Hurley Outcoached

[djct1999]

I think the point everyone is making is that Hurley didn't know what our best lineup was. Your question doesn't make a whole lot of sense

Maybe he should poll the boneyard after every time out.

 

[djct1999]

It's really not at all about knowing more than him. DH has done a great job but if you watched that game and believe that Sanogo shouldn't have seen the floor in the last 11-12 minutes or think maybe he should have considered playing a zone as his guards and Polley were torched on the defensive end then you must have missed a lot. This is a board to discuss games would you prefer everyone to only be able to say "Hurley was great the team let him down"? He didn't have a good game and it started early when up 19-7 and coming out of the time out with a new lineup. Hopefully he's learning as well.

Furthermore, if Sanogo was going to make such a difference, who was he in for? Give me this lineup that would have had a different outcome.

 

[Onions]

Furthermore, if Sanogo was going to make such a difference, who was he in for? Give me this lineup that would have had a different outcome.

Sanogo, Whaley, Martin, Adams/Gaffney (pick your poison), Cole. We win.

 

[mauconnfan]

Furthermore, if Sanogo was going to make such a difference, who was he in for? Give me this lineup that would have had a different outcome.

Easy one, in for Polley. Why not?

 

[Deepster]

I have to admit. I am a little surprised how the Yard went from years of apathy to suddenly knowing everything that's wrong with the team and coach in a handful of games.

Just step back and think for a second....

1) They're without their first round draft prospect.
2) They've had practice and games severely impacted by COVID (like this Wednesday's game...)
3) You have a new blend of players, deep roster and it's going to take time to figure out which combinations work.
4) You also have good players and smart coaches on the other side who might get a leg up for stretches of a game.
5) You have a coach who has shown humility and is willing to work harder to get better.

I used to say it about Calhoun, I never said it about Ollie, but I'll say it about Hurley. Sit in the back seat, look out the window and enjoy the ride. The Coach drives the car. Let him get us where we need to go.

 

[mauconnfan]

I have to admit. I am a little surprised how the Yard went from years of apathy to suddenly knowing everything that's wrong with the team and coach in a handful of games.

Just step back and think for a second....

1) They're without their first round draft prospect.
2) They've had practice and games severely impacted by COVID (like this Wednesday's game...)
3) You have a new blend of players, deep roster and it's going to take time to figure out which combinations work.
4) You also have good players and smart coaches on the other side who might get a leg up for stretches of a game.
5) You have a coach who has shown humility and is willing to work harder to get better.

I used to say it about Calhoun, I never said it about Ollie, but I'll say it about Hurley. Sit in the back seat, look out the window and enjoy the ride. The Coach drives the car. Let him get us where we need to go.

Oh I will sit in the car and enjoy the ride I like him. But being in the backseat yesterday I just hope when he lost control of the wheel we didn't swerve into anything on my side Deep. I hear you but only to a point, yesterday was not good. A loss which should not have happened and he had some control of. By no means all on him, but he could have done some things to take control rather than letting Andersen do just that.

 

[Deepster]

Oh I will sit in the car and enjoy the ride I like him. But being in the backseat yesterday I just hope when he lost control of the wheel we didn't swerve into anything on my side Deep. I hear you but only to a point, yesterday was not good. A loss which should not have happened and he had some control of. By no means all on him, but he could have done some things to take control rather than letting Andersen do just that.

Wow. Even you? Maybe you should go back a few years and re-watch one of those 18 pt first halves against East Carolina.

 

[Greathusky]

Polley was our savior 2 games ago. No way to forsee he would stink up the floor this time.

Still Sanogo should have been in there at the end.

 

[HuskyBoi]

this place is crazy. is there an expectation that we win all of our games and finish the season with 1 loss? we are gonna lose games. especially lose games now with our BEST PLAYER OUT. we have a coach that is still learning about this team and himself and how to adjust without bouknight. Why does this place turn into a middle school cafeteria food fight after a loss. I get it, it sucks that we lost. I am also disappointed but I do not feel the need to come on here and start going after the head coach or our players. This is the Big East and every game is tough and this is what we signed up for. But you need to know that we are not winning every game this season and the challenge of winning became exponentially harder once bouknight was out.

 

[mauconnfan]

Wow. Even you? Maybe you should go back a few years and re-watch one of those 18 pt first halves against East Carolina.

No why would I we are supposed to have the answer now right? I mean these slip up losses shouldn't happen if indeed we do. Doesn't matter if it was JC, Ollie or Dan this one needs to be questioned Deep, a bad show not playing the one guy who dominated St Johns on the inside when in. Like our guards not having an answer stopping them we should've made it uncomfortable for their small line up on the other end no doubt. Don't get me wrong I like the man, but to just ignore what should have been a W, sorry never could do that even with JC.

 

[Deepster]

No why would I we are supposed to have the answer now right? I mean these slip up losses shouldn't happen if indeed we do. Doesn't matter if it was JC, Ollie or Dan this one needs to be questioned Deep, a bad show not playing the one guy who dominated St Johns on the inside when in. Like our guards not having an answer stopping them we should've made it uncomfortable for their small line up on the other end no doubt. Don't get me wrong I like the man, but to just ignore what should have been a W, sorry never could do that even with JC.

So, there's questioning what happened......and there's a bunch of overweight, bald, middle aged guys who think they know more than a Top 25 D1 coach that comes from a HOF coaching lineage.

Like the threads giving out "tips" on how to shoot FT's better. .

 

[mauconnfan]

this place is crazy. is there an expectation that we win all of our games and finish the season with 1 loss? we are gonna lose games. especially lose games now with our BEST PLAYER OUT. we have a coach that is still learning about this team and himself and how to adjust without bouknight. Why does this place turn into a middle school cafeteria food fight after a loss. I get it, it sucks that we lost. I am also disappointed but I do not feel the need to come on here and start going after the head coach or our players. This is the Big East and every game is tough and this is what we signed up for. But you need to know that we are not winning every game this season and the challenge of winning became exponentially harder once bouknight was out.

But don't you really want to win the ones you can and potentially should win even with him out? I mean c'mon you can peek at the schedule and know what's in store without Bouk in the lineup. I'm guessing no one here expects to win them all not even close. I said it would be tough to go 3-3 in the next 6, well that just changed to 2-4 because of this loss.

 

[mauconnfan]

So, there's questioning what happened......and there's a bunch of overweight, bald, middle aged guys who think they know more than a Top 25 D1 coach that comes from a HOF coaching lineage.

Like the threads giving out "tips" on how to shoot FT's better. .

Good news is I'm not bald.

 

[Chin Diesel]

So, there's questioning what happened......and there's a bunch of overweight, bald, middle aged guys who think they know more than a Top 25 D1 coach that comes from a HOF coaching lineage.

Like the threads giving out "tips" on how to shoot FT's better. .

Well, considering UConn's head coach is a bald middle aged guy, I think we are in good company. Unless you are correlated weight to intelligence and fat shaming.

 

[BParkDog]

We didn't play a small ball lineup. We played our normal post-Bouk closing lineup. It's the lineup that has played the most minutes together over the last 5 games. It's got 2 guards, 2 forwards, and a center. It was a 6'1" PG, a 6'4" SG, a 6'6" SF, a 6'8" PF, and a 6'9" center. That's about as prototypical a lineup as you'll see from a high major team. It had 2" in height and probably more in length over the Johnnies at basically every single position.

You can certainly make a case we should have played Sanogo over somebody, but the narrative that Hurley was trying to play a better small ball lineup or that Hurley was dictated into going small by St John's is just wrong and is getting repeated all over the place. He said that Sanogo couldn't guard anyone against a small ball lineup, not that he had to play a small ball lineup. And he didn't. Whaley is a big capable of guarding against a small ball lineup, so Hurley played him. We didn't play any smaller than usual, and it's our most experienced lineup in terms of age (aside from Carlton).

By playing what Hurley thinks is our best lineup, he attempted to play to our own strength. Whether you think he should've coached more to exploit St. John's weakness instead is certainly a valid question, and one of the hardest things a coach has to balance. It's entirely possible he got it wrong tonight. Did he get it wrong because he was stubborn? I probably would have at least tried Sanogo at some point between 10 and 4 minutes left, but I don't think it's ridiculous not to considering the game context and season history so far. We put Depaul away with the same lineup that lost it for us tonight.

Very nice post. Particularly like the consideration of our "closing group," which had played together in other games during the closing minutes.

 

[Deepster]

Well, considering UConn's head coach is a bald middle aged guy, I think we are in good company. Unless you are correlated weight to intelligence and fat shaming.

It paints a picture of the typical poster here who looks like they haven't set foot on a court since the late 80's. Trust me. I've met enough of them.

 

[Chin Diesel]

It paints a picture of the typical poster here who looks like they haven't set foot on a court since the late 80's. Trust me. I've met enough of them.

Seriously? Those guys are total losers. I was competitive on the court until at least 2008.

 

[Chin Diesel]

We didn't play a small ball lineup. We played our normal post-Bouk closing lineup. It's the lineup that has played the most minutes together over the last 5 games. It's got 2 guards, 2 forwards, and a center. It was a 6'1" PG, a 6'4" SG, a 6'6" SF, a 6'8" PF, and a 6'9" center. That's about as prototypical a lineup as you'll see from a high major team. It had 2" in height and probably more in length over the Johnnies at basically every single position.

You can certainly make a case we should have played Sanogo over somebody, but the narrative that Hurley was trying to play a better small ball lineup or that Hurley was dictated into going small by St John's is just wrong and is getting repeated all over the place. He said that Sanogo couldn't guard anyone against a small ball lineup, not that he had to play a small ball lineup. And he didn't. Whaley is a big capable of guarding against a small ball lineup, so Hurley played him. We didn't play any smaller than usual, and it's our most experienced lineup in terms of age (aside from Carlton).

By playing what Hurley thinks is our best lineup, he attempted to play to our own strength. Whether you think he should've coached more to exploit St. John's weakness instead is certainly a valid question, and one of the hardest things a coach has to balance. It's entirely possible he got it wrong tonight. Did he get it wrong because he was stubborn? I probably would have at least tried Sanogo at some point between 10 and 4 minutes left, but I don't think it's ridiculous not to considering the game context and season history so far. We put Depaul away with the same lineup that lost it for us tonight.

There's small ball in height and there's small ball in basketball size.

Cole is a "short" 6.1". He doesn't have a long reach and isn't particulalry quick. If he can keep his man in front of him, he is an effective defender. But he can't make up room once his defender gets a hip on Cole.

I'll assume you refer to Polley as the 6'8" PF. Well, that PF averages 2.6 rebounds per game. that's not a PF. That is being the second tallest player on the floor.

Adams, Martin and Whaley are decent heights for their positions.

For those of you hoping for something enjoyable to watch while Bouk is out from a purist standpoint, prepared to be disappointed. DH's comments in the Courant this morning of not having a team capable of winning games if the score gets in to the 70's is all you need to know. His math and the math he does with his staff says UConn can't score 70 ppg without Bouk. They're all going to be rock fights.

I wasn't thrilled at the choice of using Martin as the player to win the game at DePaul. Just having him back his man down and hoping his layups go in or he makes his foul shots seemed like a low percentage play, but it worked. Against SJU it didn't. Two games, two different results. Get used to seeing plenty of Hurley and Adams as they are Hurley darlings.

 

[superjohn]

So you didn't answer, great.

I will answer you: Because opinions on lineups are formed over hundreds of hours of practice and previous games, not just minutes of game time from the current game. Because that lineup had shown it could lock down multiple similar opponents and win multiple games in crunch time.

They locked up a bad DePaul team just starting it's season and won games when Polley was unconscious. Hurley took out the best player on the floor with 13 minutes left because he was scared of St. John's, there's no way getting around that and if he's never going to go away from a kill lineup of Cole, Adams, Martin, Polley, and Whaley no matter how they're playing then we are in big trouble.

 

[NCNutmeg]

I thought (and hoped) my first post on this board would be to something positive and I'll give it the ol' college try as they say...

Adama was making it look like child's play early on in the game with his post presence, but what I feel is so underrated about his game is his vision to find the open player. I think he is the best passer of our bigs (it's not really even close because Carlton has no hands and Whaley still looks unsure of himself when he gets the ball outside of 10' from the basket). With him missing from the lineup, you lose the inside out plays that open up Polley, Cole, Adams around the 3 point line. I don't have the stats right now but we shoot the 3 really well as a team when we are WIDE OPEN and can't find the backboard when a defender is within 5 feet of our shooter.

When a team plays as aggressive as Samson Johnson did on defense then ball movement is mission critical for spacing and yesterday they just seemed to move the ball without purpose around the perimeter with high ball screens as the only answer to free up anyone. Frustrating to watch but I also think the offense looks stagnant because we have only one person right now that looks like he can dribble the ball 10 ft. without dribbling it off of his knee and that is Cole. When you can't dribble penetrate to open up spacing for your teammates then we're in trouble and right now I'm not sure who that is outside of Bouk.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

They locked up a bad DePaul team just starting it's season and won games when Polley was unconscious. Hurley took out the best player on the floor with 13 minutes left because he was scared of St. John's, there's no way getting around that and if he's never going to go away from a kill lineup of Cole, Adams, Martin, Polley, and Whaley no matter how they're playing then we are in big trouble.

Hurley seems like a pretty successful coach for a guy who was running a high school program not that long ago. This is probably a hot take but I would imagine he knows his team and how to coach at least as well as most of the posters on this board. It's fine to crush him but why would people not expect him to figure this out? Criticism is one thing but we've got people talking about "losing the team" and players transferring and actually demanding a public apology? This place is nuts. And when they win their next game the same people are going to be talking about the Final Four.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

It paints a picture of the typical poster here who looks like they haven't set foot on a court since the late 80's. Trust me. I've met enough of them.

my number one issue here. apparently, very few actually play the game, and dunking discussions?
mebbe donuts, but that's aboot it. whacking ur wrist on the rim can hurt. a lot, and really mess up ur stroke going forward. freezing gym? tropical gym? face it, unless you play, how would you understand the often unseen poke to the jewels, subtle handpush to the lower back underneath, smarmy/slippery floor, extended leg trip up, elbow to the kidneys, and the always possible 'i ate too many burritos for lunch' thing. at least, wind velocity and direction ain't an issue when they play on tv. or the guy who leaves the court to don a mask and rob the liquor store next door, to get cash to pay off his losing bet. that's always my cue to exit the premises. some knucklehead flashing a glock at the 'who has next' conversation? also not uncommon and, once again, subject of a full chapter in that bestseller 'When to Leave the Court. Immediately.'
bball is way more than x's and o's. fantasy leagues are just that. fantasy.
the accidental or purposeful knee to the right location on ur thigh can really ruin ur day, iffn u plan on using ur legs for anything. makes u walk funny, and not ha-ha funny.

'Dunking: A Park City Primer.' 'see jack get the ball in the circle. see jane on the d. see jack knee her in the short hairs. see jack bow her in the head as she crumples down. see jack slam it home.' only two, so far, Big East POY from that graduate program.
i admire mr jabbar. he prolly went to Central, Harding, Bassick, or Tech, just never told anyone cuz he likes paying less for car insurance.

 

[tower1]

I guess we know our team better than the coach that personally interacts with his team on a daily basis...

YEP, Because he obviously doesn't know them ! Allot of bone head personal moves. Our guards are below average without bouknight, They looked like a high school team out their. Come on Coach your better than that.

 

[Pmurph678]

They put 5 shooters on the floor and people are calling for a rim protector..... this is why Hurley is the coach.

Sanogo plays we have to switch to zone, none of you know how good our zone is, it’s probably terrible. Also switching our defense is adjusting to them which most if this board thinks is “weak”.

We lost this game because our team has no one to attack the rim, they had no rim protector either we just couldn’t do anything about it. Bouk probably scores every possession against the lineup they threw out there.

 

[UconnU]

Dee Rowe was right. Probably should have some kind of matchup zone look in the bag in case we need it. That’s the best way to keep Adama/Josh on the floor if we need them and minimize Polleys troubles in man.

I don’t think the 5 out guard look is the way to beat us though because we can match up with that look and grab every board with Whaley at the 5 and Martin at the 4. The problem was Polley at the 3, he can not defend guards on the perimeter he lacks the lateral agility. In fact team lateral agility over all is a problem. We get beat a lot off the dribble. Need our bigs to be erasers at the rim.