Current Talent and Incoming Talent | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Current Talent and Incoming Talent

UofCT2009 said:
What is frustrating is that we have seen new coaches take on major programs and make an immediate impact in year 1. Washington, Ohio State, Auburn, Tennessee, etc. That is not happening here.

However, I do not give Ollie any credit for his success with Calhoun's guys and I'm for sure not blaming Hurley for failures with Ollie's guys.

Overall - This stinks.
Expand ...
Didn't really happen at those schools either. Only school where an immediate impact was made was Ohio State and that's because Keita Bates-Diop made the jump that we were all hoping Jalen would.

Washington was mediocre - 21-13 with an NIT berth.

Auburn went 15-20, 11-20, 18-14 in Pearl's first three years and has been 37-10 over last two years.

Tennessee went 15-19, 16-16 in Barnes's first two years and has also been 37-10 over the last two years.
 
tzznandrew said:
This is a myth. All best teams were stocked with Top 50 talent.

Not Duke/UNC/UK/KU, I grant, but we and can be a powerhouse again.

Other than Okafor (who was still Top-100, mind you), the best 2-3 players on every team were sought after by everyone. If they were "overlooked," it was like Ray and Ben in barely missing the McDs game, not in having little fanfare.
Expand ...

Maybe a bit of both - we had a run of single digit team recruiting years but normally landed in the 15-35 range. In addition to those above, Louisville, Arizona, Texas, Mich St, Syracuse, etc were consistently ahead of us. Okafor was high 90's - as was Kemba and Shabazz. Yet, we're the one with 4 championships - because they stayed and developed for 3+ years.
 
tcf15 said:
Didn't really happen at those schools either. Only school where an immediate impact was made was Ohio State and that's because Keita Bates-Diop made the jump that we were all hoping Jalen would.

Washington was mediocre - 21-13 with an NIT berth.

Auburn went 15-20, 11-20, 18-14 in Pearl's first three years and has been 37-10 over last two years.

Tennessee went 15-19, 16-16 in Barnes's first two years and has also been 37-10 over the last two years.
Expand ...

Really good to know that an average college bball fan (me) forgets the poor years and only remembers the good years. Hopefully by the time we are good the world will just assume the bad years never happened.
 
Was it one year impact at URI? But but when Hurley left they were ranked which is what we want. Give him 2 years to rebuild. I was going to say reload but that’s not what we want, don’t want repeats of past few years
 
UConn is currently right behind Memphis as #2 in the 2019 class rankings for the conference.

#17 Nationally....not too shabby. The cream of the AAC.
 
What the Huskies do not appear to yet have...is one of those game changers that only rarely hit most programs.
 
.-.
tcf15 said:
Didn't really happen at those schools either. Only school where an immediate impact was made was Ohio State and that's because Keita Bates-Diop made the jump that we were all hoping Jalen would.

Washington was mediocre - 21-13 with an NIT berth.

Auburn went 15-20, 11-20, 18-14 in Pearl's first three years and has been 37-10 over last two years.

Tennessee went 15-19, 16-16 in Barnes's first two years and has also been 37-10 over the last two years.
Expand ...
Bobby Hurley @ Arizona St too
 
Tex-Lager93 said:
Maybe a bit of both - we had a run of single digit team recruiting years but normally landed in the 15-35 range. In addition to those above, Louisville, Arizona, Texas, Mich St, Syracuse, etc were consistently ahead of us. Okafor was high 90's - as was Kemba and Shabazz. Yet, we're the one with 4 championships - because they stayed and developed for 3+ years.
Expand ...

Kemba was a McD's All-American in 08. He was ranked 14th overall.
 
Last year's bad team is this year's bad roster plus a rusty Gilbert. Pick your JC, neither could win with this front court.

But what is astounding is that for the third year in a row a loss to UConn will be viewed as a bad loss. Maybe very bad.

I will go to and watch the games. I am now firmly in the IRS camp. It's Recruiting Stupid. If Tom Moore wasn't on the bench for 1/2 of the remaining games because he is scouting highly non committed top 100 kids, top 10 Jucos and grad transfers i would be just fine.

Ethically turn the roster over. Much of next year's returning group is not UConn worthy.

Be honest. Be ruthless.
 
Last edited:
BY06518 said:
Kemba was a McD's All-American in 08. He was ranked 14th overall.
Expand ...
Shabazz was also pretty highly regarded, and then reclassified.

Again, this idea that we were the little guys is a myth. Through the 90s we always had better recruiting classes than Louisville, Texas, Michigan State.
 
Ewekon said:
Last year's bad team is this year's bad roster plus a rusty Gilbert. Pick your JC, neither could win with this front court.

But what is astounding is that for the third year in a row a loss to UConn will be viewed as a bad loss. Maybe very bad.

I will go to and watch the games. I am now firmly in the IRS camp. It's Recruiting Stupid. If Tom Moore wasn't on the bench for 1/2 of the remaining games because he is scouting highly non committed top 100 kids, top 10 Jucos and grad transfers i would be just fine.

Ethically turn the roster over. Much of next year's returning group in not UConn worthy.

Be honest. Be ruthless.
Expand ...
And a very raw Sid Wilson and a raw Brendan Adams.

Gilbert and Sid will be better players next year. Them along with next year's recruits are the foundation of this team going forward.
 
.-.
It's pretty hard to find bigs that are ready to contribute from day one. There's just not that many impact bigs.
 
the last few years, beating Uconn hasnt meant anything, not a signature win, not a major conference victory, nothing. Sad.
 
B Adams will be a very good player at UCONN contrary to what U says-he deserves to have significant time right now from what I have observed. Love his game and attitude. Guards playing ahead of him he's better than all of them.
 
UofCT2009 said:
What is frustrating is that we have seen new coaches take on major programs and make an immediate impact in year 1. Washington, Ohio State, Auburn, Tennessee, etc. That is not happening here.

However, I do not give Ollie any credit for his success with Calhoun's guys and I'm for sure not blaming Hurley for failures with Ollie's guys.

Overall - This stinks.
Expand ...
That’s where I’m at. It’s way to early to judge Hurley on results imo. He’s done wasay more good so far than bad. He knows what he’s doing
 
GuardU said:
To be clear, I'm neither pro Hurley or Ollie, I just think this fan base deserves a respectable product that doesn't tarnish it's reputation, of what's left that is. Occasional NCAA tournament misses can be dealt with, but it would appear we're further away from MAKING an NCAA tournament again than we care to admit as a fan base.

Obviously Hurley deserves a couple years beyond this year to prove he can assemble a respectable UConn team, but I don't think it's next year like a lot of you think.

For starters, what was the purpose of wasting a 4 yr scholarship on B Adams? I get that he's a freshman, but if the consensus is that we need to infuse the roster with "UConn level talent" I don't think B Adams was a good way to kick off the Hurley regime. What does he do well?

Bouknight, Gaffney, and Akok are obviously a great start to rebuilding this program, but not one of these guys is physically ready to play in a high-level D1 game. All 3 essentially have the build of Sid, which will continue the trend of rolling out boys vs. men. The nice thing is all 3 can shoot, which will add a missing dimension next year, but I'm anticipating similar rebounding struggles that will carry into next year, until we gain commitmentS for big men in next year's class.

Strength and shooting need to be the priority in our talent evaluations moving forward. Both of which should be pretty easy to identify.
Expand ...

Adams is here because to build continuity and balance the roster some through classes, Hurley thought having one true freshman come in with the class was important and this was the best we could do on short notice. I'm not sold on him either, but to be worried about this when we have a minimum of 5 open scholarships after this season anyway is really focusing on the trivial.
 
.-.
Brendan Adams is not good enough for UCONN. However, he isn't the real problem on the team. Our talent isn't anywhere close to the Jim Calhoun era, but that doesn't excuse the loss to South Florida.

Hurley needs to do better as well. Kevin Ollie creating a losing mentality and atmosphere is true, but South Florida has been pure garbage for most years. They are better this year, but the quotes from coaches from Kelvin Sampson to Brian Gregory is concerning.

We can't be out toughed and outhustled, and outsmarted by mediocre teams like this.

PS: Dan Hurley needs to get his players in here, which is true, but he also needs to discipline players that aren't playing up to par.
 
kansashusky said:
I mentioned this after the Villanova lost and was met with several disagreements.

Next years team, while they might be more athletic and exciting, will have its fair share of growing pains and I would be surprised if they won more than 20-21 games.
Expand ...

Depending on who we end up signing, we could win a lot less than that. If we fail to land another significant player, I can see them as a 15 win team next year. Sure the additions of Gaffney, Bouknight, and Akok will help, we also we be losing quite a bit as well.
 
TitleTown said:
Depending on who we end up signing, we could win a lot less than that. If we fail to land another significant player, I can see them as a 15 win team next year. Sure the additions of Gaffney, Bouknight, and Akok will help, we also we be losing quite a bit as well.
Expand ...
Besides Jalen we are losing Tarin, Cobb, Yakwe and Kwitin. 1 starter, 3 role players and a guy who doesn't play. We bring in a lot more than we lose.
 
tcf15 said:
Didn't really happen at those schools either. Only school where an immediate impact was made was Ohio State and that's because Keita Bates-Diop made the jump that we were all hoping Jalen would.

Washington was mediocre - 21-13 with an NIT berth.

Auburn went 15-20, 11-20, 18-14 in Pearl's first three years and has been 37-10 over last two years.

Tennessee went 15-19, 16-16 in Barnes's first two years and has also been 37-10 over the last two years.
Expand ...

Yeah well that's just like, your opinion, man.
 
.-.
4xChamps said:
People are really writing off B Adams already? Really? It's almost as if you guys forgot about Deandre Daniels, Niels Giffey, Kentan Facey, etc. all of which played minimal minutes freshman year but went on to great careers.
Expand ...
People? Nope, one person, as of the time you wrote.
Not a criticism of you, but if you look more closely, you'll see that the OP basically posted the same thought about B Adams 3 different times.
Don't be fooled if he tries it again, even though he's already gotten several good enough answers.
 
Last edited:
People made similar comments about Donnell Beverly but that worked out pretty well for us. Never a star, but a big part of our championship run nonetheless.
 
.-.
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
168,347
Messages
4,566,266
Members
10,468
Latest member
ADD3LA


Top Bottom