Everyone needs to take a DEEEEEP breath, and hold it

[Icehawk]

Can I breathe yet?

 

[husky429]

Post of the week.

To add to the anti-mojo list:

• players over-celebrating everything this early in the season
• constant flexing during open practice (looks great for promos, but literally any D1 team can do this)
• Extreme hyper-focus on 3-pt shooting as if it were all that's needed to dominate

To Do List:

• Dump the attitude that expects this team to be a perpetual Kansas every year. We are not, have never been, and never will be that.
• Coach + Players + Fans all digest the humble-pie, return to underrated underdog status where we thrive.
• Find the team's identity on defense and offence
• Let the staff do what they do and outwork the competition on playmaking
• Outwork the competition in practice
• Learn how to win close games, cause we have the talent and heart to do it
• Qualify for the tournament
• Win the conference
• Win the conference tournament
• Win the last 6 games in a row

Why do we need to change the offense? Our offense is fine when we have the right lineups.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

Always seemed likely to be a bumpy road early. One returning starter and big minutes from guys that were either riding the bench or limited role players last year.

I would like to see Hurley adjust the lineups a bit. Bring Samson off the bench. Maybe getting back into that role will help him a bit (unfortunately I think the likelihood of his fouling improving is very little at this point).

I still think Nowell ends this season as our starting PG. He’ll have some growing pains but he looks way more comfortable running the point than Mahaney or Diarra. Get Mahaney back into an off-ball scoring guard role that he’s more accustomed to. If he gets back to what he does best, then you think about expanding his role more but I think you need to get his confidence back.

And for the love of god, get JStew more minutes!

I still have faith. This team needs to gel offensively and reign in the aggressiveness on defense. We can’t be jumping at everything, going for every steal, etc. A lot of mental mistakes leading to the early defensive woes.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

We will be ok. It was pretty easy to see this coming. The Memphis loss at least. I was ok with it. I admit the Colorado loss left me a tad surprised. We can't play worse. If we continue to play like this we will continue to lose to really any team in the top 125 , but we can't play worse. It's been a while since I remember feeling like we can never get a stop. It just looks so easy (and is so easy) for other teams to score on us. They are able to get whatever they want. They want to run a set for an open 3? They get it. They want to isolate down low and bang to the rim? They get that. We offer little resistance other than fouling. We are totally lost on the defensive end, I haven't seen a worse high major defense in all the teams I've watched this year. The effort is there. The intelligence isn't. Everything is a scramble.

Speaking of fouling. I don't want to hear anything about the refs, including, and especially, from Hurley. I love coach Hurley, but if he doesn't realize that he made his bed with referees I don't know what to tell him. Were there bad calls in these games that could've gone the other way? Sure. It still isn't in the top 10 reasons for either loss. We were out played.

Our offense isn't quite as atrocious as our defense but that isn't very good either. We are getting some good looks. But it's often disjointed. I'm afraid the staff is a little too in love with the deserved lauding of our offense the last couple years, and it seems this particular team at this particular point with these particular pieces is not ready to run the advanced calculus equations needed to get a hoop. Sometimes (as our opponents have proven) the best play is the simplest one. We look like a monkey trying to hump a football when teams switch 1-5, and if that is all it takes to blow up our fabled sets, and we dont have a counter, it is going to be a long year. the counter to that is to have guys take it off the bounce and make them pay for the overplay, but we continue to try to run through sets that are already blown up. That needs to change NOW. And you can't spell NOW without NOWell . I understand the complicated reasons why it isn't happening, but I do believe that any team that is sitting their best PG on the bench (and a top 35 in the country recruit) is possibly making a mistake. If we are getting this type of play out of our PG spot: Mahaney has been atrocious on both ends, and Hass has played with a lot of heart but is making some head scratching turnovers. Nowell being the PG of the future might as well be now because while he will have some growing pains too it wont be any worse than what we currently have, and the upside of who is as a player is much higher than what we've been doing or what we would get.

This can (and I believe will) absolutely turn around. We will be a force by the end of February. We have too much talent. In fact right now at this point in the season I think that is actually a big part of the problem. We have too much talent. Too many pieces. Trying to mix and all of them together to this point as brought on a "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario. The staff is going to soon need to settle on some definitive rotations and let them meld together so we can have some floor cohesiveness on both ends. Especially the defensive one. There is a lot of room for improvement. Luckily we have players that will improve and the best staff in the country to make it happen. Lets hope it starts sooner rather than later.

Pretty fair assessment.

I look at our offense as mainly needing some "fine-tuning". if you look at the stats and metrics, they still look pretty darn great:

• 52% FG%, 38% 3pt, 126 assists on 188 made FGs (67%), 1.85:1 Ast/TO ratio. These all are similar/better than last years team (and yes, I know sample size is small and level of competition for the sample is low)
• We are getting a ton of great 3pt looks even though our cutting/PnR offense is not even close to clicking yet...but we're seeing some signs

Most import for short-term turnaround is gonna be shoring up the defense. I think this happens with a combination of personnel changes/minutes allotted tweaks, maybe some different approaches, and practice, practice, practice

It's year #7 of the Hurley era. One thing that we can be comfortable saying is that his teams have always gotten better as the season progresses, There's no reason to expect anything different this year.

The biggest difference is we're coming off back-to-back titles and a generationally-talented team with unrealistically high expectations.

 

[yungdowork]

People forget that a team with Tristen, Andre Jackson, Hawkins, Karaban, Sanogo, Clingan, etc lost 6 of 8 much later in the season than this, including 3 double digit losses (and even one at home to St. John's). That team was able to right the ship and win a national championship.

There's clearly a lot of work to do, and I'm not saying the expectation should be a championship, but this isn't abnormal. A team hasn't gone undefeated and won a national championship in just about 50 years. We're ironing out the rotation, and the guys who aren't ready to step up will see their minutes reduced. Hopefully by the start of conference play, things are really clicking

 

[Boost'ED]

I'm so glad both Maui games were during my working hours, so I couldn't watch them live.

Based on reading the post game threads describing both games, no doubt profuse profanity and flying foreign objects would have manifested if I had watched both games.


Sounds like Danny lost his cool. With a coach as intense as Danny, we have to accept the good and bad. Of course, if the bad devolves further, he has to take a step back.......whether this be relayed to him by the administration, his assistant coaches, or even Andrea.


The frustration is palpable, which is understandable, as we reached heights our program (actually few programs) have experienced, exacerbating the pain of these duo of unexpected body blows.


The hovering specter of a 3-peat seems to either have our team tense or over-confident.


Only Danny and his staff know which one is the fact.


Let's trust they can learn and adapt.

 

[August_West]

Agree with all of this.

Hass has been solid/good, he had 5 turnovers against East Texas A&M but that was a throwaway game they were all disinterested in. He's averaging 8 points and 5 assists and he's been our best defensive player.

Hurley's Midas Touch from the last couple years is finally showing chinks in the armour. He turned down the best three point shooter in the country Koby Brea who was begging to come here and instead went with Aidan Mahaney who Hurley was going to turn into a point guard. Brea is shooting 68% from three and scoring 15 points per game as we wasted preseason and the first 5 games on the Mahaney starting point guard experiment. Fortunately it's not too late to go with Hass/Ahmad or Ahmad/Hass at point but this hurt our early season development of team chemistry, it's got Mahaney seemingly questioning everything right now and we didn't take a stud who wanted to come here.

It's now the 7th game of the season with a bunch of big boy opponents coming up. The starting 5 and 8-9 rotation should be locked down by now and it's not yet locked down.

Hass, no matter what, will still have a huge role on this team. From the bench or starting. And we will need every bit of it. He's up for the task. But he cannot be the only "on the ball" guard on this team. There is a point where increased usage with him leads to decreased efficiencies. And yep, Mahaney is not him. I'm not out to bash this kid. I like him. I still think he has a good contribution to this team in him, but the envisioned role the staff had for him will not pan out. I keep hearing, seeing, and thinking about the comparisons to Tristen's start here. Everyone would love to believe that it is just an adjustment period from player and staff like we had to go through with Tristen before everything clicked on both sides. I wanted to believe that myself at one point. But it is not the same situation. We will see improvement from him, I don't doubt that in the slightest, but other things just are what they are. He will never not be the 1st point of attack on every teams game plan against us. He's just not a great defender. Not individually and not from team D principles either. The latter may improve a little. More importantly I just don't see him thriving as an on the ball guard. It's just not there. The vision, passing, timing, all are just a step slow. He would be much better off ball. The problem there is even if he is better off ball, is he better than Ball? Ross? Stewart? McNeeley? We have a glut of off ball guards/wings . Some real tough playing time decisions are about to be made, there is no choice, we can't keep up this, the rotation needs to be set or it will be disjointed mess still, and we are going to have some unhappy campers. Nowell needs 20mpg. Probably more, but that is a decent starting point. Even yesterday, in 13 minutes he had 5 assists and zero turnovers. The kid is a dog defensively and despite his height he won't be punked. Our guards were punked 2 days in a row. Especially the Memphis game.

We have 2 games now before we get thrown to the wolves with Baylor Texas, Gonzaga and Xavier. 2 games to set something up and get these guys feeling like they have a plan. I hope we see one.

 

[Husky Dogma]

You can blame me. After getting my picture taken with Big Red before the Purdue game in Glendale in April (7 months ago!), I did not toast the post-game victory with sacreds (is that still a thing on here?).

 

[Edward Sargent]

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.

Someone argued that we cannot use the excuse that we are a young team but as you point out we really are

 

[uconnfan68]

I have purposely stayed away from the post game threads. Same way I stay out of the chat room during games. The level of angst is just crazy. Too many couch coaches on this board.

Hurley and company have work to do. No one should be surprised. Four starters are gone. All impact players. It will take time to get it going. Won't list some of the obvious needs, but it will get fixed. Hurley did not become a crazy, incompetant coach because the team lost two games in Maui.

Well, he isn't incompetent, but he does lean toward crazy. He's really letting the calls affect him, for the worse. I think the team is starting to reflect that too. That's my concern.

 

[El Obrero]

To me the silverest lining from these two losses is seeing McNeeley and Ball play. They both have a serious will to win, and that alone should get this squad to the sweet sixteen.

 

[UconnFanDC]

This summer, I said Aidan would not be a fit or the guy we think. I was challenged and pushed to shame. Well, I do hope he gets developed by March but I'd say, play Nowell more. He's done more in short stints

 

[J187Money]

Tried it. Lasted about a minute. Passed out and fell. Hit my head and got a huge gash on my head. Blood everywhere. Rushed to the emergency room. They're telling me they need to keep me overnight and I can't watch the game tonight. Thanks for the suggestion.

LOL don't do everything people suggest on the internet

 

[superjohn]

Hass, no matter what, will still have a huge role on this team. From the bench or starting. And we will need every bit of it. He's up for the task. But he cannot be the only "on the ball" guard on this team. There is a point where increased usage with him leads to decreased efficiencies. And yep, Mahaney is not him. I'm not out to bash this kid. I like him. I still think he has a good contribution to this team in him, but the envisioned role the staff had for him will not pan out. I keep hearing, seeing, and thinking about the comparisons to Tristen's start here. Everyone would love to believe that it is just an adjustment period from player and staff like we had to go through with Tristen before everything clicked on both sides. I wanted to believe that myself at one point. But it is not the same situation. We will see improvement from him, I don't doubt that in the slightest, but other things just are what they are. He will never not be the 1st point of attack on every teams game plan against us. He's just not a great defender. Not individually and not from team D principles either. The latter may improve a little. More importantly I just don't see him thriving as an on the ball guard. It's just not there. The vision, passing, timing, all are just a step slow. He would be much better off ball. The problem there is even if he is better off ball, is he better than Ball? Ross? Stewart? McNeeley? We have a glut of off ball guards/wings . Some real tough playing time decisions are about to be made, there is no choice, we can't keep up this, the rotation needs to be set or it will be disjointed mess still, and we are going to have some unhappy campers. Nowell needs 20mpg. Probably more, but that is a decent starting point. Even yesterday, in 13 minutes he had 5 assists and zero turnovers. The kid is a dog defensively and despite his height he won't be punked. Our guards were punked 2 days in a row. Especially the Memphis game.

We have 2 games now before we get thrown to the wolves with Baylor Texas, Gonzaga and Xavier. 2 games to set something up and get these guys feeling like they have a plan. I hope we see one.

I always liked Mahaney's game at St. Mary's, when he was a freshman I even thought he could be a future NBA player. I wanted him here and I trusted what Hurley saw in him as starting point guard (even though he's always been just a bucket getter) but yes it's clear it isn't/wasn't going to work for a whole bunch of reasons and it's nothing like the Tristen situation.

We seem to be a guard/ballhandler/go get us a bucket guy short but it's not nearly as bad as some other years. We had two seasons in a row where we had championship aspirations and championship rosters but ended up with only one reliable ball handler. It was Marcus Williams and a freshman Antonio Kellogg and then next season it was Marcus Williams and a freshman Craig Austrie and freshman Rob Garrison.

If it was just Diarra and Mahaney we should be worrying but Nowell was a borderline McD's all-American and he's physically already there. I agree he should be 20 minutes per game and with that time I could see him being the starter as the season progresses.

I'm not sure what happens with Mahaney but if he's just told to go out there and score without any point guard duties life should be a lot easier for him and he should be able to do that. I feel badly for him, his confidence is clearly crushed at the moment.

 

[Glastonhusky]

To me the silverest lining from these two losses is seeing McNeeley and Ball play. They both have a serious will to win, and that alone should get this squad to the sweet sixteen.

Really impressed with Ball, he had a couple of nice drives to the hoop yesterday and his 3 pt shot has always been there. His shot to force OT in the first game was huge. I don't think he has the mentality to take over games yet. I hope that happens soon.

 

[RuffRuff]

The data wizard speaketh. Takes are often best coming from neutral sources focused on data. Stay the course.

 

[Improviser]

I always liked Mahaney's game at St. Mary's, when he was a freshman I even thought he could be a future NBA player. I wanted him here and I trusted what Hurley saw in him as starting point guard (even though he's always been just a bucket getter) but yes it's clear it isn't/wasn't going to work for a whole bunch of reasons and it's nothing like the Tristen situation.

We seem to be a guard/ballhandler/go get us a bucket guy short but it's not nearly as bad as some other years. We had two seasons in a row where we had championship aspirations and championship rosters but ended up with only one reliable ball handler. It was Marcus Williams and a freshman Antonio Kellogg and then next season it was Marcus Williams and a freshman Craig Austrie and freshman Rob Garrison.

If it was just Diarra and Mahaney we should be worrying but Nowell was a borderline McD's all-American and he's physically already there. I agree he should be 20 minutes per game and with that time I could see him being the starter as the season progresses.

I'm not sure what happens with Mahaney but if he's just told to go out there and score without any point guard duties life should be a lot easier for him and he should be able to do that. I feel badly for him, his confidence is clearly crushed at the moment.

Even if he does come in as a 2 guard, and score (not sure he would ever replicate the instant burst scoring of Joey Calcaterra though), wouldn't his issues on defense cancel out any scoring he might bring?

Joey did eventually improve on defense and that IMO was because he had quickness which I don't think Mahaney has.

 

[superjohn]

The data wizard speaketh. Takes are often best coming from neutral sources focused on data. Stay the course.

The not talented enough thing I've heard on this board and from this guy is nonsense.

We certainly played poorly the past two games mostly because the defense has been horrible and we're fouling like demons. I think not playing together, guys taking on bigger roles, focusing too much on offense over defense heading into the season, and having the easiest first four games of the season all factor in as does the team not adjusting to how the refs are calling the games in Maui but this team has tons of individual talent. The not having the talent thing is just bogus, right now our sum is way less than our parts.

Recruit rankings- several of those guys are going to play in the NBA

Hass #82 recruit
Solo #46 recruit
Liam #17 recruit
Alex #95 recruit
Samson #57 recruit
Tarris #35 recruit
Jaylin #67 recruit
Ahmad #37 recruit
Jayden #82 recruit

 

[RuffRuff]

The not talented enough thing I've heard on this board and from this guy is nonsense.

We certainly played poorly the past two games mostly because the defense has been horrible and we're fouling like demons. I think not playing together, guys taking on bigger roles, focusing too much on offense over defense heading into the season, and having the easiest first four games of the season all factor in as does the team not adjusting to how the refs are calling the games in Maui but this team has tons of individual talent. The not having the talent thing is just bogus, right now our sum is way less than our parts.

Recruit rankings- several of those guys are going to play in the NBA

Hass #82 recruit
Solo #46 recruit
Liam #17 recruit
Alex #95 recruit
Samson #57 recruit
Tarris #35 recruit
Jaylin #67 recruit
Ahmad #37 recruit
Jayden #82 recruit

You’re pretty stubborn on this stuff, lol. Love it!!

 

[navery12]

This team is good, the defense is bad. Losing 2 games in a row sucks, but it was by 3 points total. Those are games we should win, and by February I think win easily. But I think the piece many here are missing is that it's not a massive step forward from the defense that flips these results. It's a very doable task

 

[superjohn]

You’re pretty stubborn on this stuff, lol. Love it!!

What he's saying just isn't true. The analytics nerd is trying to show he's right and that the greatness of Dan Hurley is the only thing that can turn this around because we barely have top 25 talent. We all know Hurley is great, it doesn't mean he's doing a great job with this team so far. The reality is our talent is way better than Colorado's talent. If it was based on talent we would've wiped the floor with them yesterday.

 

[HCCForever]

Ryan Boatright with some advice (some posters have this opinion too):

Great advice. Sure could use Boatright type defense from someone on this team.

 

[RuffRuff]

What he's saying just isn't true. The analytics nerd is trying to show he's right and that the greatness of Dan Hurley is the only thing that can turn this around because we barely have top 25 talent. We all know Hurley is great, it doesn't mean he's doing a great job with this team so far. The reality is our talent is way better than Colorado's talent. If it was based on talent we would've wiped the floor with them yesterday.

The issue is HS rankings are not telling of talent - efficiency analytics much more accurate portrayal.