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Finger pointing

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86.578

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May have been brought up already, but there seemed to be a lot of finger pointing among the players last night. Can’t have that. Win as a team, lose as a team. All in all, losing by 2 to a top 10 team isn’t shameful.
 
86.578 said:
May have been brought up already, but there seemed to be a lot of finger pointing among the players last night. Can’t have that. Win as a team, lose as a team. All in all, losing by 2 to a top 10 team isn’t shameful.
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Hurley was screaming at Sanogo and Newton at one point after their Harden-esque effort on defense. Sanogo ignored him and walked away so Hurley had to grab him. You could tell something was off mentally with some of the players
 
UConnSwag11 said:
Hurley was screaming at Sanogo and Newton at one point after their Harden-esque effort on defense. Sanogo ignored him and walked away so Hurley had to grab him. You could tell something was off mentally with some of the players
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Something was off mentally all around, including with Hurley. During the first timeout he told them the all out, in your face defense, of the first few minutes "can't be sustained". It was sustained, all the way to the end of the game, while we were gentlemen by comparison. At the end you had the sense Marquette had played a great game while we had been so so. Yet the margin was two points. Tells you what could have been.
 
martyn said:
Something was off mentally all around, including with Hurley. During the first timeout he told them the all out, in your face defense, of the first few minutes "can't be sustained". It was sustained, all the way to the end of the game, while we were gentlemen by comparison. At the end you had the sense Marquette had played a great game while we had been so so. Yet the margin was two points. Tells you what could have been.
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Marquette played great D
 
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UConnSwag11 said:
Hurley was screaming at Sanogo and Newton at one point after their Harden-esque effort on defense. Sanogo ignored him and walked away so Hurley had to grab him. You could tell something was off mentally with some of the players
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when this happens, moving these players to the bench may be the best course of action. Our 2nd unit was more productive last night and they should have gotten more minutes.
 
That's been their Achilles heel all season. I had hoped they would have learned by now not to get rattled when pressure ramps up but I saw it last night.
It's kind of a headscratcher because each individual player seems to perform confidently under pressure but as a team the mental cohesion breaks down sometimes.
 
It was just a frustrating night for a ton of guys. When you're underperforming in a big game like that, there's gonna be plenty of signs of frustration.

-Hawkins' shots weren't falling,
-Joey didn't have a great shooting night and had to play more minutes (20) than Andre (15) because of foul trouble.
-Newton had a tough night finishing and was getting absolutely no calls when he was attacking the rim. I'm always surprised at some of the stuff refs let defenders get away with versus him


I also think it's very frustrating when you have a dude like Joplin go off for double his season average because he just isn't missing. Playing a zone let him get a lot of high quality looks from 3, and he made us pay for it. It's always tough to play a zone if a team is going to make 3's at a high rate
 
UConnSwag11 said:
Hurley was screaming at Sanogo and Newton at one point after their Harden-esque effort on defense. Sanogo ignored him and walked away so Hurley had to grab him. You could tell something was off mentally with some of the players
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Saw that for the first time this season. Hope it’s the last time. Survive and advance
 
Stinger92860 said:
when this happens, moving these players to the bench may be the best course of action. Our 2nd unit was more productive last night and they should have gotten more minutes.
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Yup. Asked myself the same thing. Even sitting them both for a minute at that point would’ve been good medicine.
 
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Please don’t take this the wrong way. I love Dan Hurley, he has turned the program around, plus he recruits well. However, he may not be a strong Xs and Os coach when compared to the larger coaching community. Someone has to be in the lower 50%.

I think a top notch tactician (e.g. McDermott, etc.) figures out a way to win that game last night. We needed one stop and one basket, and not necessarily in the last minute or two. The switch to pressure and zone was a good move, but 5-10 minutes late, and in the zone would you rather have DC or AS guarding the basket? Why no screeners for Newton bringing up the ball?

Do we not have someone on staff that can help? Does Dan Hurley not listen?
 
Stinger92860 said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way. I love Dan Hurley, he has turned the program around, plus he recruits well. However, he may not be a strong Xs and Os coach when compared to the larger coaching community. Someone has to be in the lower 50%.

I think a top notch tactician (e.g. McDermott, etc.) figures out a way to win that game last night. We needed one stop and one basket, and not necessarily in the last minute or two. The switch to pressure and zone was a good move, but 5-10 minutes late, and in the zone would you rather have DC or AS guarding the basket? Why no screeners for Newton bringing up the ball?

Do we not have someone on staff that can help? Does Dan Hurley not listen?
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I hear you but I will add that McDermotts team got housed by Xavier in game 2. Hes a good coach but it's not like he is a wizard. His team has slightly undetachieved in my book this year even with Kalk healthy. You could cite depth issues but lack of depth is on him. It's like everyone lusting after Cooley and Pikiell. Their teams get hammered at times and have rough patches also. I mean they are borderline bubble teams. It's like people turn a blind eye to their struggles. One thing you can say about both this team and Hurley this year. We have not been blown out or dominated once this year. Not even during the January swoon. We have been in every single game. Not many teams or coaches can say that this year.
 
Remember when Napier pushed Boatright into the spot in the champ game? Sometimes a healthy amount of competitive juices is a good thing.

Stinger92860 said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way. I love Dan Hurley, he has turned the program around, plus he recruits well. However, he may not be a strong Xs and Os coach when compared to the larger coaching community. Someone has to be in the lower 50%.

I think a top notch tactician (e.g. McDermott, etc.) figures out a way to win that game last night. We needed one stop and one basket, and not necessarily in the last minute or two. The switch to pressure and zone was a good move, but 5-10 minutes late, and in the zone would you rather have DC or AS guarding the basket? Why no screeners for Newton bringing up the ball?

Do we not have someone on staff that can help? Does Dan Hurley not listen?
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McDermott lost in the same round by 20 and has underachieved with his team's talent this season.
 
86.578 said:
May have been brought up already, but there seemed to be a lot of finger pointing among the players last night. Can’t have that. Win as a team, lose as a team. All in all, losing by 2 to a top 10 team isn’t shameful.
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I don't believe in "moral" victories. NOT NOW, not at tourney time. You had chances to take out Marquette, but let them slip away. Can't say...............we'll get'em tomorrow. Remember, it's win, or go home. They are going to have to play with more intensity, and purpose. One and done in the "big dance" is going to be a terrible disappointment.
 
UCfor3 said:
I hear you but I will add that McDermotts team got housed by Xavier in game 2. Hes a good coach but it's not like he is a wizard. His team has slightly undetachieved in my book this year even with Kalk healthy. You could cite depth issues but lack of depth is on him. It's like everyone lusting after Cooley and Pikiell. Their teams get hammered at times and have rough patches also. I mean they are borderline bubble teams. It's like people turn a blind eye to their struggles. One thing you can say about both this team and Hurley this year. We have not been blown out or dominated once this year. Not even during the January swoon. We have been in every single game. Not many teams or coaches can say that this year.
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Didn't feel like we were in the home St John's game, but agree with everything else.
 
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yungdowork said:
It was just a frustrating night for a ton of guys. When you're underperforming in a big game like that, there's gonna be plenty of signs of frustration.

-Hawkins' shots weren't falling,
-Joey didn't have a great shooting night and had to play more minutes (20) than Andre (15) because of foul trouble.
-Newton had a tough night finishing and was getting absolutely no calls when he was attacking the rim. I'm always surprised at some of the stuff refs let defenders get away with versus him


I also think it's very frustrating when you have a dude like Joplin go off for double his season average because he just isn't missing. Playing a zone let him get a lot of high quality looks from 3, and he made us pay for it. It's always tough to play a zone if a team is going to make 3's at a high rate
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They were killing us in our man to man defense all night. We played awful on ball D till Hurley finally relented and put in the zone. And we went from-10 to tied in short order. The Marquette PG was abusing us with his drives to basket at will. Never stopped his penetration . Allowed him to go off for 17 pts in 1st half alone. Hurley should have gone to zone with different zone looks much earlier in game imo.
 
This may be the most relevant post game thread. We missed shots that happens, just seems for us we miss them in close games consistently, but that is basketball. We lose concentration on defense, again it happens. Hurley is an acceptable coach but he is not in the same class as Smart, McDermott or Miller. All of theses items are relevant. But to the OP of this thread, we started poking fingers at each other. They have five days to learn how to respect each other and act like teammates not a group of guys in a pick up game. Here’s to wishing we can do that in five days.
 
The frustration from 2nd half of Providence game carried over to this game. Even at the start, the body language wasn't good and definitely saw the finger pointing behavior coming out for first time this season as game progressed. Somehow we still had a chance to win despite everything.
 
MTBingNinja said:
Yup. Asked myself the same thing. Even sitting them both for a minute at that point would’ve been good medicine.
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Should not have lost this one. MSG has been our 3rd home court forever.
Every player has rough nights. Hawk picked a bad time and yes it can be a game of inches.

The tourney will have its own separate meaning for Huskies. This is 100% Dan's team and he NEEDS to get to sweet 16, imho. '23/'24 is his last guarantee year, Earn it.
 
ucp990411 said:
Andre Jackson played 15 freakin minutes. Doesn't anybody get it that we go as he goes. I put this squarely on his shoulders. How could he possibly reach in and commit his 5th foul in that situation. Dumb play.
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We have 3 X-factors, although I think Hawkins shooting it well could be a 4th. 1.AJax-Sometimes Batman, sometimes Bruce Wayne. 2. Newton-some games he's amazing, others he struugles a bit, especially with ball pressure and quickness. Those deep 3's when they falling are nice. Will say refs bone him often. Haven't seen a player on floor so much since Brimah. 3. BENCH. i always feel like we need at least 2 of those 3 to really play relatively well. Last night we went 1 for 3 on that scorecard and if you include Hawkins shooting, it's 1 for 4.
 
Ewekon said:
Should not have lost this one. MSG has been our 3rd home court forever.
Every player has rough nights. Hawk picked a bad time and yes it can be a game of inches.

The tourney will have its own separate meaning for Huskies. This is 100% Dan's team and he NEEDS to get to sweet 16, imho. '23/'24 is his last guarantee year, Earn it.
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Hawk was not off. He was way, way off. Not playing D, not hitting the boards like he does and moping around. The second team dug us out of a hole and Hurley didn’t ride the horse to the finish that got him back in the race. Frankly, how you dont have your 7 footer in around the rim in the final 5 seconds is just stupidity or surrendering to the moment.
 
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Joey C. yelled at AJ for a bad pass in the PC game as well. I guess as a 5th year, he has a leadership role.
 
Plain and simple- Shaka had a very specific plan on D, especially on Hawk. He also had a plan on offense to spread the court to allow an alley for Kolek. Not sure what the UConn staff’s plans were. They did run that zone in the second half but I question why stick with it so long when it was obvious that the UConn players were not at all comfortable and left too man shooters open. The staff has to develop plays/plans/schemes against every opponent rather than rolling out the ball and play.
Players are going to have off games and Hawk had one yesterday but Shaka sacrificed length under the hoop by sticking long defenders on Hawk. It worked. For the geniuses on the chat that were saying Hawk is overrated and won’t be a NBA player- keep drinking the booze.
UConn has better players and barely loss. Marquette is the 1 seed and deservingly so. UConn lost to a more prepared and composed team who is led by a dynamic coach.
Anyone who had said they would take Dan Hurley over Shaka as far as Xs and Os maybe should reassess. Shaka bested UConn last night.
 
86.578 said:
May have been brought up already, but there seemed to be a lot of finger pointing among the players last night. Can’t have that. Win as a team, lose as a team. All in all, losing by 2 to a top 10 team isn’t shameful.
Expand ...
Lost by 2 with a major home court advantage.
 
gtcam said:
Plain and simple- Shaka had a very specific plan on D, especially on Hawk. He also had a plan on offense to spread the court to allow an alley for Kolek. Not sure what the UConn staff’s plans were. They did run that zone in the second half but I question why stick with it so long when it was obvious that the UConn players were not at all comfortable and left too man shooters open. The staff has to develop plays/plans/schemes against every opponent rather than rolling out the ball and play.
Players are going to have off games and Hawk had one yesterday but Shaka sacrificed length under the hoop by sticking long defenders on Hawk. It worked. For the geniuses on the chat that were saying Hawk is overrated and won’t be a NBA player- keep drinking the booze.
UConn has better players and barely loss. Marquette is the 1 seed and deservingly so. UConn lost to a more prepared and composed team who is led by a dynamic coach.
Anyone who had said they would take Dan Hurley over Shaka as far as Xs and Os maybe should reassess. Shaka bested UConn last night.
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This is fair. Hurley has showed a lot this year, fixing offensive and defensive issues that other coaches exposed. He played zone a long time last night, when has he ever done that? He’s improved at adapting his fairly rigid system.

That said, he admitted one weakness that he still has in the press conference when he mentioned lack of prep time. Game planning for an opponent. I suppose he’s not wrong in thinking that when his team is clicking it isn’t needed. We win if Hawkins is even mediocre. But Shaka sure as hell game planned for us and they had wrinkles that gave us problems on both ends. It’s tournament time and he better be prepared for more rapid adjustments.
 
I'm not crazy enough to say Hurley is a bad coach. He's a very solid coach. He just hasn't shown any signs he can get to the next level. We're going to need some extremely amazing recruits to progress further so games don't come down to Hurley's ability to make in game adjustments.
 
Andre needs to develop the "short memory" that cornerbacks need to compete in the NFL. He brought a ton of baggage from the PC game into the Marquette matchup and from the moment he missed the second free throw was no longer in control of his emotions.

Hawkins was grabbed as much in the early part of last night's as any game he's played and I think it got to him. Both of them need to learn how to shake things off and focus solely on what's in front of them.

There are quite a few things (good and bad) to be taken from last night's game, one (that should not be minimized) is even with the overall well below expected performances from each of the three players who were deemed the core leadership (Sanogo, Jackson, Hawkins) we still nearly pulled out a game against one of the best teams in the country.

On one thread last night someone posted that we have a minimal ceiling, I fully disagree with that take. I believe that our ceiling is well above any other school in the country. It's just that there is far too much inconsistency throughout, leading to our floor being lower than what it should be for a team with the talent to make a deep run in the NCAA's.
 
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