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

[connVA]

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

The counterargument for the "can't win the big game" argument is the Auburn win. However, stealing a win like that in the beginning of the season when teams- especially teams laden with young talent- are still trying to establish their identities is a bit of a fallacy. To that point, I don't think there's a chance in hell we would have beaten them from January onward. You're right- our only truly "big" win (i.e., winning a game against a team as strong or stronger than us on paper) in the last four months was against Villanova, and Hurley wasn't even on the sidelines for 75% of the game.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

I saw Carlton make a comment that Sampson had him doing a lot of repetitive “touch” drills working on post moves and finishes with both hands turning both directions. His point was that this was completely different than how it was at UConn.

You have to develop skills that you want players to use. Light bulbs seldom just turn on by themselves.

I'm going to add to this, as I see a lot of "Whaley took too many 3's even though he was left wide open" posts. Clearly, teams left him open because he couldn't make them reliably (about 30% on the year). What if, and I'm just spitballing here, coaches recognized that they needed him to be another outside threat, and worked with him with a lot of extra shooting to be more of a confident weapon out there? He may have taken more 3s than we wanted while shooting 30%, but he also passed up a ton of shots when wide open. He has good shooting form and a smooth stroke. That can be and should have been developed into much more of a weapon than it was. Could that be on Whaley? Sure. But if I'm that player that baseline shoots at 30% I have to hear from the coaches that they want me working on that and want to see me take it when I'm open. That gives confidence.

Players, unless they are extremely self-motivated, will develop at their own pace. Coaches who recognize abilities and capacity to improve that may not be apparent to the player can expand the limits and accelerate the timetable. Like Sampson did with Carlton.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

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?

I was amazed that, with NM St. overplaying passes on the perimeter from the get go I didn't see more backdoor cuts and/or back screens to combat it. It never really happened, leading to the Allen steal when Cole couldn't bypass the overplay on Whaley late.

 

[auror]

I was amazed that, with NM St. overplaying passes on the perimeter from the get go I didn't see more backdoor cuts and/or back screens to combat it. It never really happened, leading to the Allen steal when Cole couldn't bypass the overplay on Whaley late.

They were only overplaying Cole, really. Otherwise they had 1 guy keeping Martin honest and the other 3 guys glued in the paint. There was nowhere to back cut into.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

They were only overplaying Cole, really. Otherwise they had 1 guy keeping Martin honest and the other 3 guys glued in the paint. There was nowhere to back cut into.

Look again. They overplayed any wing coming for the ball. The downfall is Sanogo has to leave the paint for it to have a chance.

But let's say you're right. You've still got to work those back cuts/back screens with Cole to get him the ball, and clear the paint to have it work.

 

[polycom]

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

No.

 

[djct1999]

What makes this fan base so great is how emotionally invested we all get. I wouldn't change it for the world. But a a day later, this narrative has to change. Last night had nothing to do with Hurley. The guys on the floor came up short. How so:



This is about execution. We didn't execute as we should have. Can't blame Hurley for that although some on here still will.

 

[methodology]

"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.

Creighton was in a massive rebuild this year… the only thing that saved them is McDermott is a tremendous coach and played his incoming class (#5 ranked class in nation). Those freshman took their lumps and flourished as the season progressed. Quite the opposite of Hurley who never wanted to play the talented freshman on UConn and because of that mismanagement it caused a glass ceiling for the team to be created that could never be broken through. Absolutely horrible roster management and development from Hurley this year that handcuffed the teams chances in the tournament. He made a sacrifice and lost

2021-22 Big East Basketball Summer Check-In: Creighton Bluejays

What will Greg McDermott do in what clearly looks like a rebuilding year?

www.anonymouseagle.com

Key Departures: Well, buckle up, because we got some names to talk about.

Creighton has lost their top five scorers from last season. Marcus Zegarowski opted to leave school after his junior season to turn pro, while Denzel Mahoney, Damien Jefferson, and Mitch Ballock all elected to forego their COVID-bonus seasons of eligibility completely. That leaves Christian Bishop out of the top five scorers last season, and he turned his 11.0 points and 6.4 rebounds per game as a junior into a spot on Chris Beard’s new roster at Texas.

Just those five guys ending their Creighton careers accounts for the Bluejays losing 79% of their points, 63% of their rebounds, and 76% of their assists from last season.... and that’s not everyone that they lost. Don’t get me wrong, Antwann Jones (transferred to Louisiana) was an every night rotation guy for the Jays at about 11 minutes a game.... but ultimately he isn’t having much more of an impact on those percentages that you read a couple of seconds ago.

Key Returners: Creighton returns no one who averaged more than 15 minutes a game last season. Ryan Kalkbrenner (5.9 points, 3.5 rebounds) is your leading returning scorer and rebounder, but he played less than 14 minutes a game off the bench. Shereef Mitchell appeared in 30 games, started twice, and got 14.4 minutes of run on average..... but only chipped in 3.3 points, 1.4 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game. I guess we can count Alex O’Connell (3.4 points, 2.2 rebounds) here, but let’s not pretend that his 9.7 minutes per game in 24 outings was making a big impact on the roster a year ago.

 

[Austin316]

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.

Fair point! McDermott is undeniably a fantastic coach.

But he’s been there for 10+ years and has done a good job figuring out what he needs out of his players and building a culture at Creighton. Something Hurley is still doing.

I don’t disagree that Hurley should have prepared a little better for this game or made some different moves throughout the season - any coach is going to wish they did things differently - but in terms of maneuvering the program in the right direction he’s close. I agree we needed that win to undoubtedly call this rebuild a success but there are also many contributors factors and positive takeaways from the season that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

 

[Drfla]

DH will learn and assemble better teams going forward. Was loyal to a fault, now needs to get best players on the court he can

Agree. Loyalty was a good thing for culture but now the game has changed with the transfer portal. UConn must adapt and use the portal.

should be able to get some darn good players on the portal…this is UConn, a name brand with championship history.

 

[Improviser]

I'm going to add to this, as I see a lot of "Whaley took too many 3's even though he was left wide open" posts. Clearly, teams left him open because he couldn't make them reliably (about 30% on the year). What if, and I'm just spitballing here, coaches recognized that they needed him to be another outside threat, and worked with him with a lot of extra shooting to be more of a confident weapon out there? He may have taken more 3s than we wanted while shooting 30%, but he also passed up a ton of shots when wide open. He has good shooting form and a smooth stroke. That can be and should have been developed into much more of a weapon than it was. Could that be on Whaley? Sure. But if I'm that player that baseline shoots at 30% I have to hear from the coaches that they want me working on that and want to see me take it when I'm open. That gives confidence.

Players, unless they are extremely self-motivated, will develop at their own pace. Coaches who recognize abilities and capacity to improve that may not be apparent to the player can expand the limits and accelerate the timetable. Like Sampson did with Carlton.

Beilein, especially when coaching West Virginia, developed bigs who could shoot 3's. Look at Kevin Pittsnogle for one.

His other players could too.

So yes, these skills can be developed by a coach.

 

[auror]

What makes this fan base so great is how emotionally invested we all get. I wouldn't change it for the world. But a a day later, this narrative has to change. Last night had nothing to do with Hurley. The guys on the floor came up short. How so:



This is about execution. We didn't execute as we should have. Can't blame Hurley for that although some on here still will.

I was going to look for this. Thanks. Confirms my suspicions based on their shooting %s and how easily we scored in 2nd half (layups, FTs, open 3s, etc.).

But even more than us coming up short, their team came up huge. They were +13 points vs. expected shots, we were 1 off our expectation.

Where we did gift them points was on the fouled 3pt shots. That's on Sanogo and Martin.

 

[CheshireCat]

When does "just happened" become a reality check for the head coach? We have a pattern of losing close games because of our offense. At some point the coach needs to look in the mirror

Looking in the mirror and seeing this doesn’t help much…

 

[bballerct50]

Hurley's weaknesses are:

• Lack of in game adjustments (zone? Sanogo getting beaten on hedged screens, Jackson getting beaten on dribble (his ankles are probably killing him), etc)
• Flow of offense (yes, that is on him)
  
  • Rewatch the Auburn game. I saw aggression towards the basket, half court offense looking for cutters TOWARDS the basket, spreading the court. Crisper passing. back door cutting. etc. All With confidence and less panic.
    • Michigan state game meanwhile had a lot less flow. As season went on, flow was worse, played more scared.
    • Calhoun's teams ran their plays, hit cutters, looked for the ball, were aggressive. Ran to their spot. Sharper passes. And most of all, didnt panic when holding the ball (or look scared when holding the ball 30 feet away from the hoop)
      • How many times did a double team on cole/jackson/etc and cause a turnover
  • Last night, was a lot of ball hand offs outside 3 pt line, not hitting any cutters to the basket (nor any cutters looking for the ball), last minute ISOs or pick and roll for Cole (hero ball), players were tentative with ball even outside 3pt line (why have your back to the basket wayyy out there???)
  • Why did the team play timid and scared? When most players look this way, its on the coach.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Beilein, especially when coaching West Virginia, developed bigs who could shoot 3's. Look at Kevin Pittsnogle for one.

His other players could too.

So yes, these skills can be developed by a coach.

Kevin Pittsnogle shot almost 50% from 3 as a freshman in college. Your general point is not wrong, but Beilein didn't turn him into a shooter.

 

[auror]

This was true in the 1st half, but not the 2nd. We scored 41 points on 27 possessions in the 2nd half. 1.53 points per possession. That's like the first Georgetown game level of offensive explosion.

 

[dennismenace]

The quote was that New Mexico St is a better team than UConn. By any metric you want to look at that is erroneous. Yea they shot out of their tonight but that was 1 game. 1 game doesn’t make you a better team…

New Mexico state was a better team at crunch time last night. Uconn was a better team on paper last night.

 

[Kolumbo]

Starting here at 7:35. NMSU rebounds, kicks out, Whaley is guarding no one. Ball goes to Allen, 3. Whaley was too late getting there and Martin was close to Allen but left to stay with his guy. The game plan should have been to have at least 1 player in Allen's jock strap all night. He was left completely unguarded. This was a wide open look at crunch time.

 

[dennismenace]

How more ppl don't see this is beyond me. Gone are the days of hoping to mold freshman or recruit a once every decade game changing recruit chooses your school. Every mid major underclassman is playing to move up in competition. There will be proven, game ready players every year to go out and recruit. The college game is changing quickly.

Well said! No let's hope the coach can likewise change from inflexible to flexible.

 

[auror]

Starting here at 7:35. NMSU rebounds, kicks out, Whaley is guarding no one. Ball goes to Allen, 3. Whaley was too late getting there and Martin was close to Allen but left to stay with his guy. The game plan should have been to have at least 1 player in Allen's jock strap all night. He was left completely unguarded. This was a wide open look at crunch time.

Pretty confident this is Whaley's fault, not the coaches. We absolutely 100% have a plan for how to defend after scramble offensive rebounds. And it's to do what Jackson does and grab the nearest guy and then switch back when able. Allen does a nice job of slithering away, but it's a bit unlucky that he slithers to the spot exactly opposite on the court that Whaley's man goes to, and Whaley takes 2 steps towards his guy before realizing we're in scramble instead of re-setting the defense. This is definitely a breakdown, but it's not schematic, Execution, not game plan.

Anyways, we did have a guy on him at all times, because this was Allen's only open shot of the entire night, and Whaley still got a bit of a contest in.

 

[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.

4 dislikes? What is wrong with you people?

 

[7774]

Starting here at 7:35. NMSU rebounds, kicks out, Whaley is guarding no one. Ball goes to Allen, 3. Whaley was too late getting there and Martin was close to Allen but left to stay with his guy. The game plan should have been to have at least 1 player in Allen's jock strap all night. He was left completely unguarded. This was a wide open look at crunch time.

Hey, you found the 1 really open perimeter shot he had all game. Great job!

 

[CheshireCat]

Kevin Pittsnogle shot almost 50% from 3 as a freshman in college. Your general point is not wrong, but Beilein didn't turn him into a shooter.

Endless hours of shooting every day makes a shooter - not a coach. A coach can help tweak technique, etc, but the player has to want it. Hard pressed to think many head coaches are coaching players on their shooting technique - that's why they have assistants.

 

[Kolumbo]

Pretty confident this is Whaley's fault, not the coaches. We absolutely 100% have a plan for how to defend after scramble offensive rebounds. And it's to do what Jackson does and grab the nearest guy and then switch back when able. Allen does a nice job of slithering away, but it's a bit unlucky that he slithers to the spot exactly opposite on the court that Whaley's man goes to, and Whaley takes 2 steps towards his guy before realizing we're in scramble instead of re-setting the defense. This is definitely a breakdown, but it's not schematic, Execution, not game plan.

Anyways, we did have a guy on him at all times, because this was Allen's only open shot of the entire night, and Whaley still got a bit of a contest in.

I get that it's on Whaley and I'm no coach but shouldn't the plan include having someone in Allen's back pocket no matter the situation? They talked about him all week, he was on fire, and he "slithered away" in crunch time.