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

[uconnever]

I don’t really blame Hurley, these players were sleep walking right out of the gate. These are men who have dreamed of playing and winning this tournament since they were kids. They have to have some self motivation and hunger and excitement at the moment. That should be natural. Why does Hurley and anyone else have to get them to give maximum effort when it’s clear that your in a fight. Whenever Geno Auriemma talks to his team, one the main things he says is,”we do t teach effort here and if you need that from us, your in the wrong place”. Effort always but especially this time of year is a given. You always punch first, why wait?.

 

[uconngb]

They came out with decent defense but absolutely woeful offense. Stagnant. Passive. Dug a hole. Never got out.

Hurley knows this is a problem. He has said he needs to be better coming out f the locker room. He hasn't figured it out yet.

Our other big problem finishing games reared its head as well.

I have preached this all year and it ultimately ended our season. When you start a game with 2+ players that are so offensively deficient you are putting yourself behind the 8 ball EVERY game. We have a very stubborn, and unproven, coach.

Not a good mix

 

[husky429]

I don’t think it’s coaching as much as it is roster construction.

IMO it's both. We're clearly missing 1 guard, and Whaley/Sanogo just don't fit together. We're missing a shooter on the floor most of the time because of it.

However, when you look at the history of falling short in close games, it just speaks for itself. I can point to moments I would do things differently, or wonder if Hurley could have pulled out the 'Nova game like Kimani did... whatever. It's all conjecture in the end. There's no BLATANT weakness that my relatively untrained eye is going to pick out. You can just tell something is wrong.

 

[UKemba15]

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.

The “play harder than the other team” strategy works well when you are a great recruiter at a mid-major school. Like I’ve said, I’m a huge Hurley supporter, but either he needs to make some changes or the AD does. I have yet to witness a willingness to change from Hurley.

 

[FatHank]

We need a stable and productive O attached to our D. Sool and Hawkins need to get more reps and run court and give us sparks. Gaffney won't do it for me. The bad losses are on Hurley amd the best way to win them is to avoid getting in them. This is a consistent problem with us.

 

[UconnFanNVa]

He's Calipari lite. He can bring in some solid talent for us, but he'll have a hard time getting then to play like a team and win. If we luck out one year we might get a player that doesn't need good coaching to dominate and make us a contender. That's what I see in our future with Hurley.

 

[Kitaman]

If you know your team is offensively deficient and prone to slow starts, shouldn't that be a priority to fix?

I know defense is his trademark, but damn if the defense ain't stopping the opponent and you have no offense on the floor, what the hell does Coach expect the outcome to look like. Its funny how announcers kept glowing over our offensive rebounding prowess, but the truth is we miss a lot of shots and/or players are anticipating a miss.

Also stop Cole and Sanogo in the first half opponents can easily build a lead. Martin ain't shooting till 2nd half, AJ is pass first and well Whaley is on offense only because he's needed for defense. He's paid big money to rectify this, not carry this into a one and done Tourney.

Just saying, our slow starts were never fixed, and it costs us this game and our Tourney chances.

 

[tuvent08]

I think that, as with all of us, our strengths become weaknesses when taken to extremes. This is easy to do. He's an extremely emotional guy who is relatable to the players. You want to go to war with him. The problem is that when you're actually in battle you want someone who is poised enough to make sound decisions and keep his players on a relatively even keel. Calhoun was the rarest of breeds in that he was kind of both.

 

[Hungryhusky99]

I don’t think it’s coaching as much as it is roster construction.

Who constructs the roster???

 

[superjohn]

Shaheen Holloway and the St. Peter's Peacocks just knocked off Kentucky and I called it. That one was for my dad and brought some tears.

Takes some of the sting out of the Husky loss.

 

[husky429]

I don’t really blame Hurley, these players were sleep walking right out of the gate. These are men who have dreamed of playing and winning this tournament since they were kids. They have to have some self motivation and hunger and excitement at the moment. That should be natural. Why does Hurley and anyone else have to get them to give maximum effort when it’s clear that your in a fight. Whenever Geno Auriemma talks to his team, one the main things he says is,”we do t teach effort here and if you need that from us, your in the wrong place”. Effort always but especially this time of year is a given. You always punch first, why wait?.

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.

 

[Jaker]

nice Super John

 

[Giddyup5]

Most important stat of the game. Great comment.

I disagree.

Yes they shot well. But we should be able to overcome that if we had maximized this roster. We didn’t.

He wanted to play our best 5 individual players the most minutes. That was the biggest problem of the season.

Rather he should have played the players that complimented each other the best the most

 

[BGesus4]

I don’t think it’s coaching as much as it is roster construction.

We need way more guard scoring/playmaking ability. That is the name of the game in college bball and we only have Cole which is just not enough.

 

[BackAftaThis]

Shaheen Holloway and the St. Peter's Peacocks just knocked off Kentucky and I called it. That one was for my dad and brought some tears.

Takes some of the sting out of the Husky loss.

Also goes to show anyone can beat anyone.

Calipari, McCaffery, and Hurley all with horrible losses today.

 

[kansashusky]

Roster construction is the biggest issue right now. We have several players with similar traits and those traits don’t equate to winning.

 

[jibsey]

Getting better talent is the key. Not like we had Richard Hamilton, Kemba, Ben Gordon or Ray Allen out there. Look at the roster please. Hurley has to get better talent.

 

[Dogammit]

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.

Really well stated….

 

[connVA]

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

 

[husky429]

Getting better talent is the key. Not like we had Richard Hamilton, Kemba, Ben Gordon or Ray Allen out there. Look at the roster please. Hurley has to get better talent.

We had better talent at 4 of the 5 positions on the floor. We had to stop 1 player and didn't.

 

[Kenny11]

Agree with everything here and want to add that not developing the freshmen in games this year was unfortunate but would make sense…if we could win a tournament game..so that stings even more now.

Remember back in the day what Shaq said about Stan van gundy. He called him a “master of panic”. That comes to my mind a lot in regards to Hurley.

 

[nycscooby]

Give this squad to any number of other coaches in the BE let alone the country and we have a far better result this season.

I get the feeling that Hurley thinks this was a 4-5 year rebuild or that is what he and the administration settled on? He has constantly spoken about how much the team stunk and the state of the program when he got here. He is content with the progress, focusing on identity of our play, restoring our identity, etc. all of which is important but I don’t sense the urgency from him which conflicts with what our fanbase wants. He is saying just wait until
I get a fuller roster with all the tools (how often has he spoken about missing a scoring wing this season?) and then see what I can do?

What bothers me most about DH are (1) you can’t take the long view on the program, you must adjust and squeeze every ounce out of your roster you can for the now and you can live with the results, and (2) in big games/moments he gets tight and his team plays tight almost all the time, and (3) he is stubborn and seems to refuse to make adjustments.

 

[Valleyfan]

thank you Kentucky for taking the spotlight off us. One coach worse than DH is calipari!

 

[connVA]

Getting better talent is the key. Not like we had Richard Hamilton, Kemba, Ben Gordon or Ray Allen out there. Look at the roster please. Hurley has to get better talent.

True but those weren't the 1999 Blue Devils on the other side of the court either

 

[boog204]

I have to say, I just don't like our style of play, and it has nothing to do with our lack of shooters. I don't even like our defense either. I just find it unappealing.

Absolutely… we run the same things every possession and there are few wrinkles or adjustments. The offense is predicated on having guys who can handle and make plays. We have one guy who can do that.