Four or five times we had it down to one.

[EnochRoot]

It’s clear from last night that we need to start seeing this as Hawkins team and not Jackson/Sanogo’s team. He’s a year younger but our offense is 100x better when we run through him and Newton vs pounding it into Sanogo all game. I think the light went off for Hawkins last night realizing that if he gets overplayed he can immediately drive to the hoop for a layup or get fouled. Jackson shouldn’t be shooting more than 5 shots a game unless they are wide open dunks or layups. If guys are going to sag on him like the start of the game yesterday then Hawk needs to us him as a screen and force the defense back out. X is probably the toughest team in this league and they had one of their better shooting performances with Boum hitting 5 of 7 threes. I might be in the minority here but I actually think we may win out going into the BET. Only game that really scares me is at Creighton

I agreed with every word of this post except for the last sentence. This team needs to learn how to finish games to avoid finishing the season below .500 in the BEast.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Winning in blowouts is great, but tournament games are usually played in the 2-3 possession range, wire to wire. Our guys and coaches need to have better plans for executing in those situations. The last 4.5 seasons have been anything but that.

No no, that's my point. I'm talking about games that are 2-3 possession games with 5 minutes to go where we step on the gas and win by 12. That's "closing it out" too, and arguably better than if we had held onto a 5 point lead the whole time.

 

[freescooter]

A loss is a loss.. No way to sugarcoat it. But I'll take the UConn team that showed up in the second half with energy and intensity for the rest of the BE season vs anyone left on our schedule. Gotta learn to close games out with smart BB.. At closing time.

Hard to overcome 50% three point percentages .. Next

Will you also take the one that showed up in the first half against Seton Hall? Looked like that one would be a blowout going the other way, no? We’d be a dominant team if games were only 20 minutes and we could pick which 20 minutes counted.

 

[freescooter]

No no, that's my point. I'm talking about games that are 2-3 possession games with 5 minutes to go where we step on the gas and win by 12. That's "closing it out" too, and arguably better than if we had held onto a 5 point lead the whole time.

Not really actually. Often late in games the team that is behind has to take chances. Sometimes that leads to fouls, missed shots etc that gives the illusion of a bigger win than was actually the case.

 

[JonnyRI]

The big issue is that we make winning plays at winning time in only like 20% of our close games. It seems more often than not that if we win a close game, it's due to sheer luck.

This is our record in games decided by 6 points or fewer (2 possessions) since Hurley took over

2018-2019: 1-6
2019-2020: 6-8
2020-2021: 1-3
2021-2022: 4-8
2022-2023: 0-4

Total: 12-29

That is atrocious. Love the guy, but this ain't what you want to see

This is really tough to look at. Throw out year 1. We sucked.

19-20 not surprising our best numbers, how much of that credit goes to CV1?

Bottom line he seems like the last real clutch playing takeover leader we have had.

Hawk is the one guy on this roster who can best fill that role. It feels like he is close. Real close. Almost starting to get Carons last two months here vibe, like that he is about to consistently start playing on a whole other level than anyone else on the court. He is doing it for 20 minutes a game now. If he can do that for full games I can absolutely see us in the FF.

 

[aburks41]

This is really tough to look at. Throw out year 1. We sucked.

19-20 not surprising our best numbers, how much of that credit goes to CV1?

Bottom line he seems like the last real clutch playing takeover leader we have had.

Hawk is the one guy on this roster who can best fill that role. It feels like he is close. Real close. Almost starting to get Carons last two months here vibe, like that he is about to consistently start playing on a whole other level than anyone else on the court. He is doing it for 20 minutes a game now. If he can do that for full games I can absolutely see us in the FF.

If Hawkins needs to take 35 shots per game and Newton takes 15 drives for layups/fouls, then so be it. That's our best offense right now. We need to find ways to keep improving on it to help those two.

Fast breaks with Karaban drilling 3's from the wing are good too.

 

[Frank06830]

The defense is horrible. Where did our “identity“ go? Xavier offensive efficiency was high coming in and went thru the roof in this game. Take out Kunkel and Fremantle 3-10, the team shot 58% in the game, 28-48. WTF? 10-20 from the 3

 

[Billy Jack]

A loss is a loss.. No way to sugarcoat it. But I'll take the UConn team that showed up in the second half with energy and intensity for the rest of the BE season vs anyone left on our schedule. Gotta learn to close games out with smart BB.. At closing time.

Hard to overcome 50% three point percentages .. Next

Spot on.

 

[prankster]

Most games (not the blowouts) are won within the margin of missed free throws.

Missed opportunities and mistakes, within the flow of the game, are one thing, and they present game film opportunities to the coaching staff.

Those missed free throws would have won the game, as well.

Just sayin'.

 

[Umami Zen]

Will you also take the one that showed up in the first half against Seton Hall? Looked like that one would be a blowout going the other way, no? We’d be a dominant team if games were only 20 minutes and we could pick which 20 minutes counted.

To your point.. We haven't played a full game for awhile. IIRC..SH led for 6 seconds and won.

Easy to pile on when team is losing.

 

[MuchoDogYears]

This raises the decision or question of how do you play with no point guard and a point forward who embarassingly is dared to shoot. It's pretty obvious someone has to look at things objectively instead of writing scripts for people to do things they are not in some way equipped to do. This is on the coach 100%.

Newton needs to be moved to SG and AJax needs to be the full time PG where his abilities can be maximized and his shooting inabilities minimized.

Need/want AJax on the floor. But the only way to do that and still win is to make him the PG. Same with Newton. At SG his abilities are maximized, at PG he’s a liability.

 

[MuchoDogYears]

Will you also take the one that showed up in the first half against Seton Hall? Looked like that one would be a blowout going the other way, no? We’d be a dominant team if games were only 20 minutes and we could pick which 20 minutes counted.

Exactly. Haven’t played two halves, except Butler(?) , since BE play started.

 

[jpeakin]

Newton needs to be moved to SG and AJax needs to be the full time PG where his abilities can be maximized and his shooting inabilities minimized.

Need/want AJax on the floor. But the only way to do that and still win is to make him the PG. Same with Newton. At SG his abilities are maximized, at PG he’s a liability.

As much as I hate to say it, Jackson is just too important on the defensive end to be sitting on the bench. When he was pressuring the ball in the full court press, you could tell X was getting flustered. Moving him to the point, or as others have suggested, setting screens for shooters, might be a necessity.

 

[freescooter]

Shame on Hurley and this team for the audacity of coming back from a 17pt deficit to turn it into a <5pt loss.

Don't they know that under the new rules, it means that it counts as 2 losses now instead of 1?

Not shame on Hurley, but I’m not going to give him an award either. So Saturday they had a 14 point lead they turned into a 1 point loss. Wednesday they had a 17 point deficit that turned into a 5 point deficit. You know what they have in common? Both are losses.

 

[BugsyCT]

This team lacks a clear-cut leader - a go-to floor general to handle the rock at crunch time. Sanogo's the closest to being that guy but it's feast or famine with him. Lots of decent role players but no one person to look to when it matters most.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Not shame on Hurley, but I’m not going to give him an award either. So Saturday they had a 14 point lead they turned into a 1 point loss. Wednesday they had a 17 point deficit that turned into a 5 point deficit. You know what they have in common? Both are losses.

Exactly. Which is why the "records in games decided by 6 pts" is a flawed/manipulatable metric. I posted in another thread that if you make it 7 pts, Hurley's record is ~52% in those games.

It gives you some general inkling about a team's record in "closer games". But it doesn't tell anywhere near the full story.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

The big issue is that we make winning plays at winning time in only like 20% of our close games. It seems more often than not that if we win a close game, it's due to sheer luck.

This is our record in games decided by 6 points or fewer (2 possessions) since Hurley took over

2018-2019: 1-6
2019-2020: 6-8
2020-2021: 1-3
2021-2022: 4-8
2022-2023: 0-4

Total: 12-29

That is atrocious. Love the guy, but this ain't what you want to see

Again, I regularly refer to this as his #1 growing edge. For the benefit of those more expressively dismayed, I'll acknowledge that for years I have casually dissed certain coaches who have fallen short in comparable (though inexact) ways. By this, I mean that I've said, "You don't have to worry about _______. He can't win the big ones."

This worked for many who coached a long time before making the Final 4. And then it didn't. Only one NC winner:

Mark Few 2017, and 2021 (but no NCs)
Dana Altman 2017
Bruce Pearl 2019
Mick Cronin 2021
Scott Drew 2021 (NC)

Rick Barnes made the Final 4 once, 20 years ago, so I don't worry about him.

Kelvin Sampson made it in 2002, but I'd gotten to writing him off before he got to the Final 4 in 2021. I still think, "AAC..."

Shaka Smart did it in 2010 at age 33 with VCU, but hasn't been back to the S16 ever since.

Greg McDermott made the S16 in 2021.

Ed Cooley made his first S16 last year, after a quarter century, but needed Deepster's mojo to do it.

Sean Miller & Matt Painter are probably the top 2 coaches who are still at 0 Final Fours.

And yeah, Dan Hurley is at 0 Sweet 16s. I'd probably be unkind toward him if he didn't coach the team I root for. I probably wouldn't give him much energy except for his career arc. But he IS the head coach for my my team this season, and he has nearly a week to prepare for the team's next game 5 days from now, in Chicago, against DePaul.

He and his staff & players better be concentrating efforts toward the next game and building toward the post-season rather than doing any career overview. I recommend UConn fans declutter themselves in support of the team's focus on daily improvement.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Will you also take the one that showed up in the first half against Seton Hall? Looked like that one would be a blowout going the other way, no? We’d be a dominant team if games were only 20 minutes and we could pick which 20 minutes counted.

Yawn.

MODEL challenging your own growing edge, to the benefit of the fan base and the coaching staff, and the players in-between. You continue to cop out and pleasure yourself in public when you post like this. It's cowardly, dishonest, and indecent.

 

[MuchoDogYears]

Yawn.

MODEL challenging your own growing edge, to the benefit of the fan base and the coaching staff, and the players in-between. You continue to cop out and pleasure yourself in public when you post like this. It's cowardly, dishonest, and indecent.

A little rough, no? Seems like @freescooter is simply saying that the team is playing one good half a game, which is factually accurate for the most part since BE play started.

 

[aburks41]

Again, I regularly refer to this as his #1 growing edge. For the benefit of those more expressively dismayed, I'll acknowledge that for years I have casually dissed certain coaches who have fallen short in comparable (though inexact) ways. By this, I mean that I've said, "You don't have to worry about _______. He can't win the big ones."

This worked for many who coached a long time before making the Final 4. And then it didn't. Only one NC winner:

Mark Few 2017, and 2021 (but no NCs)
Dana Altman 2017
Bruce Pearl 2019
Mick Cronin 2021
Scott Drew 2021 (NC)

Rick Barnes made the Final 4 once, 20 years ago, so I don't worry about him.

Kelvin Sampson made it in 2002, but I'd gotten to writing him off before he got to the Final 4 in 2021. I still think, "AAC..."

Shaka Smart did it in 2010 at age 33 with VCU, but hasn't been back to the S16 ever since.

Greg McDermott made the S16 in 2021.

Ed Cooley made his first S16 last year, after a quarter century, but needed Deepster's mojo to do it.

Sean Miller & Matt Painter are probably the top 2 coaches who are still at 0 Final Fours.

And yeah, Dan Hurley is at 0 Sweet 16s. I'd probably be unkind toward him if he didn't coach the team I root for. I probably wouldn't give him much energy except for his career arc. But he IS the head coach for my my team this season, and he has nearly a week to prepare for the team's next game 5 days from now, in Chicago, against DePaul.

He and his staff & players better be concentrating efforts toward the next game and building toward the post-season rather than doing any career overview. I recommend UConn fans declutter themselves in support of the team's focus on daily improvement.

That's a good post. It's hard to win in March. There are definitely coaches that have that feeling of "you dont need to worry about them when it matters". Unfortunately for us, it seems like Hurley is in that category right now. I thought winning the PK85 was a step in the right direction. Same with finally beating Creighton. Still have a lot of season ahead of us, and it's better to stink it up in January than in March. If nothing else, I just pray we win a tourney game this year. Hurley is a headcase (in an endearing way lol) and we don't need him feeling the added pressure of being in year 6 without a tourney win next November.

 

[prankster]

Ed Cooley made his first S16 last year, after a quarter century, but needed Deepster's mojo to do it.

Thank you for that. It gave me a chuckle.

 

[UConnSwag11]

The big issue is that we make winning plays at winning time in only like 20% of our close games. It seems more often than not that if we win a close game, it's due to sheer luck.

This is our record in games decided by 6 points or fewer (2 possessions) since Hurley took over

2018-2019: 1-6
2019-2020: 6-8
2020-2021: 1-3
2021-2022: 4-8
2022-2023: 0-4

Total: 12-29

That is atrocious. Love the guy, but this ain't what you want to see

Great macro post

 

[PAHusky]

As much as I hate to say it, Jackson is just too important on the defensive end to be sitting on the bench. When he was pressuring the ball in the full court press, you could tell X was getting flustered. Moving him to the point, or as others have suggested, setting screens for shooters, might be a necessity.

That's the thing though, he's really not important on the defensive end - he's actually a liability there now. He's basically a matador, he can't stay in front of anyone, and his obsession with making the highlight reel plays means he's all over the place positionally and a total mess on that end.

On offense, it's even worse. He's basically Ben Simmons out there right now. Teams can sag so far off him that
1. even his absurd athleticism is rendered useless
2. even when he gets by his man he can't finish anything
3. he's forcing more passes because the defense now
4. everyone sagging off him means it's that much harder for the rest of the team to score. They're basically playing 4 v 5 out there

I don't really know what the answer is, he's not fixing his shot overnight.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Would anyone notice if we snuck Cole and Martin out there in Emmet Hendry and Andrew Hurley jerseys?

 

[evmore]

And Jackson the common denominator.

I think he needs to accept a complimentary role off the bench.

Jackson adds value, just not in the way he might want to be valued. He can play with the ball but needs to make the simple pass.