Hurley’s Deepest UConn Team | Page 9 | The Boneyard
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Hurley’s Deepest UConn Team

boog204 said:
Yes! A high hedge argument. The issue with the high hedge is as much about the rotations as it is about our big being 8958 feet away from the hoop. Last year, Samson would hedge to half court, but that required poor defenders to rotate and consistently give up either easy looks near the hoop or a wide-open baseline 3. If our players rotate correctly and can defend, the high hedge can be very disruptive. But if it's Mullins getting backed down by Ejiofor under the hoop then it is just dumb strategy.
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Exactly. In 2022-23 Andre, Karaban and Hawkins were great with the rotations. In 2023-24 Castle, Karaban and especially Cam were terrific. The 2024-25 team Solo and Liam were very poor with the rotations. Solo got better as the season went on but Liam never got it. Teams were focused on making sure he was the one that would rotate.
 
Some of y'all don't understand the high hedge at all. You notice when a guy overextends and our back line rotates poorly. You don't notice the 9/10 times we disrupt a ballhandler and seamlessly recover.

Go watch a replay of a game. Count how many times we hedge, and how many times it leads to a bucket.
 
husky429 said:
Some of y'all don't understand the high hedge at all. You notice when a guy overextends and our back line rotates poorly. You don't notice the 9/10 times we disrupt a ballhandler and seamlessly recover.

Go watch a replay of a game. Count how many times we hedge, and how many times it leads to a bucket.
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I remember this standing out as so effective especially when Sanogo was the one hedging and we had Andre picking off passes left and right.
 
husky429 said:
Some of y'all don't understand the high hedge at all. You notice when a guy overextends and our back line rotates poorly. You don't notice the 9/10 times we disrupt a ballhandler and seamlessly recover.

Go watch a replay of a game. Count how many times we hedge, and how many times it leads to a bucket.
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Yes, there were many times when one of our guards was getting burned and Samson would hedge, disrupt him and recover.
If you have an elite shot blocker, maybe he stays home. When we had Okafor back there, Ben Gordon could take ridiculous chances, almost goading guards to try and score in the paint only to be swatted.
 
ucp990411 said:
It totally disrupts the opponents offensive continuity. Takes away the pick and roll. Causes turnovers. Must be done with correct rotations
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At the scrimmage Hurley said our defense was horrible last season,
 
navery12 said:
What you're missing is that the goal is not to get a steal, it's to keep the guard from easy penetration into the paint, which isn't something you can track on the scoresheet. I thought Tarris did a pretty good job of that last year, so I'd expect it to be a staple of our defense again this season
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He was on the bench with early fouls way too often and most were a result of the high hedge minefield.
 
husky429 said:
Some of y'all don't understand the high hedge at all. You notice when a guy overextends and our back line rotates poorly. You don't notice the 9/10 times we disrupt a ballhandler and seamlessly recover.

Go watch a replay of a game. Count how many times we hedge, and how many times it leads to a bucket.
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It led to a bucket a lot last season and numerous mismatches and open shooters.
 
Chief00 said:
At the scrimmage Hurley said our defense was horrible last season,
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Crazy, I know, but how we performed on defense is not necessarily a result of the style of defense we played. It could just have been poor execution.
 
HW611 said:
Don't know if I saw Stew or Jayden Ross in this at all. Hope they're okay injury wise.
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Ross is injured but should be back soon from his foot injury. Stewart played so I assume he's in there somewhere
 
husky429 said:
Then why are we still running it? (Psstt the answer is because it works far more often than not)
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Have you read Hurley’s comments about last season? He was so disgusted with some things he almost quit, yet you are saying the high hedge worked when it clearly kept one of our top 2 players on the bench too often and produced less than stellar results.
 
Chief00 said:
Have you read Hurley’s comments about last season? He was so disgusted with some things he almost quit, yet you are saying the high hedge worked when it clearly kept one of our top 2 players on the bench too often and produced less than stellar results.
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If we knew Reed was not going to regularly commit fouls 25 ft from the basket then I like the way the high hedge limits the options the ball handler has after coming off the screen. But if the big man you need to stay on the floor seems to pick up fouls then you have to consider if it should be used.

The big has to be aggressive on the hedge or it just does not work and when Reed is agressive he seems to pick up those nickel dimers (respect to Raf) on the perimeter. I would prefer to see him picking up those fouls fighting for rebounds or protecting the rim.

We just can’t have Taris picking up bad fouls this year so I think we need to protect against that as much as possible.
 
Inyatkin said:
Crazy, I know, but how we performed on defense is not necessarily a result of the style of defense we played. It could just have been poor execution.
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But doesn't it work both ways? The execution was poor because the style didn't fit the personnel. Having Aidan trying to be Patrick Beverly 25 feet from the hoop was never, ever going to work. We obviously knew that Solo, Jaylin, AK, and others were poor defenders in isolation. So we had them play ultra-aggressive man D, they were folding chairs, and our rotations were hideous. The board went soft with all the fouls called and freaking out. The fouls were legit and more often than not were due to our defenders trailing and trying to catch up after getting beaten off the dribble.
 
Chief00 said:
Have you read Hurley’s comments about last season? He was so disgusted with some things he almost quit, yet you are saying the high hedge worked when it clearly kept one of our top 2 players on the bench too often and produced less than stellar results.
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Yet the coaching staff continued to call the hedge for SJ and Tarris - mind boggling at times.
The hedge hurt UConn early in the NCAA tourney Florida game.
 
gtcam said:
Yet the coaching staff continued to call the hedge for SJ and Tarris - mind boggling at times.
The hedge hurt UConn early in the NCAA tourney Florida game.
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The high hedge from a Center 'can' be useful to push the ball handler back out beyond the arc, cut off their vision from their center, and allow your guards to recover.

The problem is, when the Center thinks they can take a poke at the ball, they tend to get fouls more than steals.

SJ's issue was once he went up to the line, he acted like a full time perimeter defender - totally vacating the post to where AK or Liam had to abandon their guy to try to stop someone from driving.

Tarris was better but had the tendency to lower his hands and swipe for the ball. Got one steal which was amazing, but 3-4 times got a foul called on him which sucked.
 
boog204 said:
But doesn't it work both ways? The execution was poor because the style didn't fit the personnel. Having Aidan trying to be Patrick Beverly 25 feet from the hoop was never, ever going to work. We obviously knew that Solo, Jaylin, AK, and others were poor defenders in isolation. So we had them play ultra-aggressive man D, they were folding chairs, and our rotations were hideous. The board went soft with all the fouls called and freaking out. The fouls were legit and more often than not were due to our defenders trailing and trying to catch up after getting beaten off the dribble.
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The Center hedge was the first boulder in the defensive landslide chain reaction. Never mind it put the other team in the FT penalty and bonus early on.
 
jibsey said:
If an opposing center is a 3 threat what is the strategy?
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If it's someone like Ben Gold you can just switch it. Or yeah just play some variation of hedge and have the big recover to the shooter. A deep drop is probably the worst option against a popping big.
 
IndyLives said:
I'm just saying when it comes to Tournament play or against elite teams, give me the players who can make a bucket or get a stop during crunch time. You usually don't get that from depth players. It's why we lost to Florida last year when it mattered. Depth can only get you so far.
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We lost to Florida last year because their guy - Walter Clayton Jr. - made shots, and our guys didn't. Had nothing to do with depth whatsoever.
 

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