Hurley Providence Post Game Presser

[karstenkibbe]

I kind of agree with Hurley about Akok. He drifted aimlessly on offense, lost his man a few times on defense, did his normal costly sagging off three point shooters. BUT, if Hurley thinks he doesn’t bear responsibility for a lot of the garbage we saw tonight, someone should remind him to re-watch his UMES postgame presser and listen to his own words. Year 4. His shtick is beginning to look tired. Needs to be called out for it.

 

[tentoes4rings]

If Diggins and Johnson aren’t good enough to see the court when the rest of the team is playing so poorly, then Hurley didn’t recruit as well as we thought.

The other option is that Diggins and Johnson should be playing - and that Hurley isn’t a strong enough coach to realize that.

Either way, not good.

Great point on Johnson, I forgot about him today. He’s too talented to not even see the court. He, Jackson, Akok and Martín are 4 guys who would shine in a fast paced transition game but one point guard and several guys with poor handles make that pretty hard to play.

 

[Kolumbo]

This guy is good.

 

[SwingDog]

He’s exactly right, we had a terrible off night shooting and the defense was soft. LAZY!. He saw exactly what I saw. This loss wasn’t on Hurley.

I really don't think we were soft defensively. As McLovin said we held the Friars to 57 points. We were soft at times though, there were lapses where we left a lane or baseline open, and a few boxout fails and Providence did what good teams do- they took took advantage. There were a handful of breakdowns that cost us, and we need to clean that up for sure, but overall the toughness was there.

 

[McLovin]

You know what the best part of the presser was? "We got 19 more of these".

The world is not over. 5 losses might win the Big East this year. Work to do. But we'll get there.

 

[UCfor3]

Team shows up unprepared. Coach makes no adjustments other than to draw up in his safe space which is playing Polley and Whaley way too many minutes. Young players who are in a different orbit talentwise from the super seniors grow moldy on the bench. Sixty minutes to kids who were recruited in 2016. Zero for Diggins who likely regrets ever hearing about the state of Connecticut.

But yeah, stay off social. That will work. Should all work out really well.

Stayed tuned for the offense next game - I predict Whaley, Akok and Whaley will camp outside the arc and basically become a blockade should Cole, Gaffney or Jackson even thinks about trying to move the ball around. Also, Cole will have to do too much and Diggins will not even move from his seat.

But, for the love of God, stay of Instagram.

Agree with you about the young players and Polley. Whaley however needed to play. Who else was going to defend Watson?

 

[superjohn]

Team shows up unprepared. Coach makes no adjustments other than to draw up in his safe space which is playing Polley and Whaley way too many minutes. Young players who are in a different orbit talentwise from the super seniors grow moldy on the bench. Sixty minutes to kids who were recruited in 2016. Zero for Diggins who likely regrets ever hearing about the state of Connecticut.

But yeah, stay off social. That will work. Should all work out really well.

Stayed tuned for the offense next game - I predict Whaley, Akok and Whaley will camp outside the arc and basically become a blockade should Cole, Gaffney or Jackson even thinks about trying to move the ball around. Also, Cole will have to do too much and Diggins will not even move from his seat.

But, for the love of God, stay of Instagram.

I said it in another thread, Hurley thinks he's Jay Wright where he can just sit talented recruits the whole year and then they blow up the next year. The difference is he's Jay Wright who has a proven track record of this philosophy working and Wright always has very good players ahead of them. Hurley has no track record and he's sitting talented recruits while the upperclassmen and 5th year guys stumble around.

 

[Fishy]

Agree with you about the young players and Polley. Whaley however needed to play. Who else was going to defend Watson?

More of a general comment on Whaley.

He’s not a good offensive player and you can pencil him in for 30+ against decent teams.

 

[superjohn]

This made me feel worse if possible. He doesn’t seem too bothered by being admittedly out coached, including being totally unprepared for something that has vexed us before.

I am more concerned than I was. He doesn’t see a problem; doesn’t expect much different.

Disappointing

I couldn't believe it when he said he didn't know Huggins had switched into a 1-3-1 defense at the end of the game in his WVU presser. These pressers are getting more and more depressing. He doesn't seem to acknowledge there's a problem and the reporters never ask the questions we all want answered.

 

[kansashusky]

Just watched this for the first time all the way through and wow. His Akok answer is dumbfounding. Akok is minus 12 and Hurley downplays that stat, saying he couldn’t help offensively.

Hammers that we have depth though our bench got out scored 20-4.

Didn’t expect them to switch screens which he admits they struggle with.

Focused on the last couple of minutes when they didn’t hit key shots instead of discussing how they got down 16.

Bizarre.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Basically that it wasn't the right game for him defensively. Seems alot of these recent games ....

Well that’s ridiculous since he was clearly our best defender early on. There is no human being on earth that Polley can guard more effectively than Akok. When Akok went out our rim protection vanished and so did our rebounding.

 

[AdamaNation]

These past 8 years have made Jim Calhoun look like an even greater coach than we realized. 8 years of poorly run offense and questionable in game coaching.

His staff was monster too. What does Tom do from a preparation focus?

 

[CONN78SEJ]

If we can’t shoot, try someone else. You had Akok glued to the bench and he’s always good for a 3 or two.

Why not give Diggins a shot? Gaff was awful. He single-handedly dribbled away the last two minutes.

Why pick on Hawkins? You barely played him. I’d play him 30 minutes so he develops faster. We need him to be our savior.

Play your young talent. Your older players just aren’t good enough to win without some help from the talented youngsters.

Gaff’s an athlete, very good three point shooter and for a smaller player very athletic around the basket, but when he tries to play point guard he’s a mess. I was screaming at the tv “take the god damn shot”, and it was not like he had hands in his face. The kid needs confidence, and he needs to look for his shot more. He’s really regressed since he first came to UConn, sad to see.

 

[Northbound]

He's got to give some of the kids some run, seriously. He's saying the bench is a strength, but he's can get into a short bench situation. He's seeing more in practice and knows more about the game than I ever will, but it does seem like some of these young guys should get some time.

When Polley isn't stroking it, he's got to sit him on his ass, he's a defensive liability, which is ok everyone has strengths and weakness, but you expect the coach to manage those and it seems like DH gets tunnel vision at times, plus it seems like when shots are not falling there aren't any sets to get better or closer looks.

providence is a good team and anyone that watched any of their games knew it coming in.

How about "I should have done a better job on adjustments and even thought we haven't seem them switch like they did, we had trouble with switches last year at Maryland and we should have a better handle on how to deal with it than we do right now because it's not out of the realm of possible that a team would spring that on us and that's on me.

 

[TheChamps990411]

This made me feel worse if possible. He doesn’t seem too bothered by being admittedly out coached, including being totally unprepared for something that has vexed us before.

I am more concerned than I was. He doesn’t see a problem; doesn’t expect much different.

Disappointing

Could not agree more. For the first time in his time here i left a game concerned with DH coaching. Me and a guy sitting next to me who is a high school coach looked over at each other and asked why arent guys cutting to the basket? Its there. What ends up happening we start cutting to the basket on like 5 straight possessions and we scored or got fouled on 4 of the possessions then went away from it yet the openings were still there. It was unreal.

 

[Letsgohuskies11]

Could not agree more. For the first time in his time here i left a game concerned with DH coaching. Me and a guy sitting next to me who is a high school coach looked over at each other and asked why arent guys cutting to the basket? Its there. What ends up happening we start cutting to the basket on like 5 straight possessions and we scored or got fouled on 4 of the possessions then went away from it yet the openings were still there. It was unreal.

No one cuts because they are too busy setting high screens and then going back to standing around along the perimeter

 

[storrsroars]

But check the last 35 seconds. "Players need to stay off social."

That sounds like Jeff Capel. Difference being, Jeff Capel won yesterday with in-game coaching.

(yeah, I know Champagnie was out. It's a joke people, relax)

There was that stretch of awful rebounding during PC's run, so it's not just the guards and 3-pt shooting. Not sure what happened with Akok after a good start - seemed he went into a shell. Martin's never been a good FT shooter, and that really hurt yesterday as well.

 

[Edward Sargent]

I said it in another thread, Hurley thinks he's Jay Wright where he can just sit talented recruits the whole year and then they blow up the next year. The difference is he's Jay Wright who has a proven track record of this philosophy working and Wright always has very good players ahead of them. Hurley has no track record and he's sitting talented recruits while the upperclassmen and 5th year guys stumble around.

Donny and the other announcer kept talking about how experienced PC was. We had two grad students and 2 seniors out there so experience wasn't our issue

 

[Husky Alien]

I'm not ready to listen to this from what I'm gathering, especially the Akok comment. Ugh! He is a difficult interview.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

He's got to give some of the kids some run, seriously. He's saying the bench is a strength, but he's can get into a short bench situation. He's seeing more in practice and knows more about the game than I ever will, but it does seem like some of these young guys should get some time.

When Polley isn't stroking it, he's got to sit him on his ass, he's a defensive liability, which is ok everyone has strengths and weakness, but you expect the coach to manage those and it seems like DH gets tunnel vision at times, plus it seems like when shots are not falling there aren't any sets to get better or closer looks.

providence is a good team and anyone that watched any of their games knew it coming in.

How about "I should have done a better job on adjustments and even thought we haven't seem them switch like they did, we had trouble with switches last year at Maryland and we should have a better handle on how to deal with it than we do right now because it's not out of the realm of possible that a team would spring that on us and that's on me.

Providence does have some talent but they’re a dirty team. Cheap shots galore. That kid that hit Martin in the back of the head should have been tossed.

 

[EBonz30]

As far as this game- there was a direct correlation of us falling way behind & Akok sitting & Croswell eating us up down low & on the glass- during this same time Gaffney was on the floor too often.

Moving forward- I know there is a handful of you that are supporters of Gaffney- I really think for the future & even in someway now Diggins needs to be the first point off the bench- Gaffney can play that 5 minute role if needed.

 

[Fatroony5]

Reminds me a bit of the B Adams & Gilbert situations in years prior. He’s riding these veterans for long periods of time when they aren’t producing. More talented players were waiting in the wings and the dynamic changed once those younger, talented players were given some run. I’d have to think we’re getting to that point. I’m just hard pressed to see how some of these younger guys don’t at least get a little run here.

 

[Huskybass]

Hurley has got to be willing to play the most talented guys on the roster, even if they are younger and less experienced. Continuing to play older guys who contribute next to nothing isn't working. Give Diggins some run, let Cole play off the ball some. Scoring 53 at home just isn't acceptable. Time to shake things up before we continue down the path to mediocrity.

 

[Fatroony5]

Hurley has got to be willing to play the most talented guys on the roster, even if they are younger and less experienced. Continuing to play older guys who contribute next to nothing isn't working. Give Diggins some run, let Cole play off the ball some. Scoring 53 at home just isn't acceptable. Time to shake things up before we continue down the path to mediocrity.

I’m shocked Diggins hasn’t gotten any run at all. Even just for some small spurts with a more “veteran” line up around him. Very strange to me.

 

[Kolumbo]

Check out Minute 5:30. "Pitch Count. Come On Man!"
"He got really really tired and he asked to come out. I told him he could come out for Christmas."

Nice.