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

[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.

 

[RayRipRudy]

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 Dan Hurley 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?

 

[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 Mahaney, 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]

Dan Hurley 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.