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

[tzznandrew]

A rebuild isn't supposed to look like losing as a substantial favorite in the NCAAT two years in a row.

7-10 isn't a substantial favorite. It's a coin flip. And they lost after their best player was hurt for a lot of the season and never came back healthy.

 

[tzznandrew]

Box and 1

Junk defenses like that don't often work against real teams. One, you don't practice them enough to make them effective. Two, this isn't middle school basketball.

 

[RichCTBB]

It's a new age in cbb. Gotta hammer the portal (and know kids will leave us)

This is the most interesting part for me now. The impact of freshman vs super seniors playing with the extra year will take a minute to filter itself out and will amplify the number of transfers this year and next. I don’t mean to speculate on individual players, but I don’t think culture wins over playing style for the players given Hurley’s pattern of tournament results. I think he has it in him to learn from this season and will likely have some uncomfortable conversations with his superiors this off season.

 

[husky429]

7-10 isn't a substantial favorite. It's a coin flip. And they lost after their best player was hurt for a lot of the season and never came back healthy.

One game isn't a pattern; I'm not concerned about that one game. I'm concerned about us consistently falling flat in our close and most important games with Hurley at the helm. No way around it. It's fixable. He's a good coach in a lot of respects, but he needs to be forced to make some changes if this team expects to compete at a high level.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

This is what a rebuild is suppose to look like.

We were ranked for a majority of the season and received the highest seed since 2010-2011 and went to the tournament back-to-back seasons in the first time in 10 years. This is Danny’s 4th year at UConn and 1 of those 4 years there wasn’t a tournament.

We are back to relevance which is something you need to consider since we were a joke prior to him being here.

Stop getting emotionally tied down after a loss and be patient with the rebuild process.

Just for comparison, as Devil's Advocate, Creighton's "rebuild" took exactly 1 year. They're in the second round, without their star freshman point guard, and with their injured center missing the end of their win last night.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Yup. I think everyone expected to be a bubble team.

This was a good flawed team whose best upperclassmen were high floor low ceiling guys. Honestly, a trio of Hawkins-Sanogo-Jackson should be very good, and as much as I like Whaley, him not being on the roster will force Hurley to play a more balanced 5.

Yes, a lot of high floor, low ceiling guys, and also guys whose strengths were accompanied by glaring weaknesses that were easy to exploit.

Jackson is an incredible athlete, great rebounder, decent (albeit at times overrated) defender, and has good court vision, but is completely unwilling or unable to create his own shot -- not only from deep, but you can probably count on one hand the number of contested driving layups he had all year.

Polley is a great shooter, but an awful rebounder and defender for a 4, and not enough of a passer or ball-handler for a 3.

Hawkins, similar, great shooter, but very physically weak and a surprisingly unusable handle at the 2.

It's not only a matter of having a more well-rounded team, but more well-rounded individuals at each position.

And, yes, having Whaley move on may weaken us somewhat defensively, but should make us much harder to defend on offense*, especially if Jackson is going to be a focal point.


* Despite his limitations, I give Whaley credit for doing the one thing we all said he needed to do last offseason and develop a credible 3-point shot. It wasn't enough, but he did hit some big ones.

 

[tzznandrew]

Just for comparison, as Devil's Advocate, Creighton's "rebuild" took exactly 1 year.

"Rebuild" from what? To what? They beat us twice this year but we were objectively the better team. Sucks that we lost the first round, but I don't actually know what the comparison is to.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

Teams like Gonzaga, Baylor and Villanova have 4-5 shooters on the floor most of the time. This year our starting line up had maybe 2 with RJ and Rese.

There was only one shooter on the floor in the starting lineup. Cole. Martin can make shots, and sometimes in streaks, but that doesn't make you a shooter.

 

[superjohn]

7-10 isn't a substantial favorite. It's a coin flip. And they lost after their best player was hurt for a lot of the season and never came back healthy.

UConn was 3.5 point favorites against Maryland and lost by 9. UConn was 6.5 point favorites against New Mexico State and lost by 7.

 

[Cutthacheck]

How is it that Dan Hurley couldn't draw up a base line alley oop play for AJ all year? He should've been used like Stanley Robinson, not running point guard. And where's the white boys that could shoot on this team?

 

[Tenspro2002]

There was only one shooter on the floor in the starting lineup. Cole. Martin can make shots, and sometimes in streaks, but that doesn't make you a shooter.

Come on. He shot 43% on 3.4 attempts per game.

 

[tzznandrew]

UConn was 3.5 point favorites against Maryland and lost by 9. UConn was 6.5 point favorites against New Mexico State and lost by 7.

And? They weren't a "substantial" favorite against Maryland. And they were really just not at full strength.

They were against NMSU. Would have been nice to have Hawkins, but this loss is inexcusable.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

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

One of those "Ollie" guys was the BE defensive player of the year last year, and our best defender all year, who added the ability to make some 3's this year. Another one was the perimeter shooter that literally every team we played marked like he's Steph Curry.

 

[Madmannsucks]

Stupid me. I thought the reason we replaced KO, was because we were tired of underachieving teams. Kettle, meet pot.

 

[auror]

One of those "Ollie" guys was the BE defensive player of the year last year, and our best defender all year, who added the ability to make some 3's this year.

Whaley's shooting was a net negative. He didn't make enough of his attempts, so his shots all had a substantial negative opportunity cost. And because his shot wasn't actually good, teams didn't respect it and camped his man in the lane, so we got no benefit from what should have been the spacing of playing the 4 on the perimeter.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Stupid me. I thought the reason we replaced KO, was because we were tired of underachieving teams. Kettle, meet pot.

We replaced KO because we were tired of losing by 20 points and getting embarrassed on the recruiting trail.

Last night was a bad loss, but this is getting ridiculous.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

Come on. He shot 43% on 3.4 attempts per game.

I'll politely disagree. He's not a guy that the other team has to game plan for because of his shooting. Cole is. And Polley, as flawed as his other metrics are, also is.

 

[Tenspro2002]

I'll politely disagree. He's not a guy that the other team has to game plan for because of his shooting. Cole is. And Polley, as flawed as his other metrics are, also is.

And he killed a lot of teams down the stretch for not "game planning for his shooting".

24 for 55 (44%) since early February, almost 2 made 3's per game.

I'll happily have a guy who punishes the opponent for not respecting his shot. That's not a mark against him.

 

[Milo65]

Hurley continued to play Whalley and Sanogo, two true centers and this is what you get. When Whalley stays in the middle, its clogged offensively. When he moves outside, Sanogo gets doubled, because Whalley's outside shot is suspect. Offensively have Jackson and Whalley with Sanogo doubled, leaving only Martin and Cole as anyone who can score. Defensively, you asking Whalley or Sanoga to guard the perimeter.

Creighton exposed us twice like this. Dan makes no adjustments and continues to trot out the same starting lineup. Insert Polley for Whalley and that's how your free up Sanogo.

Anyone hear anything about Hawkins? Still in concussion protocol or was he being rested for future tournament games that don't exist?

 

[Improviser]

Just for comparison, as Devil's Advocate, Creighton's "rebuild" took exactly 1 year. They're in the second round, without their star freshman point guard, and with their injured center missing the end of their win last night.

This season, Creighton had a ton of game ready and capable freshmen who started and did well, even when Nembhard got injured. Not sure if they were highly ranked or if they performed beyond expectations.

Quite the contrast to UConn's freshman class.

Next year for UConn is a hard one to predict. If no glue guys like Cole , Martin, and Whaley, then will we regress? Will this year's rarely played freshmen step up, and will Karaban and Clingan and Floyd, make up for the gap. How well we do in the portal can make or break us.

 

[UConnDad]

As of today next year’s roster does not make me optimistic. Desperately need some offensive firepower.

 

[Jbirdp5]

this is the kind of stuff i keep ruminating on that makes me really wonder if he can get us back to being UConn. Kind of scary.

Hoping he keeps growing. We will learn a ton next year.

With the last two seasons results it is definitely a concern. I do think that Hurley is reflective and will look in the mirror and know he has to make improvements. I think he does want to be great and is willing to put the work in to get there. Next year will be interesting depending on what the roster ends up looking like. Could be a team with Jackson and Sanogo as the only guys with big time experience.

 

[RioDog]

Hurley is a big mouth that hasn't delivered crap in the spot light. His biggest win was watching from the locker room while Kamani coached. Fanboys love the schtick and buy the bull sheet, and keep covering for his failures. Until he actually wins something of significance, he’s just another increasingly irritating showman loaded with excuses. If Florida wants him, please take him. Thats where most Jersey trash ends up anyways.

He doesn't, by any chance, have a propensity to wear red pants does he?

 

[Northbound]

Is it a fair criticism to say that DH has to:

1) Figure out how to make more in-game adjustments - whether via schemes or personnel.

2) He's had some odd defensive lapses for a defensive minded coach. Haven't Richmond, Hawkins, Allen, etc. have had what seems to be career games. Don't those adjustments to stop the bleeding have to be made you know, IN GAME.

3) Get complimentary pieces - it's not the best guys, it's the best guys that fit together - skill sets and personalities

4) Get young guys more run - that's it he's' got to extend that bench in games whenever possible.

5) Maybe just let go of "how far we've come" part of the conversation - we all get it.

 

[1999GoodSon]

Blaming the kids is ridiculous. They were energized as hell for this game. Dreaming about it since they were toddlers. Teams lose energy naturally in the flow of the game. When you're losing to an inferior team, of course you're deflated. Good coaches use timeouts, play calls, and personnel management to keep their guys energy up and keep them focused.

You've got to wonder whether the outcome would've been different if Kimani "Nova" Young had been calling the X's and O's down the stretch

Boom. Was at both games. Sat in shock as we didn't adjust at the end. Hurley choked, the players didn't. It was surreal. As bad as we looked almost all night, we were still right there. The guy next to us yelled to me the same thing we were all thinking. Does he even want to win this $#$#@ game?