Dan Hurley hopeful UConn men’s basketball team will solve issues that have prevented the Huskies from closing out close games

[shizzle787]

Cole needs to stop committing so many fouls. If we don’t have a reliable back up, he needs to stay on the floor. If it sounds obvious, it’s because it is.

 

[Hungryhusky99]

It's probably his only recruiting "failure" to date... it's fair to let it slide. I would imagine he thought Diggins would be more ready than he is.

I think it is more that they thought Gaffney is much better than he actually is.

 

[boog204]

I feel like we have lacked multiple competent ballhandlers/creators for many years now. Cole has had a ok/productive year, but he's not a point guard. Neither is Gaffney and obviously we have no idea what Diggins is yet. In crunch time, you need a guy who can make a play and be a threat on multiple levels. Cole can do this to an extent, but he's still limited due to his size and lack of athleticism.

 

[gtcam]

Hurley is so erratic with his personnel decisions it has to be troubling to the players
He has short leashes on players he needs to give more or any PT while he turns a blind eye on others when they crap the bed more than not
Regardless of what so many of you say about Sool, I have seen him in a few practices, the kid has handle and great court vision to the point that Dan Hurley has been heard urging him on. On game day he sits him next to his son on the bench I guess to keep Andrew happy.
In the Seton Hall game, after the last TO, how the hell do you not have your best 3 pt shooters in the game and run a series of crossing runs/screens either with purpose to free one up or allow a lane to the hoop. Instead the ball is played in and 4 guys stand stationary in the corners watching someone dribbling the clock down
My hope is that Dan allows someone else to draw up his plays while another makes line up decisions while he concentrates on recruiting

 

[husky429]

Cole has had a ok/productive year, but he's not a point guard.

4.6 assists and 1.9 TOs per game would beg to differ.

 

[VAHuskyFan]

My "hope" is that we stop relying on one guy, move the ball and have critical late game shots taken by whichever guy happens to be open. I have seen endless failure from this team when we focus on getting the ball to a specific player (often easily identified by the opponent). Move the bodies. Move the ball, if open, shoot. Iso skills shouldn't be that important. Certainly shouldn't be what we are relying upon.

Agree with this. We’re a good team, but we are not a good end-of-shot-clock 1-on-1 iso team.

So just keep playing for points and running a normal offense. Don’t play to the clock. There’s a reason we don’t just stand around holding the ball for 25 seconds on possessions before the end of games. It reduces the expected points value of the possession.

If you have a player like Kemba, 1-on-1 iso at the end of the clock doesn’t hurt the expected value of a possession, so it’s smart to run clock late with a lead. We don’t have that luxury. There’s no law that you need to hold the ball at the end games. A good shot at 15 on the shot clock is better than a doomed drive to the basket/TO/or prayer launched at 2 on the shot clock.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I think it is more that they thought Gaffney is much better than he actually is.

Which is a coaching failure. Part of a staff's responsibility is to correctly assess a player's current capability and growth. When you completely screw up the PG depth chart by incorrectly assessing talent that has more of an effect than a PF. You can mask roster deficiencies at certain positions. PG ain't one of them.

 

[imno1]

I think Martin is our best option. It's hard to believe that as talented as we are we don't have many one on one players. Next year I think CFjr could be the guy after he gets his feet wet.

Cole needs to stop committing so many fouls. If we don’t have a reliable back up, he needs to stay on the floor. If it sounds obvious, it’s because it is.

less than 3 fouls per and he's playing over 32 mpg.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

It seems like the best bet is to have Ajax handle primary ballhandling/initiating offense duties when RJ is sitting. He has a decent handle, and vision. He can also take his man off the dribble. He would obviously have to work on finishing in the paint, but that's a smaller problem than our backup PG has right now.

This would leave Gaffney to backup the 2, and be a secondary handler with either RJ or AJ on the floor.

This is an imperfect solution, but less imperfect than what we're doing right now, imo.

 

[huskiesouth]

Perhaps one way of closing out games to avoid similar results to the SHU, etc. game would be to keep our foot on our opponent's throat when we have a 6-9 point lead.

 

[nycscooby]

It seems like the best bet is to have Ajax handle primary ballhandling/initiating offense duties when RJ is sitting. He has a decent handle, and vision. He can also take his man off the dribble. He would obviously have to work on finishing in the paint, but that's a smaller problem than our backup PG has right now.

This would leave Gaffney to backup the 2, and be a secondary handler with either RJ or AJ on the floor.

This is an imperfect solution, but less imperfect than what we're doing right now, imo.

Yikes! AJax as primary ball handler. Bottom line right now is that when RJ is out, we are very easy to defend and we turn the ball over to boot. If we can’t rely on Gaff and it sure looks like we can’t, Danny should see what Diggins looks like out there. We are not at practices but can Diggins really be less effective than AJax or Martin? Hard to believe.

 

[Husky Alien]

I feel like we have lacked multiple competent ballhandlers/creators for many years now. Cole has had a ok/productive year, but he's not a point guard. Neither is Gaffney and obviously we have no idea what Diggins is yet. In crunch time, you need a guy who can make a play and be a threat on multiple levels. Cole can do this to an extent, but he's still limited due to his size and lack of athleticism.

RJ is only limited due to there is no other ball handler on this team. Just look at his stats. He is more than adequate for this team as a point guard.

 

[Husky Alien]

Yikes! AJax as primary ball handler. Bottom line right now is that when RJ is out, we are very easy to defend and we turn the ball over to boot. If we can’t rely on Gaff and it sure looks like we can’t, Danny should see what Diggins looks like out there. We are not at practices but can Diggins really be less effective than AJax or Martin? Hard to believe.

I'm not one of the Diggins band wagon here. From what I have seen of him and it's not much from high school to here he seems slow to get to the hoop. Passing does look good but I think his quickness is what's holding him back.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

Yikes! AJax as primary ball handler. Bottom line right now is that when RJ is out, we are very easy to defend and we turn the ball over to boot. If we can’t rely on Gaff and it sure looks like we can’t, Danny should see what Diggins looks like out there. We are not at practices but can Diggins really be less effective than AJax or Martin? Hard to believe.

I agree, everybody agrees, but it looks like Dan Hurley isn't going to do that no matter how much we yell and scream. Obviously coach thinks he isn't ready.

My suggestion takes that into account and is the next option, because the Gaffney option isn't working.

 

[Hoops91]

The answer is not Gaffney, he doesn't have the ball handling (kinda important) or vision of a point guard, but the second options are tough. Hawkins is a shooting guard, not him. AJ is definitely not a point guard, not him, that only leaves Diggins but I have no idea what he's like at this point. I'm guessing he would have been thrown in the mix a long time ago if the coaching staff thought he can handle this. If Cole can stay out of foul trouble in big games, problem solved.

 

[driveway]

I think Hurley's early season hope was that Uconn would be ahead at the end of games and therefore would not need a closer like Bouknight. It is what it is. Gotta battle through it. Just enjoy. On the edge of your seat every game. You know you love it.

 

[bendm]

Still can't believe we had 3 spots open during the off season and supposedly gawked at the idea of adding a transfer. Dan needed to know this team needed another playmaker incase Gaffney didn't take the leap and Diggins needed a redshirt year. Didn't have to be some superstar, just a rotational piece would've taken this team from good to great.

Which is a coaching failure. Part of a staff's responsibility is to correctly assess a player's current capability and growth. When you completely screw up the PG depth chart by incorrectly assessing talent that has more of an effect than a PF. You can mask roster deficiencies at certain positions. PG ain't one of them.

i'm sorry but between gaff, jackson, and diggins hurley brought in three 4* players that were supposed to be competent ball handlers. two of them were ranked as top ~50 recruits and the other is an upperclassman.

the fact that he was counting on just ONE of these three guys to be a reliable backup ballhandler that could give cole a breather is not a coaching failure. the fact that we cant get anything consistently from these 3 guys (minus rebounding from aj) is an execution/performance failure.

people keep talking about all the transfers we could have gotten. list 5 transfer guards that would have signed here w/ the expectation of playing ~10 mpg yet are good enough to give us the ~20 quality mpg everyone is now clamoring for....

 

[ClifSpliffy]

It seems like the best bet is to have Ajax handle primary ballhandling/initiating offense duties when RJ is sitting. He has a decent handle, and vision. He can also take his man off the dribble. He would obviously have to work on finishing in the paint, but that's a smaller problem than our backup PG has right now.

This would leave Gaffney to backup the 2, and be a secondary handler with either RJ or AJ on the floor.

This is an imperfect solution, but less imperfect than what we're doing right now, imo.

'He can also take his man off the dribble.'
wait, whut? based on ur dreams?
get back to me when, for the first time eva, he even tries a pullup j, stepback or otherwise. forget, for now, him getting to the rim, then going under and switching to the left for a bunny.
and the standard is tries, not makes. im not greedy.

'take his man off the dribble' means mostly making a hoop, or making the great pass after breakdown. nothing more, or less.

 

[imno1]

i'm sorry but between gaff, jackson, and diggins hurley brought in three 4* players that were supposed to be competent ball handlers. two of them were ranked as top ~50 recruits and the other is an upperclassman.

the fact that he was counting on just ONE of these three guys to be a reliable backup ballhandler that could give cole a breather is not a coaching failure. the fact that we cant get anything consistently from these 3 guys (minus rebounding from aj) is an execution/performance failure.

people keep talking about all the transfers we could have gotten. list 5 transfer guards that would have signed here w/ the expectation of playing ~10 mpg yet are good enough to give us the ~20 quality mpg everyone is now clamoring for....

I just want to push back on your statement about not getting anything other than rebounding from AJ. In the 3 BE games so far he's at 9, 9, and 2 apg. Plus 5 for 6 from 3. He had too many turnovers last game but didn't have any the first 2. He is improving as the season progresses. Next step is finishing at the rim.

 

[Palatine]

If you don't have a breakdown player, you need plays to produce open shots. We might even have the plays. But as we saw at the end of SHU, this team looked very uncomfortable running the play called. Moving the ball quickly and confidently would solve the problem.

 

[TheChamps990411]

Outline.com

outline.com

Perhaps the Huskies’ biggest problem has been the lack of ballhandlers outside of guard R.J. Cole. When Cole fouled out with 2:19 to go in overtime in the Seton Hall game, UConn’s offense committed multiple mistakes leading to either bad shots or turnovers.

“We are going to have to find a guy that can win one-on-one situations at the end of a big-time game. Be it R.J., obviously he had fouled out. We are going to have to find somebody else that can get the ball in their hands late that can just break down the defense and go make a play.”

He has that guy and his name is Ajax. Problem is when he beats his guy off the dribble he looks to pass or pulls up short for an ugly floater. He needs to attack the rim like it stole his mommas purse.

 

[Chasm64]

Somebody can say "I hope xxx happens" and also have a plan for increasing the odds of that thing happening.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

If you REALLY think Hurley and Co. are hanging their hats on hope exclusively, then you really haven't been paying attention these past few years.

You’ve got some nerve being reasonable

 

[auror]

Agree with this. We’re a good team, but we are not a good end-of-shot-clock 1-on-1 iso team.

So just keep playing for points and running a normal offense. Don’t play to the clock. There’s a reason we don’t just stand around holding the ball for 25 seconds on possessions before the end of games. It reduces the expected points value of the possession.

If you have a player like Kemba, 1-on-1 iso at the end of the clock doesn’t hurt the expected value of a possession, so it’s smart to run clock late with a lead. We don’t have that luxury. There’s no law that you need to hold the ball at the end games. A good shot at 15 on the shot clock is better than a doomed drive to the basket/TO/or prayer launched at 2 on the shot clock.

End of game strategy is NOT the same as every other possession though. It's one of a handful of offensive possessions in a game where you are not only optimizing for your own points, but also the opponents points. Going from 0.85 to 1.08 points per possession (a bad ppp to our average) is great in general, but if you give your opponent an additional possession worth 0.95 (our D ave) points per possession, you're losing a substantial amount of points by taking a "normal" shot and not optimizing to deprive the opponent of a shot.

 

[auror]

So I was curious and went through Hurley's results at UConn in close games. I used 2 possessions aka 6 points plus all OTs as the delineation of "close game".

We went 1-2 (home), 0-4 (away) in close games his 1st year. We were a substantially worse team and I didn't include it in the rest of the data because team quality is a confounding variable. The other 3 years have been relatively closer in quality.

Overall: 9-15 (3-6 in OT).
This year: 2-4 (H 0-1, A 0-2, N 2-1)

Splits
Home: 5-5 (1-3 in OT).
Road: 1-6 (0-2 in OT).
Neutral: 3-4 (2-1 in OT).

So what do the splits tell us? We've been a pretty good team, so you'd expect us to win more close games than we lose overall if the games were evenly distributed among the locations. 24 games is a decent sample, almost a full season of games. Looking at the location trend, we're a game or two underachieving of expectation in each subcategory, which to me does equal a signal. There's definitely a trend of close game suckiness.

We've been 300th+ in KenPom's "Luck" stat each of the last 3 years, which looks at your pythagorean expected record based on overall team strength and then actual W/L record and says if you've lost more than you should've. This stat would encapsulate both random bounce/shot variance, which there is plenty of, and also any actual close game signal. To be in the bottom 20th percentile 3 years in a row is also a signal.

The other side of the coin is that we tend to blow teams out if we're better and not let them hang around. I don't know how to research this, but I expect you'd see we kill teams and push them out of close range more often than other teams do. Think of the stretch last year with Bouk out. He was our closer and late clock shot creator. You'd expect us to struggle without him in close games. But we actually only played 1 close game in the 9 games he was out. We went 5-4 and none of the 5 wins had a margin under 7 points. Our margin of victory in our last 12 wins last year (all Big East games): 34, 16, 11, 18, 13, 12, 8, 12, 7, 12, 11, 21.

 

[HuskyHawk]

End of game strategy is NOT the same as every other possession though. It's one of a handful of offensive possessions in a game where you are not only optimizing for your own points, but also the opponents points. Going from 0.85 to 1.08 points per possession (a bad ppp to our average) is great in general, but if you give your opponent an additional possession worth 0.95 (our D ave) points per possession, you're losing a substantial amount of points by taking a "normal" shot and not optimizing to deprive the opponent of a shot.

To be somewhat contrarian, and considering your good analysis in the following post, our "luck" stinks for a reason. While you want to limit opposing possessions when you have a lead that can win you the game without further scoring (except via free throws), that doesn't hold up in truly close games. Tied or 2 point games are the same as the rest of the game, just get the best shot you can, as soon as you can and try to get a stop. I think the Huskies go to "end game" mode far too early, and do it without a sufficient cushion to justify it. Up 8, sure you want to limit total possessions.

I am a proponent of "just keep scoring" and ignore the clock until it's close to a one possession shot clock. UConn did that one time this year in what was a close game, OT vs VCU. Broke press for repeat fast break scores early in the shot clock. Love it. It broke their back.

 

[olehead]

Speaking of hopeful. Hopeful Dan Hurley learns his lesson and can now bone up on the ways of the real world. We are not Duke nor should we be.

We should have no shame, going forward, vigorously combing the portal for talent. We Should Have been on the portal transfer JOB immediately after the Maryland game. To not address the Bouk gap is inexcusable. To presume the freshmen, or a freshman, or Ajax would rise up and get it done, well now we know. We are in need of a breakdown guy. Looking at Grady who went to UK to become a pro, instead he's relegated to the corner. Or a guy like De'Vion Harmon, who is not a fit for Oregon.

Hawkins will be a reliable go to next year.

 

[auror]

To be somewhat contrarian, and considering your good analysis in the following post, our "luck" stinks for a reason. While you want to limit opposing possessions when you have a lead that can win you the game without further scoring (except via free throws), that doesn't hold up in truly close games. Tied or 2 point games are the same as the rest of the game, just get the best shot you can, as soon as you can and try to get a stop. I think the Huskies go to "end game" mode far too early, and do it without a sufficient cushion to justify it. Up 8, sure you want to limit total possessions.

I am a proponent of "just keep scoring" and ignore the clock until it's close to a one possession shot clock. UConn did that one time this year in what was a close game, OT vs VCU. Broke press for repeat fast break scores early in the shot clock. Love it. It broke their back.

I'm definitely speaking more about the very last possession. You can shorten the game over a few possessions by milking clock but it's going to remove possessions from you as well as the opponent most of the time, so it's more of a wash. Less possessions does limit likelihood of opponent scoring much more than you, but a) there's no direct points saved (as opposed to very last possession when if they don't get a chance to shoot they absolutely can't score), and b) as the original poster mentioned, there have been studies that you do tend to have a late clock negative impact on your own offensive efficiency the further you go into shot clock.

But I don't think the way we've been playing at end of games has any special Hurley quirk to it. We play pretty similarly to most teams in late clock situations and to most UConn teams in the past.

 

[Bonamassa]

It's a long season.

 

[Kolumbo]

If not Cole, there is only one other play we can rely on.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I'm definitely speaking more about the very last possession. You can shorten the game over a few possessions by milking clock but it's going to remove possessions from you as well as the opponent most of the time, so it's more of a wash. Less possessions does limit likelihood of opponent scoring much more than you, but a) there's no direct points saved (as opposed to very last possession when if they don't get a chance to shoot they absolutely can't score), and b) as the original poster mentioned, there have been studies that you do tend to have a late clock negative impact on your own offensive efficiency the further you go into shot clock.

But I don't think the way we've been playing at end of games has any special Hurley quirk to it. We play pretty similarly to most teams in late clock situations and to most UConn teams in the past.

Ok, then I think we are agreed. As we saw last night, I'm not sure the last possession is the problem. Rather the way we play with a lead in the last five minutes of games. Whether by coach's decision or not, UConn tends to start to burn clock. The shots come late and are often low percentage looks. The aggressiveness seems to wane, while the opponent turns theirs up. It seems to be a consistent problem. Last night I think it was exacerbated by playing the same 5 guys too much without a rest. I really don't get why Hurley doesn't just rotate one guy out, instead of switching 2-3 at a time.