It’s hard to be that unprepared for a game. | Page 2 | The Boneyard

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

Coaching is relatively straight forward you have strengths and weaknesses. You try to highlight your strengths and avoid the weaknesses. Their strength 1 player our strength.. defense. 1 player score an inefficient 37 and we lost imagine….
 
Speaking of the talent on this team: highly overrated. NMSU guys had more footspeed than our guys and equal athletically.

They also had a go to guy in Allen who torched us.

Hurley has no strategy except to our hustle the other team. Sanogo very selfish and soft. His play big reason we lost.


PS: Dan Hurley is on the hot seat. This performance after last years mantra about the loss to Maryland.
 
The game was tied 16 minutes into the game.
Because their offense was started slowly as well. But theirs eventually started going. Our didn't get going until after half. We just stayed stalled all first half.
 
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.
 
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So this. Hurley did not have team ready. Got outhustled much of the game. Still no post season wins, year 4.
 
You didn’t watch if that’s your conclusion. One guy scored 37 out of 70 points. This game made us look like the 85 Bears against Kadary the first time around.

Danny is clearly not ready for the big stage. Forget about how soft and unprepared we came out. His continued inability to adjust in game is mind boggling. 3rd grade hoops coaches can diagnose this crap.
Don't we have some 3rd grade coaches on the BY?

Maybe they should have been on the bench this game.
 
Should have played a zone WAYYYY sooner and or had a hybrid defense similar to the one Maryland employed on us last year in the tournament that stopped Bouknight cold. Maryland basically Would form a wall of 2-3 ppl in the interior when bouknight drove down the lane. Well. On to next year!!! Hopeful that Clingan will transition nicely and be incorporated earlier. We need a nice rotation of Akok, Samson, Clingan.
 
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Yet again. Unprepared and not ready for the one thing that’s completely and painfully obvious to be ready for.

I love what Hurley is doing for the program but he is not a good in-game coach and we need help fast. I don’t give two about what any poster thinks… letting Allen do that is inexcusable without having something different prepared is insane. Picking up your guy every time at half court and getting blown by doesn’t actually work.

Find another team that is as that unprepared, undisciplined, or tighter when it matters more than his teams. You can’t.

I cannot wait to hear/see the excuses, Instagram posts, wife’s podscasts, and cool off-season mantras to come… 45 07.
 
The guy went off and couldn’t be stopped. Not hard to understand but we need better players.
That’s called competitive basketball. Every loss has an excuse. Hell, we didn’t even prep to deny his right hand. Make him move left and he is less efficient.
 
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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?.
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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