Immediate thoughts post-Maryland

[nelsonmuntz]

I will want to sleep on this a few days, but my immediate thoughts:

1) It's not clear our talent has gotten better year over year. I wouldn't have minded Gilbert and Vital this season. Our guards after Bouk are just not Big East caliber guards, but we kept playing 3 of them.

2) Hurley can't compete with the top coaches on gameday. Turgeon embarrassed Hurley today. Hurley gets laser focused in a bad way, and doesn't dictate the game to the opponent. Hurley is always reacting, which is how we ended up with so many small ball lineups this season despite having a really good frontcourt. Our offense sucks, and the players don't seem to know what to do when the defense throws them a curveball. He needs some help on the bench. My dream would be PJ Carlesimo as an assistant for a year or two. Hurley played for PJ in college.

3) We need to see some big skill improvement. Sanogo will be a major piece next season. Gaffney has to take the next step and be a dependable, go-to point guard. Martin has to hit his layups. AJax has to be able to shoot, at least a little. I am not feeling optimistic about Akok's return to anything close to 100%.

The thing is, we don't have a great track record here. Carlton, Polley and Adams either didn't improve or got worse year over year. Did Whaley get that much better?

This is the whole game for a coach. If Hurley can't show a clear track record of improving talent year over year, UConn will reach a ceiling pretty soon. Calhoun was the best of all time at this, which sets a high standard for Hurley.

4) Our record was inflated by a weak schedule. We all kind of knew that, but today really highlighted it. Maryland is not that good, and they outplayed UConn from start to finish.


I don't want to overreact to one game. There is a lot to be optimistic about, but right now UConn is just another bubble program with some history to make it special, and Hurley only has a year or two to make his own history before he and UConn will not be that special anymore.

 

[uconnfan68]

Good thing he got his contract extension already.

 

[GiladKatzDeli]

UConn is a collection of players, not a team. Who is the emotional leader? Andre Jackson flies into the stands for a lose ball- anyone see a single UConn player coming over to help him up or give him a chest bump? Think Geno would tolerate that? How about playing with some emotion? We looked like a bunch of guys playing pickup ball (poorly) tonight.

 

[metsfan2323]

The thing is, we don't have a great track record here. Carlton, Polley and Adams either didn't improve or got worse year over year. Did Whaley get that much better?

This is a very hot take. Hurley has already proven to be a very good developer of talent (Ollie sucked at it and players knew it and kept leaving because of it)

Each player you listed above improved big time under Hurley and you can add CV to the list. If you can't see that you are lost in space and your opinion is garbage.

How quickly we forget Whaley was only defensive player of the year in the league and Polly won sixth man of the year.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

This is a very hot take. Hurley has already proven to be a very good developer of talent (Ollie sucked at it and players knew it and kept leaving because of it)

Each player you listed above improved big time under Hurley and you can add CV to the list. If you can't see that you are lost in space and your opinion is garbage.

How quickly we forget Whaley was only defensive player of the year in the league and Polly won sixth man of the year.

Great hot take. Ollie sucks even though won a National Championship. How many coaches have ever beaten Jay Wright, Fred Hoiberg, Tom Izzo, Billy Donovan and John Calipari in 5 straight games?

 

[metsfan2323]

Great hot take. Ollie sucks even though won a National Championship. How many coaches have ever beaten Jay Wright, Fred Hoiberg, Tom Izzo, Billy Donovan and John Calipari in 5 straight games?

Good God, Do we need to go through this whole story again?

BTW Carlton, Whaley, Polly, CV were all looking to transfer too.

 

[UCDaveD]

Great hot take. Ollie sucks even though won a National Championship. How many coaches have ever beaten Jay Wright, Fred Hoiberg, Tom Izzo, Billy Donovan and John Calipari in 5 straight games?

Has any other team actually even played those specific coaches in 5 straight games?

 

[VAHuskyFan]

1. Bouk was better. Whaley was better. Akok was injured. Sanogo is a huge step up on the inside and got much better in the second-half of the season. Cole was great in the second half.

2. Hurley does some things really well. The team fights and plays hard for 40 minutes. They are generally well prepared on the defensive end. He draws up some good plays out of timeouts. Agree he tends to react a bit too much. The offense looked really good with great ball movement sometimes, but did tend to completely devolve at others. The team occasionally forgot how to shoot the ball, including at the line. Hard to blame Hurley for us shooting under 50% from the stipe.

3. Bouk improved year-over-year, Whaley improved, Sanogo improved, Polley’s ceiling was capped by injury. Carlton I think largely played to his potential. We also had two COVID stoppages and Bouk/Jackson were both injured, so tough/unfair to draw negative conclusions about player development. Not sure what was up with Bouk after his return - never quite got back to 100%. Nothing to do with coaching.

4. We played great against a bunch of good teams and were competitive (but largely came up short) against top teams. MD is not great, but they shot lights-out tonight. Meanwhile, we couldn’t hit the side of a barn. I think Cole’s concussion really hurt us. He was huge for us down the stretch and looked out of rhythm a bit tonight. Just the nature of the injury (I doubt we ever see him fall into the lane again.).

The season was another step in the right direction. We made the Tournament and battled for 40 minutes in a game where nothing went right. Thanks to the team for making March fun again and looking forward to next year.

 

[UCfor3]

Immediate thoughts 4 hours after the game? I'm not sure you know what immediate means.

 

[Austin316]

Great hot take. Ollie sucks even though won a National Championship. How many coaches have ever beaten Jay Wright, Fred Hoiberg, Tom Izzo, Billy Donovan and John Calipari in 5 straight games?

You’re right. No one should deny it was an amazing feat. Over the years, it proved to be a massive outlier. His trajectory decreased year by year whereas Hurley’s trajectory has increased year by year.

As for my after game thoughts... we ended the season better than last year. Wish we had CV with us for the ride. We met our goals and need to build on them. Great season under all the circumstances. Next year we won’t be saying “it’s coming” because it will be “here”

 

[CTMike]

The thing is, we don't have a great track record here. Carlton, Polley and Adams either didn't improve or got worse year over year.

Yet you doubled and tripled down that 40 minutes of Josh Carlton were this years secret to success.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

You’re right. No one should deny it was an amazing feat. Over the years, it proved to be a massive outlier. His trajectory decreased year by year whereas Hurley’s trajectory has increased year by year.

As for my after game thoughts... we ended the season better than last year. Wish we had CV with us for the ride. We met our goals and need to build on them. Great season under all the circumstances. Next year we won’t be saying “it’s coming” because it will be “here”

We were a bubble team last year and the reality is that we were a bubble team this year. The fact that we played fewer games against the better Big East teams and didn't play much of a non-conference schedule inflated our record.

Hurley has to show major improvement by his players next year or we have a problem. Ollie's last class is graduating, and I don't see any of them coming back. Next year is Hurley's fourth season, which is typically the breakout year for successful coaches. We will see.

 

[ElmCity40th]

Just watching this tournament, plenty of higher seeds have already lost. I believe two 2 seeds are already out. 9 double digit seeds still in it. This tournament like this season is just different. We’re all upset at the loss. It’s fine to point out the mistakes and shortcomings. But to limit the coaches/players by stated what they’ll never be able to accomplish is corny. Why not just root for them. Thanks to the team and staff for a good season that will hopefully be a building block for more success.

 

[SubbaBub]

Agree on the guards, need for skill improvement from key guys.

Disagree on Whaley, he got a ton better under Hurley. Mostly by knowing his strengths and weaknesses and focusing on the former. Polley regressed but he was asked to do more than he was capable and we didn't run anything that really helped him. He should have been a better version of Giffey, but was too passive when not shooting. I think Cole got a lot better after Bouk returned from injury but he's not quite good enough a shooter, ball handler, or scorer. He is good enough to play for a good team, just not the everyday second option. We'd not have finished as well as we did without him.

Our major problem is relying on Freshman and Sophmores to dominate games. That has never been our thing and probably won't change. The formula have been one superstar POY candidate, one young stud with potential and 4 to 5 guys who will just as soon eat your lunch.

 

[HuskyHawk]

My main criticism of Hurley as the same as it has been. I think he’s the right guy, but he keeps approaching the game like he’s at URI. You do not match 5 out teams by going small. You play a zone and dominate the paint until they are forced to put their crappy big in. They play small because their bigs suck or they don’t have them. Instead he puts in our 7th and 8th best guys and leaves one of our best players on the bench. Then he continues to let teams pull his rim protectors outside.

We lost every game we played to that type of team. Creighton 3 times, Nova, St. John’s, and now Maryland. I do not understand why he does it. If this team doesn’t have a zone in its arsenal next season we aren’t going anywhere. UConn is UConn in part because it can attract skilled bigs. Use them. Other teams don’t have them. They are a valuable weapon on both ends.

The offense is a mess. I don’t expect him to fix that. Calhoun’s offense was a mess. Ollie‘s offense was a mess. I don’t recall a UConn team that didn’t rely on players beating their man instead of running structured offense. Still won four titles that way.

In short: Dan has to be a lot more flexible and change his damned system to fit the players he has and the league he plays in. He seriously needs to spend an hour talking to Belichick, who changes his defense every game.

 

[Improviser]

I will want to sleep on this a few days, but my immediate thoughts:

1) It's not clear our talent has gotten better year over year. I wouldn't have minded Gilbert and Vital this season. Our guards after Bouk are just not Big East caliber guards, but we kept playing 3 of them.

2) Hurley can't compete with the top coaches on gameday. Turgeon embarrassed Hurley today. Hurley gets laser focused in a bad way, and doesn't dictate the game to the opponent. Hurley is always reacting, which is how we ended up with so many small ball lineups this season despite having a really good frontcourt. Our offense sucks, and the players don't seem to know what to do when the defense throws them a curveball. He needs some help on the bench. My dream would be PJ Carlesimo as an assistant for a year or two. Hurley played for PJ in college.

3) We need to see some big skill improvement. Sanogo will be a major piece next season. Gaffney has to take the next step and be a dependable, go-to point guard. Martin has to hit his layups. AJax has to be able to shoot, at least a little. I am not feeling optimistic about Akok's return to anything close to 100%.

The thing is, we don't have a great track record here. Carlton, Polley and Adams either didn't improve or got worse year over year. Did Whaley get that much better?

This is the whole game for a coach. If Hurley can't show a clear track record of improving talent year over year, UConn will reach a ceiling pretty soon. Calhoun was the best of all time at this, which sets a high standard for Hurley.

4) Our record was inflated by a weak schedule. We all kind of knew that, but today really highlighted it. Maryland is not that good, and they outplayed UConn from start to finish.


I don't want to overreact to one game. There is a lot to be optimistic about, but right now UConn is just another bubble program with some history to make it special, and Hurley only has a year or two to make his own history before he and UConn will not be that special anymore.

Like that idea about PJ Carlesimo next to him on the bench.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Like that idea about PJ Carlesimo next to him on the bench.

Hurley needs someone that is big time to teach him game management and running a big time program. It would only take a year or two, but I think it would make a big difference.