Coach Hurley says this year's team can't take "hard" coaching

[RuffRuff]

Theres a huge leap between second team All-AAC and first-team All-American. It’s odd to suggest he arrived to us as a fully developed player. He was a bad shooter (under 40 percent) at ECU and had 5 assists and 3.5 turnovers per game his last season there, which is a terrible ratio for a PG. I didn’t see anything in his stat line at ECU, or in how he played his first two months here, that led me to believe we had an All-Big East player, much less a first-team AA. He was surrounded with better talent of course, but that meant he had to adapt to a different role and a different system, and it didn’t seem to work at first.

And then he became arguably the best PG in the country his final year. He was a maestro running our offense - still not a great shooter, but the way he made reads off the bounce and found guys for shots was fantastic. His 6+ assists per game usually included great playmaking assists and not just system assists. Lobs, feeds for dunks, finding Spencer wide open in rhythm, etc. I didn’t appreciate it enough in real time, but watching replays of ncaa games, I find myself thinking “damn, Newton was good” a lot.

He was by no means great before he came here - he was good, but he had empty, inefficient stats on a bad team, which doesn’t always translate to winning basketball. An SI article had him rated the 11th best player in the portal that year (Alleyne was 16th) - not bad, but certainly not someone who the world considered a potential All-American. He greatly exceeded his “ranking”

At baseline he was a 6’5” PG - those are hard to find. Staff lucked out and did a great job.

 

[Deleted at users request]

Theres a huge leap between second team All-AAC and first-team All-American. It’s odd to suggest he arrived to us as a fully developed player. He was a bad shooter (under 40 percent) at ECU and had 5 assists and 3.5 turnovers per game his last season there, which is a terrible ratio for a PG. I didn’t see anything in his stat line at ECU, or in how he played his first two months here, that led me to believe we had an All-Big East player, much less a first-team AA. He was surrounded with better talent of course, but that meant he had to adapt to a different role and a different system, and it didn’t seem to work at first.

And then he became arguably the best PG in the country his final year. He was a maestro running our offense - still not a great shooter, but the way he made reads off the bounce and found guys for shots was fantastic. His 6+ assists per game usually included great playmaking assists and not just system assists. Lobs, feeds for dunks, finding Spencer wide open in rhythm, etc. I didn’t appreciate it enough in real time, but watching replays of ncaa games, I find myself thinking “damn, Newton was good” a lot.

He was by no means great before he came here - he was good, but he had empty, inefficient stats on a bad team, which doesn’t always translate to winning basketball. An SI article had him rated the 11th best player in the portal that year (Alleyne was 16th) - not bad, but certainly not someone who the world considered a potential All-American. He greatly exceeded his “ranking”

Rankings aren’t about college potential, they’re about NBA potential.

If you can accomplish almost everything you possibly can at the college level and still be the second to last pick of the NBA draft then the rankings got it right.

Really wish we’d stop trying to force the second to last pick in the draft as a wonderful story of development. It’s embarrassing for a program with our history and is not blue-blood like.

He also actually shot the ball better in his last season at ECU both from the field and from 3. I’m not sure how that’s possible given the fact that there’s so much spacing and talent in this offense where he naturally got much easier shots than he would have had at ECU.

Tristen Newton College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

Tristen Newton - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more

www.sports-reference.com

 

[kobe]

This isn’t remotely true. We literally have fans from other programs who post here to troll us @kobe.

There is a difference between criticism and reaching to find fault in everything the guy does simply because we aren’t dominant this year. You sound spoiled. He made a vanilla comment that he’s made like 3 times since Maui and you’ve found a way to make it controversial. He’s literally saying he coached this team the wrong way early on and had to adjust based upon the personalities in the locker room. How you turned that into “throwing kids under the bus” is next to comical. But “fan” how you want.

 

[Deleted at users request]

Relax, your last first round picks son is an NBA veteran

 

[Gurleyman]

To be honest, it varies from player to player, but sometimes coaches need to use the media/public voice to motivate kids. Over the course of the season, players naturally start to tune out their coach - they’ve heard it all before, but seeing their name and their weaknesses highlighted in public can cause them to fight back with an “I’ll show him”. Geno does this all the time - all of his best players at some point in their careers “couldn’t guard a chair”. That public message just needs to me mixed with public praise when warranted and the right private talks.

 

[InKembaITrust]

You do wonder the dynamic in the locker room. Here you have AK, who was a pre-determined leader, slumping for a LONG time, trying to play a role he’s not designed for. How strong is his leadership when he’s folding at a crucial time? Neither him or Samson are natural leaders as upperclassmen. Hassan has leadership traits but banged up and limited. Liam is fiery but it’s hard to pass on a leadership role to a OAD. You got a group of guys on bench who aren’t playing much or at all, and wonder if malcontent.

What worries me into next year is that we are rolling no tough established leadership back at all.

Can Solo take a leap?

 

[husky429]

Can Solo take a leap?

I don't care if Solo learns nothing else but to defend this off-season. He'll put up 18ppg next year banging threes, but he's gotta offer something on the other end before he can be a bona fide leader of our team. He's showed some improvement the last month but is still way behind the 8 ball

 

[boog204]

I don't care if Solo learns nothing else but to defend this off-season. He'll put up 18ppg next year banging threes, but he's gotta offer something on the other end before he can be a bona fide leader of our team. He's showed some improvement the last month but is still way behind the 8 ball

He was improving, too. Going into the St John's game I thought he was becoming a mediocre/average defender after being so hideous at the start of the year. He regressed big time last game. Earlier in the year someone had an individual defensive rating stat for us and Solo and Jaylin were in the bottom group in the entire country. Does anyone know where that stat came from?

 

[RuffRuff]

Can Solo take a leap?

Hard to say. I know he works hard. He’s got one of those frames that are muscular but small boned, so looks hard to put weight on.

He’s not a very quick player, and plays with very little “force”. He’s not as explosive as his measurables would suggest. Very much central as a starter to this teams overall “soft” image.

He actually is a lot like a shorter Hawkins. I think he could be a good piece that works off of other very good players, but not confident he’ll ever be a true go to guy or a player you build around.

I’d have an insurance plan to take minutes there, and someone that can bring dribble penetration, defense and physicality in - think a Wooga Poppler type.

 

[superjohn]

Hard to say. I know he works hard. He’s got one of those frames that are muscular but small boned, so looks hard to put weight on.

He’s not a very quick player, and plays with very little “force”. He’s not as explosive as his measurables would suggest. Very much central as a starter to this teams overall “soft” image.

He actually is a lot like a shorter Hawkins. I think he could be a good piece that works off of other very good players, but not confident he’ll ever be a true go to guy or a player you build around.

I’d have an insurance plan to take minutes there, and someone that can bring dribble penetration, defense and physicality in - think a Wooga Poppler type.

You're selling him short, he's already a really good to great piece. He averages 15 ppg in his first season of real consistent playing time on 45% fg and 43% threes. He's been our biggest bright spot for the future of the team.

 

[Gurleyman]

Rankings aren’t about college potential, they’re about NBA potential.

If you can accomplish almost everything you possibly can at the college level and still be the second to last pick of the NBA draft then the rankings got it right.

Really wish we’d stop trying to force the second to last pick in the draft as a wonderful story of development. It’s embarrassing for a program with our history and is not blue-blood like.

He also actually shot the ball better in his last season at ECU both from the field and from 3. I’m not sure how that’s possible given the fact that there’s so much spacing and talent in this offense where he naturally got much easier shots than he would have had at ECU.

Tristen Newton College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

Tristen Newton - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more

www.sports-reference.com

He had played 5 years of college and was 23. His NBA value was limited. He wasn’t ranked coming out of high school, came to us with pretty much zero NBA potential and got there - however fringe he is, he became an NBA player on our watch.

In between, more importantly, he won two national titles as a starting point guard, which is kinda sorta what we are in this for. Put up 20-5-7 and no turnovers in the national championship last year. His assist to turnover ratio took a big leap forward into pure point guard territory, and he quarterbacked maybe one of the most efficient offenses in recent memory (Cam helped in that regard as well, to be fair). He was never a great shooter (43 percent vs. 41 percent is statistical noise - amounts to maybe one extra made basket every 5 games), but seeing how much of a dumpster fire we are in late clock situations this year should make his absence glaring.

We’ve had 10 guys go to the NBA and Castle is the only one who came to us an NBA-ready guy who you can’t say we had a big part in putting there. And there are others who were never going to be NBA guys, who still developed as college players. RJ Cole was way too small to make the league. Vital was way too small as a 2 guard. Whaley was too slight and not a good enough shooter. Diarra is also too small and not a good enough shooter. Those guys got better too.

I get that Ross and Stewart haven’t taken the sophomore leap we hoped, but they were fringe top 100 guys and those tend to be guys you take a flyer on - some pan out and carve out roles or turn out to be way better than you expected. But some don’t find their fit. We didn’t have our program’s hopes pinned to Ross (a 3-star ranked No. 113 by 247 and No. 83 by ESPN) or Stewart (a 4-star ranked No. 56 by 247 and No. 95 by ESPN).

 

[RuffRuff]

You're selling him short, he's already a really good to great piece. He averages 15 ppg in his first season of real consistent playing time on 45% fg and 43% threes. He's been our biggest bright spot for the future of the team.

Agree that right now he’s the best we are rolling back. Statistically some of it might be out of circumstance. I’m looking at him from a well rounded perspective, and one that could close the deficiencies that create imbalance out there.

1) poor defender, may have improved a bit, but still far from a reliable one. I saw that many many times against StJ. Defense is really important.

2) rim game is below average - doesn’t finish well or embrace contact. Doesn’t get to the line as much as you’d like. That part reminds me of Hawk, who had trouble finishing.

You’re left with a fairly one dimensional player. That can be fine in the right roster. He gets stronger, maybe some of these things can uptick.

There is also something in the “it” factor with him - he feels totally dog-less. A 100% void of it. Hard to have that in a small 2G. Ok with it in a big spacing 3-4, but I want my back court to be a set of ninjas.

 

[superjohn]

Agree that right now he’s the best we are rolling back. Statistically some of it might be out of circumstance. I’m looking at him from a well rounded perspective, and one that could close the deficiencies that create imbalance out there.

1) poor defender, may have improved a bit, but still far from a reliable one. I saw that many many times against StJ. Defense is really important.

2) rim game is below average - doesn’t finish well or embrace contact. Doesn’t get to the line as much as you’d like. That part reminds me of Hawk, who had trouble finishing.

You’re left with a fairly one dimensional player. That can be fine in the right roster. He gets stronger, maybe some of these things can uptick.

There is also something in the “it” factor with him - he feels totally dog-less. A 100% void of it. Hard to have that in a small 2G. Ok with it in a big spacing 3-4, but I want my back court to be a set of ninjas.

I can tell you right now we're not getting a better shooting guard in the portal than Solo Ball. There's all sorts of other deficiencies on the current roster that need to be fixed before next season, namely a big point guard and a small forward. Solo isn't a problem, he's a strength.

 

[Iluvsuebird]

Reminder again, Ball, Stewart, Ross, and Singare were part of a top 5 class.

Wont mean anything if we can’t develop them.

Wow, easy tiger. The prime jewel of that class is missing!

 

[Iluvsuebird]

Is your vibe that Hurley doesn't develop perimeter players? He just put two in the NBA in Hawkins and Jackson, we saw Newton make a huge jump from Sr. to Super Senior year (let's be honest, he was mediocre until the tourney in 23), and Ball is undoubtedly a better player this year, albeit flawed, but better. So again, what is your point? Lamb's minutes fluctuated until things clicked once the BE season began. He was far and away our best (only?) option at the 2G. Our guards that year were Kemba, who was going to play 35 minutes, Bazz, and Lamb. DBev was there but only played a few minutes. JC saw enough and said let's go all in and that was that. I know its hindsight, but in terms of skillset, Lamb was a vastly superior player and I'm one of the biggest Ross fans on this board.

Ross and Stew have been big disappointments this year. But I do not think it's Dan Hurley's lack of development. Both have been horrifically inconsistent, are prone to truly bonehead plays on both sides of the ball, and play with absolutely zero confidence. Stew was the starter for over a month with a longer leash and you still never knew who was going to show up game-to-game.

I'm all for being critical of aspects of Dan Hurley this year. But player development, this year, is not one of those aspects, IMO.

To criticize Hurley’s player development is beyond stupid. There is a long, long list of players that are playing professional ball right now, that improved under his leadership. This conversation went from dumb to dumber very fast.

 

[Mr. French]

These conversations are wild.

 

[CTBasketball]

He was improving, too. Going into the St John's game I thought he was becoming a mediocre/average defender after being so hideous at the start of the year. He regressed big time last game. Earlier in the year someone had an individual defensive rating stat for us and Solo and Jaylin were in the bottom group in the entire country. Does anyone know where that stat came from?

Evan Miya.

DPM he has gotten worse since the beginning of the year and is rated bottom 9% of all qualifying Big East players. Bottom 14% of all Big East guards. Only notable players worse than him are Jayden Ross, Rich Barron, and Jhamir Bryckus.

It’s not an effort thing, it’s a basketball IQ and athleticism thing.

 

[RuffRuff]

I can tell you right now we're not getting a better shooting guard in the portal than Solo Ball. There's all sorts of other deficiencies on the current roster that need to be fixed before next season, namely a big point guard and a small forward. Solo isn't a problem, he's a strength.

I don't think we need a new SG, I think we need a complimentary piece, an insurance policy and a matchup option. Otherwise it puts a ton of pressure on one incoming portal PG and a freshman 3.

I'm looking at this from an overall roster balance perspective - I don't want to be stuck with a smallish, poor ball handler & defender at the 2G with no options in case of matchups that present as issues. For instance, StJ will likely roll out another team that is long, physical and will pressure. Is Solo our best option there? Maybe that was meant to be Ross and Dan Hurley sticks with Ross confident he can make a leap next season. I'm not holding my breath on that one.

 

[superjohn]

I don't think we need a new SG, I think we need a complimentary piece, an insurance policy and a matchup option. Otherwise it puts a ton of pressure on one incoming portal PG and a freshman 3.

I'm looking at this from an overall roster balance perspective - I don't want to be stuck with a smallish, poor ball handler & defender at the 2G with no options in case of matchups that present as issues. For instance, StJ will likely roll out another team that is long, physical and will pressure. Is Solo our best option there? Maybe that was meant to be Ross and Dan Hurley sticks with Ross confident he can make a leap this season. I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Well sure, I think we need like 4 guys in the portal and we need better size/athleticism/guys off the bounce but Solo is going to be great. He's already really good.

 

[RuffRuff]

Evan Miya.

DPM he has gotten worse since the beginning of the year and is rated bottom 9% of all qualifying Big East players. Bottom 14% of all Big East guards. Only notable players worse than him are Jayden Ross, Rich Barron, and Jhamir Bryckus.

It’s not an effort thing, it’s a basketball IQ and athleticism thing.

Yup, and it's visible. If you're at a game and you track Solo, Jaylen or Jayden around on defense, it's not inspiring. The amount of times they lose their man, get confused on a switch, can't fight through a pick, jump on a pump fake, can't close out is so below the bar I don't know if it's fixable.

You can focus on Solo's shooting, but he is so bad on the other end of the floor it negates a lot of it.

 

[Deleted at users request]

He had played 5 years of college and was 23. His NBA value was limited. He wasn’t ranked coming out of high school, came to us with pretty much zero NBA potential and got there - however fringe he is, he became an NBA player on our watch.

In between, more importantly, he won two national titles as a starting point guard, which is kinda sorta what we are in this for. Put up 20-5-7 and no turnovers in the national championship last year. His assist to turnover ratio took a big leap forward into pure point guard territory, and he quarterbacked maybe one of the most efficient offenses in recent memory (Cam helped in that regard as well, to be fair). He was never a great shooter (43 percent vs. 41 percent is statistical noise - amounts to maybe one extra made basket every 5 games), but seeing how much of a dumpster fire we are in late clock situations this year should make his absence glaring.

We’ve had 10 guys go to the NBA and Castle is the only one who came to us an NBA-ready guy who you can’t say we had a big part in putting there. And there are others who were never going to be NBA guys, who still developed as college players. RJ Cole was way too small to make the league. Vital was way too small as a 2 guard. Whaley was too slight and not a good enough shooter. Diarra is also too small and not a good enough shooter. Those guys got better too.

I get that Ross and Stewart haven’t taken the sophomore leap we hoped, but they were fringe top 100 guys and those tend to be guys you take a flyer on - some pan out and carve out roles or turn out to be way better than you expected. But some don’t find their fit. We didn’t have our program’s hopes pinned to Ross (a 3-star ranked No. 113 by 247 and No. 83 by ESPN) or Stewart (a 4-star ranked No. 56 by 247 and No. 95 by ESPN).

To be honest man I don’t care to go in the weeds on transfer development. If you all want to count players like Newton and Cole go for it.

But a recruit who wants a REAL future in the league will not be moved by saying “hey look what we did to help this transfer get to the g league.” Thats such low hanging fruit that I can’t believe our fans are trying to hang on to based on our history.

The patterns of what this coaching staff hasn’t been able to teach and develop skill wise is obvious. You all can choose to keep your heads in the sand about it as we waste talent though.

 

[husky429]

Evan Miya.

DPM he has gotten worse since the beginning of the year and is rated bottom 9% of all qualifying Big East players. Bottom 14% of all Big East guards. Only notable players worse than him are Jayden Ross, Rich Barron, and Jhamir Bryckus.

It’s not an effort thing, it’s a basketball IQ and athleticism thing.

He and Stewart just have no game sense on defense to speak of. Completely forget their fundamentals and don't read the offensive player at all. They forget the scout.

I see a SJU player who has pump faked on closeouts a half-dozen times already... Solo runs at him and leaps 3 feet by him trying to block a shot. Anyone who has been a JV bench player could have told you the read: close out to the shooting hand, sit down, and force the player to his left hand.

 

[RuffRuff]

To be honest man I don’t care to go in the weeds on transfer development. If you all want to count players like Newton and Cole go for it.

But a recruit who wants a REAL future in the league will not be moved by saying “hey look what we did to help this transfer get to the g league.” Thats such low hanging fruit that I can’t believe our fans are trying to hang on to based on our history.

The patterns of what this coaching staff hasn’t been able to teach and develop skill wise is obvious. You all can choose to keep your heads in the sand about it as we waste talent though.

Questions for you - do you think every recruit has the potential to develop into an NC caliber player?

Are you ok forgoing full seasons of being an NC caliber team for the sake of developmental, maybe 2?

 

[Deleted at users request]

Questions for you - do you think every recruit has the potential to develop into an NC caliber player?

Are you ok forgoing full seasons of being an NC caliber team for the sake of developmental, maybe 2?

No not every recruit. But I’ve said multiple times that we’re recruiting at a level I haven’t seen before as a fan with Hurley. Not only do we get who we want for the most part, we identify guys super early that are super talented. Thats ELITE all around recruiting acumen.

The board doesn’t think this now, but do you know how impressive it is to be the first big school to jump in on a Jayden Ross and his talent is so clear that NBA scouts notice him before he’s even able to step on a court? That’s not normal.

Also what you’re not getting is, you won’t be an NC caliber team if you can’t develop. So it’s not about foregoing being NC caliber, it’s about getting there.

We just spent a season doing neither.

 

[boog204]

Yup, and it's visible. If you're at a game and you track Solo, Jaylen or Jayden around on defense, it's not inspiring. The amount of times they lose their man, get confused on a switch, can't fight through a pick, jump on a pump fake, can't close out is so below the bar I don't know if it's fixable.

You can focus on Solo's shooting, but he is so bad on the other end of the floor it negates a lot of it.

What's really impressive, in a Baxter eating a whole wheel of cheese way, is that those three guys fail pretty exceptionally at each one of those things. I just pump-faked in my classroom, and I'm fairly certain Jayden bit on it, Solo consistently loses guys in switches, and Stew has a physical inability to read/fight through screens as an on-ball defender. It's amazing.

I'm still willing t0 die on the Jayden Ross can be a lock-down defender hill if he'd just stop being such a spazz.

 

[RuffRuff]

No not every recruit. But I’ve said multiple times that we’re recruiting at a level I haven’t seen before as a fan with Hurley. Not only do we get who we want for the most part, we identify guys super early that are super talented. Thats ELITE all around recruiting acumen.

The board doesn’t think this now, but do you know how impressive it is to be the first big school to jump in on a Jayden Ross and his talent is so clear that NBA scouts notice him before he’s even able to step on a court? That’s not normal.

Also what you’re not getting is, you won’t be an NC caliber team if you can’t develop. So it’s not about foregoing being NC caliber, it’s about getting there.

We just spent a season doing neither.

We've just started getting who we want. McNeeley was late in process once we won our second, Abraham was a 75th kind of recruit, Nowell was anywhere between 35-55. We have upped our brand and are at a new echelon of attraction across HS & portal recruiting, so does that mean we should stick with commitments we made when we couldn't attract how we can now? That is the question and one I'll be curious to see play out this post season. This is easily the most interesting portal season to date for Hurley.

 

[Chin Diesel]

You do wonder the dynamic in the locker room. Here you have AK, who was a pre-determined leader, slumping for a LONG time, trying to play a role he’s not designed for. How strong is his leadership when he’s folding at a crucial time? Neither him or Samson are natural leaders as upperclassmen. Hassan has leadership traits but banged up and limited. Liam is fiery but it’s hard to pass on a leadership role to a OAD. You got a group of guys on bench who aren’t playing much or at all, and wonder if malcontent.

What worries me into next year is that we are rolling no tough established leadership back at all.

Playong devil's advocate, if the locker room leadership is bad, is it a bad thing to clean it out and bring in some new leaders??

 

[FfldCntyFan]

What Pitino said and what Hurley said are not the same. Hurley even said that the entire team, he included, were not prepared for this level of scrutiny

Pitino said in February last year that the season is lost, that the team isn’t tough (not that they can’t be coached tough) and that it’s been the most unenjoyable experience of his life

Pitino also blamed the level of talent on his assistants who allegedly were the people who recruited the players.

Dan Hurley stated something a bit more candidly than he should have. Pitino was making sure the world found out that he warranted zero blame for what his team was.

 

[RuffRuff]

Playong devil's advocate, if the locker room leadership is bad, is it a bad thing to clean it out and bring in some new leaders??

We don't really know what is going on, so what I'm throwing out is all hypothetical. Hurley has been pretty somber on the team makeup over the last half of the season, and transparent around the teams toughness.

If there is any truth to it, it's a tough call. You do want your leaders to be kids that grew up with the program and can infuse the culture piece. Cleaning house doesn't seem like the right move. I'd say look at what the portal has to offer, and go get a couple alphas to bring into the locker room that will mesh with anyone coming back. Have to look at it as the sum of all parts.

This is really the hardest part of coaching in today's world. This offseason in particular is a unique inflection point for this staff as one who has been open around philosophy, yet it doesn't seem to be working with this batch of players.

 

[superjohn]

We've just started getting who we want. McNeeley was late in process once we won our second, Abraham was a 75th kind of recruit, Nowell was anywhere between 35-55. We have upped our brand and are at a new echelon of attraction across HS & portal recruiting, so does that mean we should stick with commitments we made when we couldn't attract how we can now? That is the question and one I'll be curious to see play out this post season. This is easily the most interesting portal season to date for Hurley.

Do you know how unbelievable it is that the staff identified, targeted, and got NBA talent Jayden Ross?

We haven't seen a basketball talent like this in decades.