Dan Hurley Postgame Media Availability - Villanova (2-18-25)

[superjohn]

All this talk about Tarris needs to earn it. How has Samson earned starting every single game? He's our center and he averages 3 rebounds per game and doesn't have single post move.

 

[RuffRuff]

I can see both sides. OTOH, if he's not earning that starting spot via consistent play in the minutes he's getting....should we be rewarding inconsistency with more PT?

So there's a bit of chicken and egg...and i get the feeling Dan Hurley has been trying to eke just a bit more consistency out of him to use him even more...and it's just not happened....so then what damage you do for rewarding that inconsistency?

He also has 5.4 fouls/40...(which is somehow still below Samson Johnson's...)...so it could be the case Dan Hurley is doing what he needs to to keep Reed on the floor down the stretch.

Try this argument out for size? Is what we are currently doing working, and do you see it having any potential to make a run? We looked pretty bad last night for 3/4 of the game, offense stagnant, energy flat.

We had 2 points yesterday where the offense sparked:
1) Decided to push the pace in the first half, versus sitting in that glacial half court. Nova countered with full court pressure.
2) Running offense through Tarris last second half.

Tarris had ten points over the final 10 minutes of the game, could have had a couple more buckets if not for a crazy blocked dunk from behind and a missed bunny.

Do we rather reward consistent mediocrity out of an honor code? We're at that time of year where we need to pull some levers.

 

[inWV]

We've seen what all the guys can do, and we've seen them beat some very good teams when a sufficient number of them are hitting on 3 or four cylinders. The team needs to gel. I'm not going to be a board sleuth, but I wonder what the talk was like in late January, 2023 when the boys had dropped 6 of 8 in league play. That team had a better upside, but they blew a lot of teams out once they got their shit together.

 

[RuffRuff]

We've seen what all the guys can do, and we've seen them beat some very good teams when a sufficient number of them are hitting on 3 or four cylinders. The team needs to gel. I'm not going to be a board sleuth, but I wonder what the talk was like in late January, 2023 when the boys had dropped 6 of 8 in league play. That team had a better upside, but they blew a lot of teams out once they got their together.

Gelling on February 23rd is an interesting concept.

 

[tuvent08]

Recruiting personalities for both culture and productivity is just extremely difficult.

1. "Are you good at basketball?"
2. "Are you from a solid family who holds you accountable, keeps your ego in check, etc.?"
3. "Can you also be a psychopath upon request?"

The Cams, Josh Harts, etc. don't grow on trees, much less the Liams who have the all-world ability.

 

[TroyHall98]

Try this argument out for size? Is what we are currently doing working, and do you see it having any potential to make a run? We looked pretty bad last night for 3/4 of the game, offense stagnant, energy flat.

We had 2 points yesterday where the offense sparked:
1) Decided to push the pace in the first half, versus sitting in that glacial half court. Nova countered with full court pressure.
2) Running offense through Tarris last second half.

Tarris had ten points over the final 10 minutes of the game, could have had a couple more buckets if not for a crazy blocked dunk from behind and a missed bunny.

Do we rather reward consistent mediocrity out of an honor code? We're at that time of year where we need to pull some levers.

Additionally, the team fed off of Reed’s energy. The body language during the second half run was the best I’ve seen in a while.

 

[superjohn]

Recruiting personalities for both culture and productivity is just extremely difficult.

1. "Are you good at basketball?"
2. "Are you from a solid family who holds you accountable, keeps your ego in check, etc.?"
3. "Can you also be a psychopath upon request?"

The Cams, Josh Harts, etc. don't grow on trees, much less the Liams who have the all-world ability.

I love Josh Hart but now whenever I see his name I'm reminded A'ja Wilson thinks she would beat him in 1 on 1.

 

[inWV]

Recruiting personalities for both culture and productivity is just extremely difficult.

1. "Are you good at basketball?"
2. "Are you from a solid family who holds you accountable, keeps your ego in check, etc.?"
3. "Can you also be a psychopath upon request?"

The Cams, Josh Harts, etc. don't grow on trees, much less the Liams who have the all-world ability.

Number 3 is the hardest to judge. Lots of kids that have face no fear don't know what playing with absolutely no fear means.

 

[Gutter King]

Your job as a coach is to help bring that energy out. Maybe part of his inconsistency is that it's almost like he was being punished to be a handoff/high screener for games on end. Seems like when we make a concerted effort get him involved, he is enormously productive. I mean this is probably the 3rd of 4th game where we could legit say he won us the game with his play. It's idiotic to me to essentially admit we are not playing a superior player because the other guy is more "active" (and unproductive.)

Yeah he isn't the passer that Adama, DC, and even SJ can be. He isn't completely horrid, but it's definitely not his strength. I want him starting, and I want him to get the ball the first two or three posessions. And don't telegraph it like this team has a habit of doing. Run the motions early in the posessions to disguise our willingness to pound it. Then you can bring him out high, clear one side of the court and let Liam do his thing...which was very effective last night. Then kickout to the three point line from those two scenarios.

This business of running offense on the perimeter doesn't work in middle school and it obviously doesn't work here. Why did we have so much success the last two years? We had posts in the paint, we had cutters in the paint, TNew got to the paint at the end of shot clocks, we had Cam manipulating physics of defenders like the BBall PHD he is, etc.

The theme??? Attack the freaking paint.

 

[RuffRuff]

Additionally, the team fed off of Reed’s energy. The body language during the second half run was the best I’ve seen in a while.

It's like any contact sport, when you can impose yourself with power, it energizes the entire team. When a football team sacks a qb with some violence, it fires up the team. Tarris consumes paint and inhales rebounds, which takes pressure off our wings having to do it nonstop. Putbacks are so valuable, they're like free points.

Someone said Samson energizes the team? Oh yeah, when? He certainly doesn't energize me as a fan when balls bounce off his hands and he gets manhandled by any big with a reasonable frame. Even in his good moments, it feels like they happen out on an exceptional level. With Tarris, I expect it. The team feels frail with Samson in there, and I'm sure the opposing teams feast off that.

This is not beach volleyball.

 

[uh-no]

Try this argument out for size? Is what we are currently doing working, and do you see it having any potential to make a run? We looked pretty bad last night for 3/4 of the game, offense stagnant, energy flat.

We had 2 points yesterday where the offense sparked:
1) Decided to push the pace in the first half, versus sitting in that glacial half court. Nova countered with full court pressure.
2) Running offense through Tarris last second half.

Tarris had ten points over the final 10 minutes of the game, could have had a couple more buckets if not for a crazy blocked dunk from behind and a missed bunny.

Do we rather reward consistent mediocrity out of an honor code? We're at that time of year where we need to pull some levers.

That's fair. I think it can be a more fine grained incentive though. He did this for us...give him the start, with the caveat that that's the way he needs to play to continue to get the starts.

I'm happy to reward him, and I think the team is better when he is playing like he can/should....but have to have some carrot to keep him motivated, based on what we've seen that he sometimes just tunes out.

 

[RuffRuff]

That's fair. I think it can be a more fine grained incentive though. He did this for us...give him the start, with the caveat that that's the way he needs to play to continue to get the starts.

I'm happy to reward him, and I think the team is better when he is playing like he can/should....but have to have some carrot to keep him motivated, based on what we've seen that he sometimes just tunes out.

You're generally missing the point of the theory on why starting him could be a benefit. Furthermore, we need to change something up and this seems the most obvious place to start. I don't know what the downside is. Offending Sampson?

It has to have a much more masculinating when you enter the cylinder for the tap, look to set tone and you have a physical tour de force in there, versus a spindly 5. People want to say it's nothing, I disagree. There is a psych aspect to being big and strong. StJ game would be the perfect place to start.

 

[husky429]

Yeah he isn't the passer that Adama, DC, and even Samson Johnson can be.

Per 40 numbers: AST:TO (usage %)

Johnson - 2.4 : 2.1 (16%)
Reed - 2.2 : 2.6 (22%)

Sanogo: 1.9 : 2.9 (29%)
Clingan: 2.7 : 1.4 (25%)

Your memory or analysis is way off. Reed, Sanogo and Johnson are comparable passers. Sanogo is actually the worst of the bunch. The exception is that DC was a brilliant passer who didn't turn the ball over... a rare breed.

 

[Gutter King]

Per 40 numbers: AST:TO (usage %)

Johnson - 2.4 : 2.1 (16%)
Reed - 2.2 : 2.6 (22%)

Sanogo: 1.9 : 2.9 (29%)
Clingan: 2.7 : 1.4 (25%)

Your memory or analysis is way off. Reed, Sanogo and Johnson are comparable passers. Sanogo is actually the worst of the bunch. The exception is that DC was a brilliant passer who didn't turn the ball over... a rare breed.

You might be right on both.

I recall a game where Sanogo looked like Magic Johnson for the first half: scoring, rebounding, and passing. Hurley sat him for all but two minutes in the second half because he wanted to match up with them, rather than imposing our will on them. But I generally recall him being a more dynamic passer than Reed.

My point is ast/TO is obviously a great metric that is very useful for this type of analysis. But that doesn't necessarily tell if the player has advanced vision and the anticipation that our offense requires. Our team in general has proven it does not this year, though we have decent assist numbers.

Take Solo's game from last night. It was by far his best passing game because he hit cutters and passed our guys open on multiple occassion. We have't seen that from him this year.

You get an assist for handing the ball off for a Solo three. Is that what he's doing? SJ has passed to cutters within the flow of our offense multiple times. It pops out more to me. Maybe i'm missing it. I am willing to be corrected, but I'd be curious on how the board would rank them based on the eye test.

 

[husky429]

You might be right on both.

I recall a game where Sanogo looked like Magic Johnson for the first half: scoring, rebounding, and passing. Hurley sat him for all but two minutes in the second half because he wanted to match up with them, rather than imposing our will on them. But I generally recall him being a more dynamic passer than Reed.

My point is ast/TO is obviously a great metric that is very useful for this type of analysis. But that doesn't necessarily tell if the player has advanced vision and the anticipation that our offense requires. Our team in general has proven it does not this year, though we have decent assist numbers.

Take Solo's game from last night. It was by far his best passing game because he hit cutters and passed our guys open on multiple occassion. We have't seen that from him this year.

You get an assist for handing the ball off for a Solo three. Is that what he's doing? Samson Johnson has passed to cutters within the flow of our offense multiple times. It pops out more to me. Maybe i'm missing it. I am willing to be corrected, but I'd be curious on how the board would rank them based on the eye test.

The eye test is about the most useless measurement imaginable. C'mon now.

The appropriate answer here was "I stand corrected"

 

[Huskyforlife]

Yeah I’m sorta tired of the “Reed needs to try harder” nonsense when our starting center isn’t held to that standard.

Walk ons would give you 120% effort if you let them play. Samson could be puking in a bucket every time he hits the sideline, it doesn’t mean he’s more productive than Reed.

Play your best players, Reed is one of our best players. Bench him if he’s genuinely not trying, but I don’t believe he’s not working hard.

 

[freescooter]

Hurley is the best coach in college. For any who question why this team has not been on the same level as past he spelled it out. We simply do not have the depth to practice and play as before. We used to bring in a second 4-5 off the bench and lose nothing, in fact we pushed leads better than with the starters at times. So now he is trying to back off and finesse this thing.
He is trying to instill a toughness, junkyard dog attitude that Calhoun often did but I don’t know if these players are capable of that. Just feed Tarris raw meat for 3 days prior to our next game because Pitino and his players will have that at The Garden.

So you need 5 guys to practice against to design an in bounds play? As I’ve said he’s a very good coach but we’ve watched him get out coached by Pitino, by McDermott, by the guy from Seton Hall. I also wonder if people are figuring out his system. It happens in sports.

 

[husky429]

Yeah I’m sorta tired of the “Reed needs to try harder” nonsense when our starting center isn’t held to that standard.

Walk ons would give you 120% effort if you let them play. Samson could be puking in a bucket every time he hits the sideline, it doesn’t mean he’s more productive than Reed.

Play your best players, Reed is one of our best players. Bench him if he’s genuinely not trying, but I don’t believe he’s not working hard.

"They don't play hard enough" is an excuse for coaches who don't want to take ownership that they aren't leading and teaching kids. Hurley has done the same thing, and every time I hear it I get frustrated.

 

[Kemba15]

"They don't play hard enough" is an excuse for coaches who don't want to take ownership that they aren't leading and teaching kids. Hurley has done the same thing, and every time I hear it I get frustrated.

You can’t seriously think that Hurley isn’t teaching and leading his guys after the last two seasons. What are we doing here?

 

[djct1999]

You can’t seriously think that Hurley isn’t teaching and leading his guys after the last two seasons. What are we doing here?

The takes on here are dumbfounding. It’s equally entitled and embarrassing. Somehow the yard knows more than the staff w back to back titles.

 

[husky429]

You can’t seriously think that Hurley isn’t teaching and leading his guys after the last two seasons. What are we doing here?

You don't think great coaches make mistakes? His comments about not trying hard enough after SHU were silly. He coached them poorly and led the team poorly. No way around that.

 

[Kemba15]

You don't think great coaches make mistakes? His comments about not trying hard enough after SHU were silly. He coached them poorly and led the team poorly. No way around that.

Yes I’m very confident his teaching and leading are not the problem. These are the two things he’s absolutely elite at

 

[pj]

You don't think great coaches make mistakes? His comments about not trying hard enough after SHU were silly. He coached them poorly and led the team poorly. No way around that.

Coaching them poorly by not leading them to hard play, and players not trying hard enough, are mutually compatible.

If it was a coaching problem, he turned it around a game later, so it wasn't a big problem.

 

[RuffRuff]

You don't think great coaches make mistakes? His comments about not trying hard enough after SHU were silly. He coached them poorly and led the team poorly. No way around that.

The staff rocks, but not unusual for coaches to have personal relationships with kids that can make them less objective in spots. Kansas is seeing the same stuff with Self. I’ve heard SJ is the heart and soul of this team. That’s great but unfortunately there is a much more talented guy behind him. SJs heart isn’t going to glow us to wins.

It’s ok that SJ has started all year - I guess we did owe him that, and he does know our system better and that’s important when you’re trying to kick out a new team. We have hit a point in the season where that system isn’t working well and it’s pretty obvious we don’t have the right players to run it. Its time to shift some gears as we head into March.

 

[Kemba15]

The staff rocks, but not unusual for coaches to have personal relationships with kids that can make them less objective in spots. Kansas is seeing the same stuff with Self. I’ve heard Samson Johnson is the heart and soul of this team. That’s great but unfortunately there is a much more talented guy behind him. SJs heart isn’t going to glow us to wins.

It’s ok that Samson Johnson has started all year - I guess we did owe him that, and he does know our system better and that’s important when you’re trying to kick out a new team. We have hit a point in the season where that system isn’t working well and it’s pretty obvious we don’t have the right players to run it. It’s time to shift some gears as we head into March.

All the of what you wrote might be true but the original point questioned Hurley’s leadership and teaching. After the last two years doesn’t he deserve the benefit of the doubt in these areas? He’s probably just sticking with Johnson since he can be stubborn to a fault but if there’s one thing I’m not worried about it’s Dan Hurley’s leadership

 

[businesslawyer]

The staff rocks, but not unusual for coaches to have personal relationships with kids that can make them less objective in spots. Kansas is seeing the same stuff with Self. I’ve heard Samson Johnson is the heart and soul of this team. That’s great but unfortunately there is a much more talented guy behind him. SJs heart isn’t going to glow us to wins.

It’s ok that Samson Johnson has started all year - I guess we did owe him that, and he does know our system better and that’s important when you’re trying to kick out a new team. We have hit a point in the season where that system isn’t working well and it’s pretty obvious we don’t have the right players to run it. Its time to shift some gears as we head into March.

There have been many games this year when Johnson was better than Reed. And many where the opposite was true. They’ve each had games where they’ve gotten well over half the minutes based on their relative foul troubles or who is playing better.

Can Reed have a big impact when he’s on? Absolutely. But I don’t have a huge problem with how they’ve been used this year. And it’s absolutely unimportant which starts given neither of them can stay out of foul trouble.

 

[RuffRuff]

There have been many games this year when Johnson was better than Reed. And many where the opposite was true. They’ve each had games where they’ve gotten well over half the minutes based on their relative foul troubles or who is playing better.

Can Reed have a big impact when he’s on? Absolutely. But I don’t have a huge problem with how they’ve been used this year. And it’s absolutely unimportant which starts given neither of them can stay out of foul trouble.

I disagree, and that’s ok. I think it misses some of the psychology of sports.

 

[gsmooth]

I love Dan Hurley...never change!

When referring to the Seton Hall game, he did not even mention it by name, he said "lose that", LMFAO.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Yeah he isn't the passer that Adama, DC, and even Samson Johnson can be. He isn't completely horrid, but it's definitely not his strength. I want him starting, and I want him to get the ball the first two or three posessions. And don't telegraph it like this team has a habit of doing. Run the motions early in the posessions to disguise our willingness to pound it. Then you can bring him out high, clear one side of the court and let Liam do his thing...which was very effective last night. Then kickout to the three point line from those two scenarios.

This business of running offense on the perimeter doesn't work in middle school and it obviously doesn't work here. Why did we have so much success the last two years? We had posts in the paint, we had cutters in the paint, TNew got to the paint at the end of shot clocks, we had Cam manipulating physics of defenders like the BBall PHD he is, etc.

The theme??? Attack the freaking paint.

Sanogo…a good passer? I love him but that is one thing he definitely was not. If you passed it to him in post, it was not coming back out.

 

[husky429]

I disagree, and that’s ok. I think it misses some of the psychology of sports.

Anyone who says "it doesn't matter who starts; it matters who finishes" hasn't played sports at a high level. I don't really care who of the two starts for us, but denying the fact that starting matters to players is just silly.