It’s hard to be that unprepared for a game.

[Palatine]

Guys not named Allen went 7-11 from three. The OP is not good analysis.

 

[Connecticut13]

So...maybe we'll win an NCAA Tournament game in 2028?

 

[NEforceUConn]

Damn you guys are relentless. We had a fighters chance of putting the game away, and came up short.

Don't blame the players or coach.

 

[USNavyDog]

So...maybe we'll win an NCAA Tournament game in 2028?

We will.

 

[Dibbie]

Yeah, Hurley probably has the best job security in the country

 

[TheRealKBuks]

So, this fan base firing Calipari now too?

Has Hurley won a national title or made multiple final fours? Until those happen the vast majority of takes in this thread are completely reasonable.

 

[AdamaNation]

They hit some absolutely ridiculous shots. What is preparation going to do about that?

I hate teddy Allen on a devendorf level.

 

[shizzle787]

Yeah, Hurley probably has the best job security in the country

We have wealthy donors. If he chokes again next year, they’ll pay up.

 

[Austin316]

Patience is a virtue… some of you need to learn to tolerate things that can take a long time.

I appreciate our ability to climb back into relevance while knowing well there are areas for improvement.

 

[CheshireCat]

Hope so

 

[gampelcrazies]

We have wealthy donors. If he chokes again next year, they’ll pay up.

Not according to UConn

 

[metsfan2323]

Don't want him gone anyway. He's a good coach and he will fix this.

0 - 2 in the tournament as our coach is not a big enough sample size to come to the conclusion that he can't win here.

 

[AdamaNation]

When your two best players originally went to Howard and URI I’d posit we have a roster construction issue. Hurleys been here long enough to own that. Bad loss. Hurley owns this

The Howard guy was 1st all big east.

 

[shizzle787]

Patience is a virtue… some of you need to learn to tolerate things that can take a long time.

I appreciate our ability to climb back into relevance while knowing well there are areas for improvement.

There is something called transfer portal. This is 2022, not 2018. Every player in America is effectively a free agent at the end of every year. We can make a better team through transfers.

 

[shizzle787]

Don't want him gone anyway. He's a good coach and he will fix this.

0 - 2 in the tournament as our coach is not a big enough sample size to come to the conclusion that he can't win here.

He has lost as many times in the first round as Calhoun did in 25 years.

 

[metsfan2323]

He has lost as many times in the first round as Calhoun did in 25 years.

I remember Calhoun losing a first round game with Drummond, Lamb, and Napier as starters. It happens.

How about the years Calhoun didn't make the tournament?

 

[Palatine]

I agree but last year was more on the lottery pick and his poor judgment the last few games

Bouk was hobbled aftter the dehydration issue. He was cooked,

 

[uconngb]

He has lost as many times in the first round as Calhoun did in 25 years.

And twice as many as the higher seed (and the only one JC ever lost was because AJP blew out his knee in the first half and we had no backup)

 

[AdamaNation]

Can we attempt to keep the Hurley debate in one thread? It may be an impossibility on this board, but I figured it's worth a shot.

My thoughts are all over the place, and feel free to critique...

1.) Hurley probably deserves to be in the hot seat next year. He does a lot of things well, but we are a team that expects to win in the tournament. 0 wins in 4 years is unacceptable. Period. Rebuild or not.

2.) He also is probably NOT on the hot seat, because we don't have the money for it.

3.) Either he doesn't know how, or his emotions get in the way, of Hurley making adjustments and coaching well in close games. Yes, the players missed shots. Yes, we didn't defend all that well. But when the team consistent lays eggs in close games and tournament games, it's on the COACH.

4.) The refusal to play a zone early this season when we could practice it with lower stakes cost us big time. The inflexibility on defense kills us. Our strategy is not much more nuanced than "play harder than the other team"... that works A LOT of the time. That doesn't work against teams like Creighton, Nova, and certainly not in big tournament games. Everyone is prepared. Everyone knows your playbook

5.) We recruited well, but made some mistakes. We expected Gaffney to contribute more than he did. I'm not sure we can blame the staff for that. Same with the Whaley/Sanogo thing... they don't play well together, but ultimately they're two of our best players and they do need to see the floor. Even if they don't mesh well.

Is Whaley sanogo a poor man oriakhi and Drummond? Our biggest issue to me, was how our vaunted depth evaporated by week 4. No pg. no Akok. No Sampson. Nothing. Anyone not called polley or Hawkins (until game 20 or so) did anything. AA is such an anomaly. I loooovvvee this guy. But he just gets played. He gif hit a nice jumper.

 

[Castlevania]

Can we ATLEAST wait until he doesn't have numerous Ollie era guys and transfers leading the team?

 

[karstenkibbe]

Quite clear tonight that fault lies with our coach and the players. First half was an absolute joke. No effort. No sense of urgency. Sanogo still making the same mistakes game in, game out. Hurley puts in Polley, who scores two quick threes, then he inexplicably takes him out. Game was tied at 20, and then NMST goes on a 12-2 run to close out the half. Our big three of Cole, Martin and Sanogo completely crapped the bed in the first 20 minutes. I was shocked. We were owned on the boards, and it was not because NMST is a bigger, better rebounding team.

Shot selection was horrid. Once again, guys can’t grab the ball with two hands, or they knock the ball away from a teammate on a rebound. The funny thing is that with the game tied, all we had to do was secure a rebound and we could have gone down and taken a lead. Instead, five guys stood there and literally watched the ball bounce into the hands of a NMST player - who simply handed it to Allen for a dagger three and that was all she wrote. No killer instinct. No mentality to hunt down loose balls. Hard to explain how UConn players always seemed a step too slow when the game was on the line this season. Or we couldn’t finish around the basket for an and-1 (over and over and over again tonight). I wish I knew the answer. But this team had lots of flaws. Maybe our collective expectations were too high.

 

[TheRealKBuks]

Patience is a virtue… some of you need to learn to tolerate things that can take a long time.

I appreciate our ability to climb back into relevance while knowing well there are areas for improvement.

I mean this sincerely, I (and the overwhelming majority of us) have been patient since 2016... how much more patience can we reasonably expect from this fan base.

 

[The Viking]

12 years as a head coach. 1 conference title, 1 conference tourney title and 2 round of 32 ncaa appearances. I will never understand the hype for this guy. Mediocre coach will bring mediocre results. Florida wants this guy for WHAT? I don’t buy it.

I was just joking about the Florida thing after the thread the other day about some article by an ESPN intern.

 

[Palatine]

I completely disagree with this take. High motors are not our problem and it wasn’t tonight.

NM ST was a terrible matchup for us like providence and creighton were. They played hard, rebounded and defended very well. For a large portion of the game they completely locked down Cole and prevented him from even getting the ball.

Then they had a kid who made miracle shots and drew terrible fouls by us. Not having a second guy who can get his own shot has killed us all year, nothing new. But I disagree about how hard the kids played. Maybe it didn’t look it because they beat us at our own game.

We have been killed by being unable to play defense without fouling at the end of games all year. Once there are five minutes to go, we foul on drive after drive and tonight even on jump shots. Nothing new. We do it all the time.

 

[Kolumbo]

I remember Calhoun losing a first round game with Drummond, Lamb, and Napier as starters. It happens.

How about the years Calhoun didn't make the tournament?

When you build up a boatload of equity, "it happens." If you have no equity, you can't lose to #12 in round 1.