Hurley's coaching this season | The Boneyard

Hurley's coaching this season

superjohn

superjohn

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This goes down as one of the best coaching jobs ever at UConn.

There were no season ending injuries but the team was dealing with injuries since preseason and it never really stopped all the way through the national championship game...

Every single one of our players went through their struggles/slumps on the court and despite having guys who are considered great three point shooters the team rarely ever shot it well. They had a body of work which was deserving of a two seed but everything was a struggle and the team kind of looked like it was running on fumes before the tournament...

Despite all of this they made it to the national championship game. Beat the #1 overall seed after being down 19 points to them. Made it out of the toughest region. Played essentially two road games in the final 4 and they were a fair whistle or a couple of open threes from going down away from winning the national championship.

Even though they came just a tiny bit short of winning the whole thing I've never been prouder of a coach and team than I am of this one. They deserve all of our praise and admiration. Of course Kimani, Luke, Tom Moore, Mike Nardi deserve all of it as well.
 
With this team’s apparent flaws, by early March I thought we were capped at a sweet 16 or elite 8 run. And yet, this team just kept on winning.

Have to agree 100 percent - if you compare the top 10 rosters by talent, I’m not sure where we rank, but it’s probably closer to 10 than 2. If you rank based upon fight in the dog, we come out on top.
 
I agree this is one of the greatest tournament run coaching performance Ive ever seen at Uconn. And to make it out of that tough East region makes it even sweeter. Nothing but proud. Warrior mentality.

I love every Uconn team, literally every single one of them win it all or miss the tournament. Love them all.

Among my absolute favorites are the Dream Season, 99, and this team.
 
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People might fall back to 2011 or 2014, but we ran through a literal gauntlet of great teams this year. Whereas those 2 years we had a littttle bit of tourney luck with some of the teams we faced (obviously beat a few good teams along the way).

Injuries were a plenty, but the fight and belief this team showed truly shows how lucky we are to have Hurley leading the charge. Going to enjoy this while it lasts given Hurley has always said he’d be retired earlier than other coaching greats.
 
It was an unbelievable coaching job. This board spent a lot of time talking about the poor fit and lack of defense in a starting lineup with Ball and Mullins, and they weren't even wrong in theory. But the reality is also that we were a top 10 defense all year with them. Hopefully we get to see the guard trio run it back next year
 
superjohn said:
This goes down as one of the best coaching jobs ever at UConn.

There were no season ending injuries but the team was dealing with injuries since preseason and it never really stopped all the way through the national championship game...

Every single one of our players went through their struggles/slumps on the court and despite having guys who are considered great three point shooters the team rarely ever shot it well. They had a body of work which was deserving of a two seed but everything was a struggle and the team kind of looked like it was running on fumes before the tournament...

Despite all of this they made it to the national championship game. Beat the #1 overall seed after being down 19 points to them. Made it out of the toughest region. Played essentially two road games in the final 4 and they were a fair whistle or a couple of open threes from going down away from winning the national championship.

Even though they came just a tiny bit short of winning the whole thing I've never been prouder of a coach and team than I am of this one. They deserve all of our praise and admiration. Of course Kimani, Luke, Tom Moore, Mike Nardi deserve all of it as well.
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I said this in another thread, but I’ll say it again: rarely has a bad rap gone down harder than “Hurley can’t win close games.” That’s what we did all season long.
 
The fact that he was able to get this team, with Solo and Braylon not able to hit the broad side of a barn, and Silas playing with 3 torn ligaments, to within a couple possessions of a National Championships is INSANE. The rest of the country should be absolutely terrified when Hurley has a healthy roster going into March next season lmao
 
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Jaydumo20 said:
The craziest thing is, last year, we should've beaten Florida. If we won that game I think that team could've gone to the title game too.
He's the best tourney coach ive ever seen. Love Izzo, but he aint that
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Im not sure they were consistent enough last year to make a deep run, but you never know. The strategy to beat Uconn the last 2 years in the tournament has been simple. Just hope Uconn misses their clean looks from 3.

Two of the greatest single coached games is vs Duke in 99. And vs FL last year.
 
2014DualCs said:
People might fall back to 2011 or 2014, but we ran through a literal gauntlet of great teams this year. Whereas those 2 years we had a littttle bit of tourney luck with some of the teams we faced (obviously beat a few good teams along the way).

Injuries were a plenty, but the fight and belief this team showed truly shows how lucky we are to have Hurley leading the charge. Going to enjoy this while it lasts given Hurley has always said he’d be retired earlier than other coaching greats.
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Some irony behind your username as 2014 actually had the lowest aggregate seed numbers of the 3 teams.

Combined seed #s...

2026: 15+7+3+1+3+1= 30
2014: 10+2+3+4+1+8= 28
2011: 14+6+2+5+4+8= 39
 
Last edited:
Mike Honcho said:
Some irony behind your username as 2014 actually had the lowest aggregate seed numbers of the 3 teams.

Combined seed #s...

2026: 15+7+3+1+3+1= 32
2014: 10+2+3+4+1+8= 28
2011: 14+6+2+5+4+8= 39
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Penalized for being a higher seed and beating a 15. Would’ve loved to have faced an 8 seed (albeit a very underrated 8 seed in Kentucky) in the ship this year.

But will be honest, 2014 and this year do seem to be more similar than I initially remembered:
  • 2014 - Beat 5 Kenpom Top 20 teams, 3 in Top 11. Biggest difference in net rating was to Florida by about 6. Other Kenpom Top 20 teams we beat were all within 2.
  • 2026 - Beat 4 Kenpom Top 28 teams, 3 in Top 10. Biggest difference in net rating was to Duke by 8, lost to Michigan who was higher by 10. Illinois higher by 4.

We still did have a few key injuries to deal with unlike a completely healthy team in 2014. Not to mention the entirely different landscape of college ball (9 teams pretty much at or higher net rating than top Kenpom in 2014 Louisville)
 
2014DualCs said:
Penalized for being a higher seed and beating a 15. Would’ve loved to have faced an 8 seed (albeit a very underrated 8 seed in Kentucky) in the ship this year.

But will be honest, 2014 and this year do seem to be more similar than I initially remembered:
  • 2014 - Beat 5 Kenpom Top 20 teams, 3 in Top 11. Biggest difference in net rating was to Florida by about 6. Other Kenpom Top 20 teams we beat were all within 2.
  • 2026 - Beat 4 Kenpom Top 28 teams, 3 in Top 10. Biggest difference in net rating was to Duke by 8, lost to Michigan who was higher by 10. Illinois higher by 4.

We still did have a few key injuries to deal with unlike a completely healthy team in 2014. Not to mention the entirely different landscape of college ball (9 teams pretty much at or higher net rating than top Kenpom in 2014 Louisville)
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2014 beat:
  • St Joe's (A-10 tourny champ)
  • Villanova (BE regular season champ)
  • Iowa State (Big 12 tourny champ)
  • Michigan State (Big 10 tourny champ)
  • Florida (SEC regular season and tourny champ)
 
We came out of the box kicking the butts of a number of high profile teams (think we were 5-1) and then went through a lot of injuries and wound up with a great tourney run. I am especially proud of how they crashed the boards against that monstrous front line of Michigan in the championship game. That was a real dawgfight performance, just fell a little short to a well deserving Michigan. They played hard the whole game and so did we.

We have the best staff in college hoops and I think our team left it all out on the floor for them. Very proud of them all. Bought some gear tee shirts yesterday.
 
.-.
2026 had three 1 seeds in Duke, Michigan, and AZ that were better than any team last year. And we had to play two of them. Our last 3 games were road games.
 
Lafayette said:
3 finals in 4 years, 2 nattys, 2 losses to the eventual national champ.

Good run.
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And, (I have a sneaking suspicion), it's not over yet! ;)

I think if UConn had gotten past Florida, they could have done some serious damage and at least gotten to Auburn in the FF. They were even closer vs Florida than they were vs Michigan this year. They don't get enough credit for how much of a scare they put into Florida.
 
Shout out to Danny, Kimani, Tommy and co. for continuously creating absolute monsters at the center position. The style of play is certainly different, but it feels like the early 2000s again where we will win the battle of the bigs 99/100 times.

Tarris literally went Super Saiyan this tourney and raised his draft stock probably 20+ picks. Just unbelievable.
 
The 2014 tournament run is the best tournament run by any coach in college basketball history. Every other coach/team/year is competing for #2.

Hurley did a very good job this year. My only mild complaint is the players resorted to a little too much ISO ball. We have the best offensive system in college basketball history, run the system every possession unless it is transition.
 
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UCONNFAN179 said:
But... Can Hurley win without Karaban?
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Gagegolightly Durkin GIF by Paramount Network
 
Travelman6 said:
And, (I have a sneaking suspicion), it's not over yet! ;)

I think if UConn had gotten past Florida, they could have done some serious damage and at least gotten to Auburn in the FF. They were even closer vs Florida than they were vs Michigan this year. They don't get enough credit for how much of a scare they put into Florida.
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This quells the crowds saying it was Clingan. This year really was a masterclass, confirms a lot about BE reffing and how Hurley designs his team for when it matters most. Really unbelievable run.
 
Think this year was pretty easily Hurley's best coaching job. I think the talent on this team wasn't anywhere close to the championship teams and he squeezed every single thing he could out of them. The defense got better over the course of the year, the offense was painful to watch but somehow effective by the end, and they beat Duke. What more could you want? Exceeded expectations by a mile
 
PAHusky said:
Think this year was pretty easily Hurley's best coaching job. I think the talent on this team wasn't anywhere close to the championship teams and he squeezed every single thing he could out of them. The defense got better over the course of the year, the offense was painful to watch but somehow effective by the end, and they beat Duke. What more could you want? Exceeded expectations by a mile
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They beat more good teams in this tourney than they did in 23. MSU, Illinois, Duke were better than anything they saw in 23.

Beat Duke, 3-1 against the B10 (which is crazy).
 
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