Everyone needs to take a DEEEEEP breath, and hold it

[temery]

I'll get back to you tonight with further instructions.

 

[CTBasketball]

Everything so far has been an anti-mojo kick to the scalitos:

• Alex calling out fans for attendance, that aged like fine wine.
• AD raising ticket prices and removing Forever Seats
• Hurley and the fouls
• People trashing Big East for its ineptitude, begging to be open-face slapped by the Big 12 again

To Coach Cooley’s point ( @Dove and @August_West too) we have most definitely become arrogant and spoiled as a fan base and as a program. This team needs serious fine tuning, like most non-wagon teams. Will Hurley adapt or be a stubborn/arrogant coach?

Things I know:

• If you’re trashing the team out of spite because you’re a bandwagon fan, leave. We don’t need you, and neither does Dan and the team.
• @temery is right - stop overreacting. Dig in, this is gonna be a sicko year that requires the mojo.
• This team will perform better as an underdog.

 

[Umami Zen]

Better to have a reality check as a team in Nov. Despite the Yard's hysteria-There have been some positive performances and developments to build on in Maui. Ball-McNeeley-Reed-Stewart-Nowell to name a few. Coaches and players have to hold each other accountable.

Some big games coming up in early Dec.-Keep grinding-learn from your mistakes/film study and put in the time in the gym. It's a marathon not a sprint. There will be no mercy shown by our opponents this year. Gotta deal with it.

 

[djct1999]

This isn't a joke. My biggest concern this year is Dan Hurley. Is it possible he got to big for the sport and people are out to get him? Sure, this team has warts. Sure, this team is young and will take time to grow. We also just lost two games by 3 points with some of the most egregious officiating that certainly felt targeted towards our coach. Now there are many basketball reasons on why these games were so close and those need to be fixed over time, but to ignore the officiating coupled with Dan's abilitly to allow that to get under is skin is my concern. The McNeeley over the back/no call was case in point. Both were a big reason on the scores of the game, both should have been called in our favor, both went the other way. I am not naive to know that wasn't a coincidence. That was a conscious choice to people who don't like Dan and his antics.

 

[AntG168]

Everything so far has been an anti-mojo kick to the scalitos:

• Alex calling out fans for attendance, that aged like fine wine.
• AD raising ticket prices and removing Forever Seats
• Hurley and the fouls
• People trashing Big East for its ineptitude, begging to be open-face slapped by the Big 12 again

To Coach Cooley’s point ( @Dove and @August_West too) we have most definitely become arrogant and spoiled as a fan base and as a program. This team needs serious fine tuning, like most non-wagon teams. Will Hurley adapt or be a stubborn/arrogant coach?

Things I know:

• If you’re trashing the team out of spite because you’re a bandwagon fan, leave. We don’t need you, and neither does Dan and the team.
• @temery is right - stop overreacting. Dig in, this is gonna be a sicko year that requires the mojo.
• This team will perform better as an underdog.

I'll accept the blame for bad mojo. I did not have it in my cards that UConn would be the reason the BE sucks this year. Yet here we are. Burn me at the stakes. I deserve it.

 

[REB1094]

Better to have a reality check as a team in Nov. Despite the Yard's hysteria-There have been some positive performances and developments to build on in Maui. Ball-McNeeley-Reed-Stewart-Nowell to name a few. Coaches and players have to hold each other accountable.

Some big games coming up in early Dec.-Keep grinding-learn from your mistakes/film study and put in the time in the gym. It's a marathon not a sprint. There will be no mercy shown by our opponents this year. Gotta deal with it.

The only positive takeaways here are that we lost by 2 against a team who shot 55% from three and took 40 FTs, and lost by 1 against a team who shot 56% from three and took 28 FTs. I’d like to think there can only be so many games where our opponent puts up those numbers. I might be wrong because our defense sucks, but I’d like to think that

Beat Baylor and Gonzaga, and none of this matters

 

[oshkosh]

I like how Hurley closed the press conference by remarking we have chances coming up to get these two losses back. He’s right.

 

[my2cents]

We have a young team that will get better as roles are better defined.
Not sure all the throwing in the towel, this early in the season, makes no sense.
I have spent a good part of the last two days. blocking all the UConn haters on social media, there seems to be a lot of them.

 

[UConnSwag11]

We’re going to be fine. Get the lineups and substitutions down and we’re good.

 

[temery]

This isn't a joke. My biggest concern this year is Dan Hurley. Is it possible he got to big for the sport and people are out to get him? Sure, this team has warts. Sure, this team is young and will take time to grow. We also just lost two games by 3 points with some of the most egregious officiating that certainly felt targeted towards our coach. Now there are many basketball reasons on why these games were so close and those need to be fixed over time, but to ignore the officiating coupled with Dan's abilitly to allow that to get under is skin is my concern. The McNeeley over the back/no call was case in point. Both were a big reason on the scores of the game, both should have been called in our favor, both went the other way. I am not naive to know that wasn't a coincidence. That was a conscious choice to people who don't like Dan and his antics.

this reply might very well get first place.

 

[JLW]

We have no reason to think our all world coaching staff won’t
figure this out. I’m pretty sure they’ve won the last 2 NCAA Championships in dominant fashion. I’m looking forward to seeing them steadily improve.

 

[Hunt for 7]

It is more difficult to remain successful as it is to become successful, I think Danny is really feeling that this year, last year he had a generational team, don’t care what anyone says that was our best team ever and one of the top 5 in the last 50 years, maybe all time, this year they will have to grind just to be a top three team in the BE.

BTW it looks like Creighton is hurting, Marquette who a few here in the yard were dismissing a few weeks ago is now the clear favorite.

 

[CTBasketball]

I'll accept the blame for bad mojo. I did not have it in my cards that UConn would be the reason the BE sucks this year. Yet here we are. Burn me at the stakes. I deserve it.

There is no blame, only opportunities.

 

[TheShot1990]

If you told me after the 1990 game that we'd go on to win 6 National titles, I'd have been thrilled beyond belief.
We can't win every game every year.
I'm OK being ranked lower and assuaging the target on our backs and then stunning people in March. We've done that before.
Maybe we needed to be slapped a little to get our grit back.
We'll be fine.

 

[2014DualCs]

The only positive takeaways here are that we lost by 2 against a team who shot 55% from three and took 40 FTs, and lost by 1 against a team who shot 56% from three and took 28 FTs. I’d like to think there can only be so many games where our opponent puts up those numbers. I might be wrong because our defense sucks, but I’d like to think that

Beat Baylor and Gonzaga, and none of this matters

This needs more attention. Yes, our defense is not playing up to snuff, but the refs have been on our ass. Losing by 2 and 1 respectively with those numbers (I'll add the FT attempts were 15+ in opponents favor both games) is worrisome, but I'd like to think a lot of other teams are getting blown out of the gym under those circumstances.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I'm looking for encouraging signs. Can't ignore the discouraging ones.

Let's see how they play against Dayton. Beating an actual opponent will go a long way towards improving the overall mood. In hindsight, an OT loss to Memphis was horrible officiating, isn't so bad. But the MSU team that Memphis beat thrashed Colorado. So yesterday should not have happened.

I expect to see much more of Stewart and Nowell. Alex needs to step up his all around game. He's supposed to be our leader. Solo needs to shift from moments of brilliance and moments of "is he on the court" to consistent play. This is fixable, I think, but the resulting team is going to be weird. Probably one true guard much of the time. Staff needs to find a way to make that work.

 

[Deepster]

Everything so far has been an anti-mojo kick to the scalitos:

• Alex calling out fans for attendance, that aged like fine wine.
• AD raising ticket prices and removing Forever Seats
• Hurley and the fouls
• People trashing Big East for its ineptitude, begging to be open-face slapped by the Big 12 again

To Coach Cooley’s point ( @Dove and @August_West too) we have most definitely become arrogant and spoiled as a fan base and as a program. This team needs serious fine tuning, like most non-wagon teams. Will Hurley adapt or be a stubborn/arrogant coach?

Things I know:

• If you’re trashing the team out of spite because you’re a bandwagon fan, leave. We don’t need you, and neither does Dan and the team.
• @temery is right - stop overreacting. Dig in, this is gonna be a sicko year that requires the mojo.
• This team will perform better as an underdog.

Dove bet on Duke in 1999.

The Yard never forgets.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

The only really experienced player on the team is Karaban. Diarra was a sixth man and played significant but not starter minutes. Solo Ball had a run early last year until Castle returned, then rode the pine. Stewart got minutes late in the year, but bench minutes. Johnson spelled the best rookie center in the NBA and mainly was a target for lob dunks and provided additional fouls to use.

Growing pains to be expected. The team needs to find it's identity, particularly on defense. On offense there needs to be a balance of individual creation and team movement. I'm not seeing the same efficiency running the offense yet, we would hope it will develop.

There will be tests coming, take lessons from these losses and get ready for those.

And, oh, by the way, Dayton is pretty darn good, get ready for tonight.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

I’m not on the ledge because as much as I didn’t want to believe it, I knew it might be tough sledding this season. Reminds me of the year after the Dream Season. A bit of a let down although that was the year Big Rod gave Laettner the forearm shiver into the floor so there was at least one highlight…for me anyway.

We lost A LOT of talent and expecting role players to step into the extremely large shoes of Cam, Newt, Steph, Cling, etc is simply not realistic. It’s a lot to ask of guys most of whom barely saw the court last year. That said, a loss to Colorado was not on my bingo card.

 

[RuffRuff]

This isn't a joke. My biggest concern this year is Dan Hurley. Is it possible he got to big for the sport and people are out to get him? Sure, this team has warts. Sure, this team is young and will take time to grow. We also just lost two games by 3 points with some of the most egregious officiating that certainly felt targeted towards our coach. Now there are many basketball reasons on why these games were so close and those need to be fixed over time, but to ignore the officiating coupled with Dan's abilitly to allow that to get under is skin is my concern. The McNeeley over the back/no call was case in point. Both were a big reason on the scores of the game, both should have been called in our favor, both went the other way. I am not naive to know that wasn't a coincidence. That was a conscious choice to people who don't like Dan and his antics.

Something definitely looks intentional with the refereeing. If I’m Dan I stay ahead of it and start pulling some Belichek and hit pressers by saying refs are doing their best, great crew, yada and move on. He’s at a point now where any tantrums or post game comments are not going to work in his favor. Show some control, get an extra meditation in. It’s really becoming a bad look especially in today’s world of social media, especially when you’re losing. You don’t want video of yourself flopping around on the sideline going viral.

Last year the team was so good it didn’t matter. Going forward now that playing field has leveled he can’t take on referring disadvantages as every point will matter.

Separately feels like he may also have to rethink the puritan recruiting strategy. Need to go get some quick twitch athletes and dogs to complement the choir boys. Calhoun kinda kids. This past portal season was a giant whiff, over-pride on being selective and maintaining culture. You can’t win without talent and a balanced roster, no matter how great you think your system is. Last year’s team had insane talent, two guys starting in the NBA already and other two getting minutes. That group was an anomaly.

Still hopeful for this year and gonna enjoy every minute of it. This staff has to do some real work this year, which will be fun to watch. We’ll see if all the “genius” accolades were warranted. And in some ways, could see the team better off backing into the tourney with slow growth being a better position than as a high seed as perhaps a healthier narrative for this group.

 

[willie99]

I'll get back to you tonight with further instructions.

Not "everyone" my friend. I love watching teams grow

Although I suppose you love the extra traffic

 

[Bmcmill33]

How can we teach Samson to rebound

 

[uconn_jack]

And, oh, by the way, Dayton is pretty darn good, get ready for tonight.

Yeah, watching them vs ISU last night, it can go off the rails again if we don't button up the defense.

Also, you mean tomorrow morning.....

 

[HuskyHawk]

How can we teach Samson to rebound

I had the highest of hopes for him, but he just doesn't have the hands. He has everything else really, just not the hands. I wonder if it impacts his shooting as well. It affects the passes to him, rebounding, he simply cannot grab a basketball cleanly on a consistent basis. It's baffling.