Is this a must win for Hurley?

[CTBasketball]

I’ll just say this as someone who was a freshman in 2014 the year after we won it all. In my 4 years in campus and 4-5 years since, I have not seen one tangible success besides the PKI. No BET no BE regular season, barely a second round NCAA game. I love this team I follow them religiously but younger fans don’t have the Calhoun nostalgia to hold on to. We need wins now. Big ones. So yeah if he loses to Iona I think his seat gets hot.

Hurley really blew that 2017 BET title game too. Too much metrics in the gameplan.

 

[Ripper32]

 

[Waquoit]

BTW who was the 2nd 1st round pick on that team? The only 2 others drafted were George and Smith - both 2nd round ...So who's trying to revise history?

You. Tate was a 1st rounder.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

No.

St. John's, Georgetown, Syracuse, Seton Hall, and Pitt all had top 20 recruiting classes in the previous few years. The Big East was loaded.

But the problem was we still couldn't win the games where we did have more talent.

That’s like half the conference. Lol. I feel like it’s hard to talk about expectations when we had bottom half of the conference talent compared to us now being the most talented team in the conference.

 

[Billy Jack]

I see a Final Four in our immediate future. Not to worry.

 

[Kathy]

You. Tate was a 1st rounder.

I stand corrected - but that was not because of his play up to that point. Like Hilton Armstrong his NBA credentials developed on his senior year.

 

[mauconnfan]

Yes

 

[B1GEast]

I see a Final Four in our immediate future. Not to worry.

Doomed

 

[Scottobot]

I laughed when the guy in video said Kentucky fans have fired and rehired Calipari 15 times this season. I guess we are not the only ones.

 

[Waquoit]

I stand corrected - but that was not because of his play up to that point. Like Hilton Armstrong his NBA credentials developed on his senior year.

Tate was a big reason we won that NIT.

 

[Kathy]

Tate was a big reason we won that NIT.

I agree but no one, not even fans thought he was a 1st rounder. Actually he was not liked by many, of couse not as much as Taliek was maligned. Never understood that - I know he wasn't a scorer but he was a tough nosed PG - we don't win that NC without him.

 

[Scrutineer]

I’m seeing so much talk in the national media (and among our fans) that this is a "must-win" for Hurley to get the "he can't coach in the tournament" off his back.

Frankly, I think that talk is ridiculous. Of course we want to advance as far as we can and take a step forward.

But I think this fanbase majorly loses sight of how difficult it is to win in the NCAA tournament because we've been so fortunate. And, more importantly, how a single game in the NCAA tournament is not indicative of the state of an entire college basketball program.

Let's look at what some other coaches around the country have attached to their names...

Coach K- Has lost to a 15-seed and a 14-seed.
Tony Bennett- The only coach to ever lose to a 16 seed. (Can you imagine this board if that happened????????)
Calipari- Hasn't won an NCAA tournament game since 2019. In that span, he's had a 9-16 team and has lost to a 15-seeded team from the MAAC.
Cooley- Took 11 seasons to get to his first Sweet 16 (yes, different expectations at PC, but he's still a revered coach in college, and has had the talent to get to multiple sweet 16s)
Self- (Who I think is clearly the best coach in the game right now) Has lost to multiple double digit seeds.

The list goes on and on. And for all of them, they're still revered coaches.

If we lose to Iona, yeah, it's going to suck. And sting. And the insufferable fans will come out and do their insufferable thing. And the narrative will still be that Hurley can't coach in the NCAA tournament, when in reality it's probably one player going off for 40 points and some players on our side getting tight in big moments.

But then the dust will settle. The months will go by. Some people will depart the program. We'll probably land a high end transfer or 2.
Then summer session rolls around before we know it. Our top 5 recruiting class will come onto campus, and the hype will potentially be at an all time high under Hurley.

So just enjoy the ride right now. We were probably one three pointer away from being in the Big East Championship game last week, and probably rolling a gassed Xavier. The narrative right now would've been totally different.

No matter what stupid takes you have if/when we lose in the next few weeks, the sun will still come up and we will still have a dynamite team next season with a dynamite coach whose seat remains quite cool.

Just saw this thread and don't have time to read all the responses, so I hope I'm not repeating what others have said.

DH was brought here and is being paid NC level money to win and if we lose in the first round three years in a row that sure should raise questions about how he's doing.

Maybe you don't recall all the comments about how JC couldn't get to the FF, until he did (nine years after the "Dream Season"), and it took the right mix of recruits to do it, especially a point guard with moxie that was a leader. Hopefully it doesn't take DH nine years to win his first NCAA game.

But, it's fair to say DH, for all his increasingly better recruits, hasn't yet put a real leader on the floor and hasn't proven he can make the right calls in crunch time. Maybe it'll be this year, but calling people stupid because they criticize his failure to win a first round game in the tournament three years in a row (if that happens) would be ignoring reality.

You said: "And the narrative will still be that Hurley can't coach in the NCAA tournament, when in reality it's probably one player going off for 40 points and some players on our side getting tight in big moments."

Those are excuses that shouldn't have to be made for a coach if he's making adjustments in game and has prepared his team.
Part of preparing them is getting them into the right mindset at the start, especially first round games when they're most likely to be uptight.

I believe he wins, gets the monkey off his back, and gets people criticizing him for not yet making the FF if it doesn't happen this year................

 

[Excalibur]

I hope so. Jeff Capel from Pitt got his first tourney win last night and Pitt sucked every year before this season. It would be super embarrassing .

It's impossible to articulate just how disingenuous that statement is.