out. It is obvious to anyone except maybe you, and spliffy, that Hurley is a program builder.

ftfy.
ok, we're all ears, or at least, i am. please nuance how in the very recent past, having enough guys for a full-court game both coming and going, is program building. there certainly hasn't been any winning, from a program history perspective, to support that thus far. feels more like a bus stop lately. fans like me have trouble cheering for bus stop people. they keep changing and there's no time to develop an attachment to their story. there are soo many great Husky stories over the years, including the ones where our personal hero makes it to a championship. i like those stories.

In hurleys career he never had a transfer pre UConn.
At UConn when most coaches would have had all of Ollie’s recruits transfer he made sure that all of them stayed and felt like they were still a part of the program.
His first transfer was brendan adams, a player who everyone on this board thought would benefit from a step down. Hurley didn’t run him off he credited him for being a culture builder.
Last season the transfers were basically all moving on because playing time was not there for them.
Should he have kept gaffney and sool to prove he’s a program builder or did he do the right thing by recognizing he needed to upgrade the talent around his current big 3?
I think he did the right thing by adapting to his recruiting misses by using the portal and not being stubborn.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

You are correct about DH having transfers as 2 of our best players last year.. He had a high degree of familiarity with both of those guys. One a former player of his and another a star PG for his Dad in HS.

IMO.. DH gets it with the necessity for portal recruiting in the new NCAA.. I still believe he enjoys program building through recruiting.. Replacing 4 of his own recruits with transfers was out of necessity (based on the time of year of those departures-end of season) . Just think he's more aligned with McD's comments than not

Of course it’s out of necessity but a lot of it also seemed like him not believing in the guys he recruited. Everyone on this board knew we were hitting the portal hard this off-season to find better options than what was already on the roster. That’s fine, but you can’t do that and say we’re a program builder currently.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

Eh, it might help for you to consider things in context a bit, such as when players were recruited and when immediate eligibility for transfers became a thing. I know it’s your thing, but references to Calhoun in this context do not make sense given what college basketball is like. It’s interesting to consider how many of these former coaches would’ve pulled a Wright if they were working today. Fans can keep pining for how things used to be and refuse to see how it really is, but coaches have to keep up. My guess is that about 90% of coaches in the game would prefer to recruit and develop. McDermott’s hailed as the defender of recruit and develop but signed one of the best transfers available for this season. I guess he should have lamented how different things are now and just kept that spot open.

I’m not sure how McDermott’s roster changes from one year to the next so it’s hard for me to say. Did he have a mass exodus of his own recruits to pick up this transfer? Genuinely asking because I’m not familiar with their roster.

It’s really hard for me to say we are program building as things stand today. Again, I can’t stress enough how mindblowing it is to not have a Hurley recruited PG on the roster going into year 5. We as UConn fans should know how important a great program bred PG leader is for culture and building that program. Even if they aren’t the most talented (KEA, Talik, etc.) I don’t want to use todays times as an excuse for why we either haven’t been able to identify the right recruits here or coach them. 2023 looks amazing though so I’m very hopeful things change with that class.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

There’s a whole lot more nuance to the conversation that you are leaving out. It is obvious to anyone except maybe you that Hurley is a program builder. I think to his credit he has amended his preference for what he feels is the good of the program this off-season.

I can buy his amended preference for the program. It seems we are going a lot more guard heavy which should be interesting to watch.

In hurleys career he never had a transfer pre UConn.
At UConn when most coaches would have had all of Ollie’s recruits transfer he made sure that all of them stayed and felt like they were still a part of the program.
His first transfer was brendan adams, a player who everyone on this board thought would benefit from a step down. Hurley didn’t run him off he credited him for being a culture builder.
Last season the transfers were basically all moving on because playing time was not there for them.
Should he have kept gaffney and sool to prove he’s a program builder or did he do the right thing by recognizing he needed to upgrade the talent around his current big 3?
I think he did the right thing by adapting to his recruiting misses by using the portal and not being stubborn.

I keep seeing this like Ollie’s recruits that stayed haven’t been amazing. Jalen Adams doesn’t need explanation, Vital was a dog his senior year. Whaley won DPOY. Tyler Polley was iffy but he was our best 3 point shooter and Carlton transferred out and was a beast for Houston. These weren’t loyalty and charity cases, they were just very useful and good players.

It’s interesting the Ollie’s guys can hit like this but he sees the need for his recruits to transfer. So the question becomes, is it a misevaluation or coaching? Either way it’s on him that it happened and you can’t be a program builder with that happening.

Thing is, I LOVE Hurley’s recruiting. Which may be part of the reason I’m so frustrated currently with how things have been shaking out because I want to see HIS guys get legitimate shots and see him actually be a program builder. But so far we have been heavily reliant on transfers.

 

[Umami Zen]

Covid temporarily affected recruiting and abbreviated AAU-HS BB seasons/schedules and consequently.. Coaches had smaller sample sizes to assess/evaluate talent on..It was unusual and unfortunate. Every CBB program was impacted by it. Existing roster construction (then) affected who/how you recruited.

Building a program through recruiting is aspirational. I believe DH prefers this to the portal approach but he realizes the practicality of selectively using the portal for certain openings as he has done for this season's roster. The portal opens up and is active after the end of the season. Season ending exit interviews happen shortly after the end of the season where the future for each and every player is discussed. The 2023 signees and the speed and efficiency with which the staff executed and closed on their targets is an example of program building. More openings after the completion of this year's season? Probably.. Portal or recruited? Who is here and who is gone-positional/roster needs

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

Covid temporarily affected recruiting and abbreviated AAU-HS BB seasons/schedules and consequently.. Coaches had smaller sample sizes to assess/evaluate talent on..It was unusual and unfortunate. Every CBB program was impacted by it. Existing roster construction (then) affected who/how you recruited.

Building a program through recruiting is aspirational. I believe DH prefers this to the portal approach but he realizes the practicality of selectively using the portal for certain openings as he has done for this season's roster. The portal opens up and is active after the end of the season. Season ending exit interviews happen shortly after the end of the season where the future for each and every player is discussed. The 2023 signees and the speed and efficiency with which the staff executed and closed on their targets is an example of program building. More openings after the completion of this year's season? Probably.. Portal or recruited? Who is here and who is gone-positional/roster needs

I can buy the COVID being a reason for the misses. I don’t agree that replacing 4 of your own recruits in an off-season is “selectively” using the portal. We’re going from our two leaders being portal players to now essentially most of our role players being portal players. All of our guards basically (the most important position to winning in college hoops).

Recruiting is one step in program building that we’ve seen before (2021 was a top 10 class). They still have to get here, develop, and win which they are fully capable of doing. But it has to be done first.

It’s actually really interesting to see what the numbers will look like after next year. Between potential drafted players, COVID years, etc. who tf knows who’ll be back . I am way too excited about this 2023 class though and hope the cream of the crop make instant impacts.

 

[Umami Zen]

@HooperScooper shared an article that included comments from Greg McD on the transfer portal and NIL..I commented that I believed that DH was more aligned with his position than not.. Which is to say--my words-- McD is not in the coaching biz to be a portal guy. If you sat down with DH or Jay Wright(and many other D1 BB coaches) at a pub..And asked them if they wanted to be known as a program builder or a 2022 portal guy.. They would say the former.

Nowhere in any of my comments have I said the program is now built or that Hurley is hitting the cover off of the ball.. I simply said.. I believe that trying to build (rebuild ) programs is what gets him out of bed in the morning.. Nova has a built program that Hurley has credited Wright with on numerous occasions. He'd like to do the same at UConn.. I would like to see him do it

 

[Drytortugas]

McDermott said at the end of his chat with Cooley that he’s trying to build a program while Cooley is trying to build a team. He then said that the rules now are such that they’ll all be doing it Cooley’s way eventually.

 

[Jbirdp5]

I can buy his amended preference for the program. It seems we are going a lot more guard heavy which should be interesting to watch.

I keep seeing this like Ollie’s recruits that stayed haven’t been amazing. Jalen Adams doesn’t need explanation, Vital was a dog his senior year. Whaley won DPOY. Tyler Polley was iffy but he was our best 3 point shooter and Carlton transferred out and was a beast for Houston. These weren’t loyalty and charity cases, they were just very useful and good players.

It’s interesting the Ollie’s guys can hit like this but he sees the need for his recruits to transfer. So the question becomes, is it a misevaluation or coaching? Either way it’s on him that it happened and you can’t be a program builder with that happening.

Thing is, I LOVE Hurley’s recruiting. Which may be part of the reason I’m so frustrated currently with how things have been shaking out because I want to see HIS guys get legitimate shots and see him actually be a program builder. But so far we have been heavily reliant on transfers.

The reason you remember those players so fondly is because of the way they DEVELOPED under Hurley! You are remembering the DPoy in Whaley because of what Hurley did for his development. You remember vitals toughness because Hurley helped mild hun from a selfish chucker to a team leader.
All this is because Hurley likes developing guys not getting finished products out of the portal, which as I said before he felt he had to do this year to get the right pieces around his big 3!

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

The reason you remember those players so fondly is because of the way they DEVELOPED under Hurley! You are remembering the DPoy in Whaley because of what Hurley did for his development. You remember vitals toughness because Hurley helped mild hun from a selfish chucker to a team leader.
All this is because Hurley likes developing guys not getting finished products out of the portal, which as I said before he felt he had to do this year to get the right pieces around his big 3!

If this was really true then he’d develop his guys he recruited to come here in Gaffney and Diggins and not tell them that he was going to go into the portal to get finished products. We can’t have our cake and eat it too here. Either he’s with the times and uses the transfer portal or he wants to develop his recruits to be a program builder. It can’t be both.

I agree those guys didn’t play that way with Ollie though. ESPECIALLY Whaley. So kudos to Hurley getting the most out of them. But we can’t act like he kept them out of loyalty and not because he thought they’d give him the best chance to win and played like it. The question still is when does his guys make those same jumps. I want to see someone like Samson who didn’t come in ready to go (like guys like Bouknight, Hawkins, Sanogo, Jackson) make a jump.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

@HooperScooper shared an article that included comments from Greg McD on the transfer portal and NIL..I commented that I believed that DH was more aligned with his position than not.. Which is to say--my words-- McD is not in the coaching biz to be a portal guy. If you sat down with DH or Jay Wright(and many other D1 BB coaches) at a pub..And asked them if they wanted to be known as a program builder or a 2022 portal guy.. They would say the former.

Nowhere in any of my comments have I said the program is now built or that Hurley is hitting the cover off of the ball.. I simply said.. I believe that trying to build (rebuild ) programs is what gets him out of bed in the morning.. Nova has a built program that Hurley has credited Wright with on numerous occasions. He'd like to do the same at UConn.. I would like to see him do it

I agree and would love to see him do it as well. Feel like he just needs to trust his really really great recruiting more. This is going to be the first year we see a team led by his recruits (outside of 2020 with Bouknight kind of).

 

[ClifSpliffy]

recent transfers both in and out, in no particular order.

josh carlton
javonte brown
tristen newton
joe calcaterra
corey floyd
jalen gaffney
sidney wilson
alterique gilbert
akok akok
rahsool diggins
brendan adams
hassan diarra
nahiem alleyne

looks like 4 coming in and 9 going away.

 

[Minicoop69]

recent transfers both in and out, in no particular order.

josh carlton
javonte brown
tristen newton
joe calcaterra
corey floyd
jalen gaffney
sidney wilson
alterique gilbert
akok akok
rahsool diggins
brendan adams
hassan diarra
nahiem alleyne

looks like 4 coming in and 9 going away.

Forgot RJ Cole and Tyrese Martin as transfers in.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

recent transfers both in and out, in no particular order.

josh carlton
javonte brown
tristen newton
joe calcaterra
corey floyd
jalen gaffney
sidney wilson
alterique gilbert
akok akok
rahsool diggins
brendan adams
hassan diarra
nahiem alleyne

looks like 4 coming in and 9 going away.

josh carlton
javonte brown
tristen newton
joe calcaterra
corey floyd
jalen gaffney
sidney wilson
alterique gilbert
akok akok
rahsool diggins
brendan adams
hassan diarra
nahiem alleyne
rj cole
tyrese martin

looks like 4 6 coming in and 9 going away.

ftfm. lol.

 

[CL82]

Looking good!

 

[pepband99]

This might just be me, but I did not see nearly enough out of Nunge last year to warrant first team all big east. His stats are way better than I would have thought, but I was not worried about him when we played Xavier at all.

All I saw was a 7' dentist.

 

[BGesus4]

All I saw was a 7' dentist.

That dentist cooked us tho

 

[auror]

Nunge shot 37% from 3 on 100 attempts, 63% from 2 on 200 attempts. was a very good rebounder on both ends of the court, never turned the ball over (very rare for a big), drew a bunch of fouls, and was a very good (if not elite) rim protector.

Evan Miya had him as the 9th best player in the conference last year and RAPM had him as 5th best. He's just good at everything more or less, and the things that he's great at are less obvious (never turning it over, drawing fouls, overall efficiency).

He did put up 22 (on 11 shots) and 8 rebs with a block and 2 steals against us when they beat us, and I believe got some of our guys in foul trouble.

 

[Rich]

I recommend Taco Bell.

Sheer genius.

 

[Psolo12]

Again, I can’t stress enough how mindblowing it is to not have a Hurley recruited PG on the roster going into year 5. We as UConn fans should know how important a great program bred PG leader is for culture and building that program.

You realize we have a five star PG coming next year, who Hurley recruited, right?

 

[Psolo12]

Nunge shot 37% from 3 on 100 attempts, 63% from 2 on 200 attempts. was a very good rebounder on both ends of the court, never turned the ball over (very rare for a big), drew a bunch of fouls, and was a very good (if not elite) rim protector.

Evan Miya had him as the 9th best player in the conference last year and RAPM had him as 5th best. He's just good at everything more or less, and the things that he's great at are less obvious (never turning it over, drawing fouls, overall efficiency).

He did put up 22 (on 11 shots) and 8 rebs with a block and 2 steals against us when they beat us, and I believe got some of our guys in foul trouble.

It's just one of those things where I don't remember him standing out and then seeing all those stats lol. Kinda mind boggling tbh. He's obviously a very good player