I've wondered about all the people ragging on him about not knowing what he's doing, when he himself clearly calls out exactly what the players' and team's issues are and what they need to work on. He knows more about the game than the people bitching about him do.
The problem sometimes is that he points out what everyone us doing wrong but himself. It makes sense... he needs to keep his job, but it isn't what fans want to hear after his historically atrocious SJU game. Or when our offense looks like crap against nearly every tourney team we played.
He's obviously improving. Game management took a few big steps forward the second half of this season. Recruiting keeps elevating and that's his #1 most important skill. Still needs to work on his adjustments and coaching offense big time.
IMO one of his mentors needs to talk to him about play style and recruiting. We recruit less skilled, but super athletic players. Coach SAYS he wants to play fast fast fast, he has ever since URI. But he's gotten slower every year he's been here and consistently had teams in the 200s or more for pace. Only 1 year did he have a top 100 pace team ever.
And that's fine. Teams can be successful playing slow, tough grind it out games. We need shooters and higher skilled, less athletic players then. But If we want to be a high-intensity pressure defense team, the coach needs to be willing to let the players run. It WILL lead to TOs. But it also leads to easy buckets... with when you have a Rese, Andre, Samson, Akok team filled with mediocre shooters you've got to allow it.
Diggins and Hawkins coming in should help the half-court offense. Hawkins is both athletic and pretty skilled in the half court shooting it... which is why he's a 2 and done NBA player. So it seems like Hurley's already aware to an extent.
Just meandering thoughts. Feel free to ignore.
