If something isn’t working u need to change it. What’s the insanity definition? U could say that about any team….if they didn’t miss shots they wouldn’t loose
Hurley Apologistas
- Thread starter SirHypeAlot
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Personnel is vastly improving in the next year+. Not trying to state anything other than we have 2 guys from the previous regime playing 30ish min a game. That’s 40% of our offense. one is known for defense, the other has been broken down enough the past couple of days.
We are clearly improving on a year over year basis. higher expectations come with that. Totally warranted. Just stating that our talent pool is going to really be felt in the next year or so…
We are clearly improving on a year over year basis. higher expectations come with that. Totally warranted. Just stating that our talent pool is going to really be felt in the next year or so…
hardcorehusky
Lost patience with the garden variety UConn fan
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But you can blame him for sticking with guys who aren't playing well when there are other guys on the bench who at worst could do the same thing.
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The talent greatly increased this year with Akok coming back and three freshmen who are all ranked right around 50th in the country. Two of those freshman have sat all season and Akok inexplicably has a short leash while those less talented upperclassmen all play big minutes despite two of them playing terribly this season.
8893
Curiouser
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The current regime stated that recruiting Polley and Whaley to return was his priority this past off-season, so I think we can stop "blaming" the previous regime for them. They wouldn't be here if Hurley didn't want them here.
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There really isn’t any thing close to a fire Hurley movement. Haven’t seen a single serious post saying that. I think where the difference is is over what is acceptable level of achievement for the head coach of UConn Basketball and at what point do we say, eh, this guy isn’t going to get there. Let’s either move on or accept a lesser level. As for me, I say merely getting to the tournament isn’t enough. He has been here long enough that we need to see tough wins and in the post season at least getting to the Sweet 16 as a regular expectation. Doesn’t need to be every year, but it should be a regular thing. I’d say it ought to start next year. This year 1 win is enough.
I also know enough to know that getting another Calhoun is likely a bridge too far. But getting a really top coach ought not be. I used UNC as an example. Dean Smith retired, his buddy took over briefly then Daugherty wasn’t cutting it, so they didn’t waste a ton of time worrying. They went out and brought on Roy. Maybe not Dean’s equal, but certainly a guy who deserves to be spoken about in the same sentence. My guess is Duke will do the same. If K’s replacement doesn’t perform they won’t throw up their hands and say we’ll never find another K. They’ll go get another above Average coach. That should be what we do. We’ll know by next season if Hurley is or isn’t going to get us back to an elite level. If not, say thanks Dan. You got us to respectable. Now we need someone to get us to great.
Finally about this great recruiter tag…gotta say the jury is kind of out on that one. This years supposed great class has so far been pretty ordinary. Zero guys breaking into the starting line up. 1 seeing anything like regular time, and fairly unimpressive in those minutes. Maybe that changes as the year goes ….
I also know enough to know that getting another Calhoun is likely a bridge too far. But getting a really top coach ought not be. I used UNC as an example. Dean Smith retired, his buddy took over briefly then Daugherty wasn’t cutting it, so they didn’t waste a ton of time worrying. They went out and brought on Roy. Maybe not Dean’s equal, but certainly a guy who deserves to be spoken about in the same sentence. My guess is Duke will do the same. If K’s replacement doesn’t perform they won’t throw up their hands and say we’ll never find another K. They’ll go get another above Average coach. That should be what we do. We’ll know by next season if Hurley is or isn’t going to get us back to an elite level. If not, say thanks Dan. You got us to respectable. Now we need someone to get us to great.
Finally about this great recruiter tag…gotta say the jury is kind of out on that one. This years supposed great class has so far been pretty ordinary. Zero guys breaking into the starting line up. 1 seeing anything like regular time, and fairly unimpressive in those minutes. Maybe that changes as the year goes ….
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And why were they unprepared?
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Polley has won games for us and we’re complaining about a guy many on the board said would be playing garbage minutes saving us every game. Averaging 12 a game in 20 minutes . That laughable.
The problems isn’t Polley is he part of it of course
But you have a bunch of highly rated guys suffering from that same inconsistency.
Where’s Hawkins,Gaffney, Johnson, Diggins or even Akok.
when some one is off someone else has to step up off the bench
that’s what winning teams do. It seems the bench either outscored our opponents or they take the night off .
As far as Whaley goes he is a horse every basketball guy knows that.
Trust me when I say this if both those guys entered the portal
They would have been grabbed by higher rated teams than us.
Carlton a matchup role player for us is in the rotation of a better team. They have so many injuries he is actually starting.
I think you’re not paying attention. There has been plenty of criticism even when we have won it’s just not focused on because we won. Remember, we had a FIFTEEN point lead on Auburn with 12 min to go and had to squeak that game out in double OT. VCU was an atrocious coaching job against that press. Every other game we didn’t lose was against a cupcake. Hell, the UMES guy coached circles around Hurley (and had his guys hit a few circus shots to boot). It’s a trend in wins AND losses. And a very disturbing one at that.
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Yes. When we can‘t hit shots, let’s stop taking them. Giving up on shooting 3s makes it harder to get good looks from 2, not earlier.
mrl2016
better late than never
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If this is the logic we are using to coach the team we will be starting Andrew Hurley by the end of the year
Coaches know the teams most effective players from practice. If the guys playing are not performing well putting worse replacements in will make it even uglier
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You’re saying since we can’t hit a 3 We should take more of them instead of trying to find other ways to score? If I’m the opposing coach I’m happy if we r chucking up threes if we are hitting 12%.
mrl2016
better late than never
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Hawkins as a freshman gets a load of minutes. We’ve seen Johnson play this year. Has what you’ve seen make you think he is ready to get serious minutes in 4 point BE games?
If Hawkins & Johnson have been hit or miss is there anything indicating Diggins getting minutes will be the difference for this team besides the fans hopium?
If Hawkins & Johnson have been hit or miss is there anything indicating Diggins getting minutes will be the difference for this team besides the fans hopium?
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No but you have to keep taking the open 3's you get, especially when the offense looks like ours does the deeper we get into the shot clock.
Huskyforlife
Akokbouk
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You don't have a point. The UMES coach wouldn't help us score more than 53 points at home. I can't believe it has to be explained to people that the players own a significant chunk of the blame when execution is piss poor. Jim Calhoun would've lost with how poorly we've been shooting this season.
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You don't think coaching has anything to do with a team's shooting percentage? Put another way, you don't think better offensive coaching couldn't get this team's shooting percentage up?
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Not when they’ve shown no matter how wide open they are they’ll brick. He drew up a beautiful play for Hawkins late. Result? Wide left
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I think we'd get much better 2 point looks so it would probably improve a few percentage points, and over the course of the season that's a big difference. But we've missed a TON of open 3's recently
HuskyHawk
The triumphant return of the Blues Brothers.
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Anybody who thinks Jim Calhoun was a great offensive coach is looking back with very husky blue glasses. He wasn’t. He was a great defensive coach, motivator and had a terrific eye for talent. It was enough. Our offense avoided being ugly when we had players that made it so. Other times yeah, not so good.
But the game has changed. I wonder if we realize it. I keep seeing calls for guys who can beat their man, that’s 90s 00s era Calhoun and NBA offense. Modern game is move the damned ball, do it fast, with players moving so the defense can’t possibly match up. Great offense is designed so that the team without better players still scores.
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I am an absolute layman when it comes to the game of basketball, but knowing what I know about how the world works, and given our offensive performance over the last few years, I doubt Hurley is a great offensive coach.
What I do know is that, no matter how beautiful the drawn up play and how ugly the shot, a single anecdote is meaningless toward proving your point.
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Do you realize how bad that is that we're all focused on that one beautiful play because it was so surprising. We actually ran something out of a timeout to get a shooter a wide open look. At the end of the game there was another set play to get RJ a look, it took 16 seconds for the play to unfold and for RJ to get the shot off.
We had a nice stretch in th= first half to take the lead with 2 or 3 pick and rolls in a row for dunks and then never saw it again.
HuskyHawk
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It would honestly be nice for him to say, as Belichick did after a loss Saturday, that the coaching needs to be better. He really doesn’t seem to accept any blame. Certainly the players need to play better, but it’s not just that.
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Tough to prepare for something that Providence never does. Cooley's favorite thing to do is to pull out these defensive game plans in one off situations to confuse people. The reason you play an aggressive, switching defense is to take teams out of what they want to run, and so much of what UConn does offensively comes through set plays, getting RJ off a DHO, getting Jordan off a staggered, getting to Tyler off a pindown. The switching takes those actions away and dares you to try and win a matchup one on one.
UConn actually got four layups off of bigs slipping those screens when PC switched (a nice coaching adjustment I haven't seen anyone on this board credit Hurley for) but the best way to attack that kind of overaggressive defense is to give the ball to your best one-on-one player in a mismatch and get out of the way. Adama on the block against a mismatch was the answer, but Adama wasn't there, and neither Akok or Whaley are on the floor to score on the block.
I would have liked to see him scheme some touches for Tyrese on the block against a smaller defender or clearouts for him against bigger defenders, but Tyrese didn't look right in that game.
And despite all of that, UConn still had three or four open looks that, had they gone down, would have changed the result.
For everyone on here talking about how Hurley can't coach, give me specific, x's-and-o's examples like I gave of what you think he did wrong.
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dennismenace
ONE MORE CAST
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That's supposed to be the theory but is it in fact the case? Or is it loyalty as has been his previous practice? If so there is something wrong with that theory because it isn't working in games. Are Polley and Gaff having great practices and then freeze when the lights go on?
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That's a great point. Once the ball is up in the air and clanging off the rim, players are reacting and not thinking. the great ones, Ray, Rip, Bouk can make something happen, on the run, off balance, they have a nose for the rim and a soft touch.
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This is my favorite bad argument - that coaches have nothing to do with shooting percentages... As if every shot both teams take is equally good and it's some random thing.
Take a look at the quality of shots we generated. PC was dunking it, collapsing the defense, shooting early shot clock, getting squared up 3s with space out of their sets.
Our 3s were contended, end of shot clock, after stagnant dribbling or running one guy through 76 screens, never inside out, never penetrate and kick.
Shooting does not exist in a vacuum, and our offensive execution is very poor. Call it personnel, call it sets, call it whatever. Hurley controls all of that, so it's on him.
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They scored 4 more points than us. And had a guy who got hot hitting 3s. Your description would match losing the game 70-55. Their ability to score was only marginally better than ours, with better shooting.
You seem really well-versed in your basketball acumen. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the Jalen Gaffney situation. Should Sool be seeing Gaffney's minutes until 1) Gaffney proves himself or 2) Diggins shows he can't hang just quite yet.
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Calhoun's recruits weren't always blue chips, but he got the maximum out of them. That was his strength. Tough as nails players like Donny Marshall, and Caron Butler, and lunch pail guys like Sheffer, Henefeld etc. I don't care how many stars a guy has after his name on a recruiting site, but how much heart he has.
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