I perceive it as him admitting he misjudged things and now he has to adapt and fix it. He was just saying that he wasn’t enamored with the portal several months back. Now he needs to make a living off of it. He misread his roster in many ways and he now realizes it. Big wake-up call
It clearly is now. There’s no point of having 13 scholarships anymore if guys 9-13 play musical chairs every offseason. Just limit it to 10
Try this- I would probably not be including Jackson’s set shot among the solutions for our perimeter offensive issues. Not yet anyway.
Maybe it’s all relative. Have you asked why they never finished in close games? I know everyone loves to blame the coach for everything, but often times it comes down to execution. The players were gassed because, especially towards the end of the season, Hurley had a 6-7 player rotation. Why? Because 3 of the 4 kids who entered the portal proved that they weren’t capable. And that’s what your worried about? We have one of the hardest working, well connected staffs in the country. Do you really believe they were blind sighted by this? Do you really believe they don’t have a plan or have those spots filled already? Because I don’t.
The results are that we finished in the Kenpom top 25 in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2005 & 2006. Here's our winning percentage trend:
I also don’t for one minute think this is a program culture problem either. I think the staff saw and admitted to the major red flags this team raised the past season, understand it’s year 5 and time to really show results, and knew 100% that w the roster as it was, next year would have been an uphill battle. They saw an opportunity to reset and keep the core. While I don’t believe Hurley would ever tell a kid to leave, I think he was very clear with his plans and both sides realized it was mutually beneficial to enter the portal. It seems because of the surprise of it all that Floyd, without ever playing a minute was already annointed as the next Kemba as most of the board never seen him play or even able to pick him out of a lineup, saw something change this past week. My guess, without knowing but seeing all the coaches in Indy w Castle, would be that.
We did finish the close game against Nova when Hurley wasn’t coaching fwiw.
What’s weird is that you would think Hurley’s strength would be guard development. Not sure why we haven’t seen that yet. But as a program in general, Sanogo’s development was through the roof and AJax’s was substantial. You have to believe we will see another jump from Ajax this summer and I expect Hawkins to be a totally different player next season.
Absolutely. 12 years as a Head Coach and 2 NCAA tournament wins, total. Time to start winning some games when it counts.
The transfer portal has made roster management much harder. At most, 7 or 8 players can be part of the main rotation so you will have 5 to 6 players not getting much playing time. When you are recruiting well (according to the recruiting rankings) as Hurley has, you are going to have 5 or 6 top 125 kids sitting on the bench and they have immediate options at other schools.
Thank you for stating this perfectly. Expressing frustration does not equate to not being a fan. Has Dan Hurley improved the program? Absolutely. Is there room for improvement? Most definitely. Expecting more does not make you less of a "fan". In fact, it makes you more of one. Blind loyalty is what gets you into trouble.
Starting from scratch? All of the most talented underclassmen who produced last year - Sanogo, Jackson, and Hawkins - are returning. Karaban and Clingan, who are our most talented newcomers, will be here. Hopefully Samson Johnson sticks around. The highest-rated recruit Hurley has ever had, Castle, is probably coming early. Newton is much more talented than any player we’re losing in the portal. We definitely need a few more players. Maybe some players were mismanaged. The first round loss sucked. Again. But we are not starting from scratch. I wouldn’t be shocked if we’re better next year than we were this year, if we get one more plus player from the portal (admittedly, a big if at the moment).
To be fair, Dan Hurley has done a fair amount of talking up Floyd. Not quite Ollie “Ferrari in the garage” level, but still. By the end of the season, everyone here seemed relatively clear-eyed about Gaffney, Diggins, and post-injury Akok but Floyd represented real hope. That said, he and the staff have had a plan throughout and it’s looking like we’re going to be (much) stronger once this all shakes out. Lesson learned is taking everything Hurley says publicly about players going forward with a grain (or quarry) of salt.
Hey, I like your optimism. But until I see these new players play at the college level, I don't give much credit to the hype they all receive. No matter who we get, it will be a team of many question marks.
Coaches certainly want to tout the kids they recruit. It makes everyone feel good. But too much hype can backfire - it raises the expectations of the players, their families and fans, to perhaps unrealistic levels. Every kid is simply not a "NBA prospect" or going to get their name on the Gampel wall.
Chemistry is the key here that is the concern.
100%. He absolutely needs to get better at in game coaching/adjustments. And don’t get me wrong, he deserves his fair share of criticism. I just feel the venom towards this transfer portal is misguided.
I’m not saying there aren’t concerns, depth being at big one at the moment. I’m just saying we have some serious talent returning.
How is "I have to adapt" not admitting mistakes?
He's talking about adapting to the portal and change in player movement. The elephant in the room is that he won't adapt his system to take best advantage of the skills and abilities of the players he actually has. It's his greatest weakness, and it causes a lot of these problems. Instead of saying "I need exactly these kinds of guys to run my offense and defense" he should say "what kind of offense and defense can I run to get the most out of these guys".
Great chart. It should be pinned at the top of the board.
Can you be unintentionally disingenuous?
Maybe BS is the wrong way to put it. I don’t need the “get us now talk.” Or the complaints/excuses at this point about what he inherited. Or the bullshit swagger and arm waving. - just coach the team like an adult. And I really don’t care about KenPom numbers. There’s no question that things have improved since the last few KO years. NO ONE is arguing that. But I care about wins in March, beating the truly good teams we play more times than not - we weren’t remotely the 25th best team in the country) and I’d prefer that we build a program that uses the portal strategically vs a frigging fire sale.
I don’t disagree about what Jackson brings to the table but the salient point was our perimeter offense. It ain’t that.