Lay Off Hurley | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Lay Off Hurley

CTBasketball said:
No we haven’t been coached great. Losing Bouknight is not like losing Akok or a role player - this is his team and was built for him. They won’t succeed without him, because it’s not a well balanced team. They’re in over their heads.

When he comes back, albeit for the Xavier or Georgetown or Providence game whoever knows when, he better be ready to go.
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I agree it was built for Bouk. But your only offense can’t be “everyone give the ball to James”....that’s what they do in kids rec league.
I think Hurley has been holding his breadth waiting for Bouk.
Reminds me of when Jerry Manuel was coaching the Mets. It was always when x comes back from injury we’ll be good. But that was always his mantra. Well be good next month and they never were. Collins came in and said we can’t wait for x to get better someone has to step up and they did make a deep run.
 
Year 1: Yakwe injured, most notably Mr. 4hunnid injured as well. We had good performances like Cuse, Zona, FSU. Some bad like that Nova game lol.
However, we land Akok, James, and Jalen later we get Cole and future looks bright.

Year 2: James suspended but we still knock off Florida. James plays in Charleston and puts on a show, we lose in 2OT to Xavier bc of Naji Marshall. Tough showing in the Garden, start conference play very bad, Polley plays well then... tears his acl. Things start to trend up and... Akok gets hurt. We play very well down the stretch and have a real shot to win the conference tourney.

Year 3: Start of the year very strong and are a point away from an undefeated first 2 months. We recover and get ranked finally. The price? Most talented player on the team gets injured, season now in jeopardy after realistic sweet 16 hopes.

Moral of the story? Dan Hurley is a carpenter who gets struck by lightning every time he goes to work because where does he work? On top of the mountain.
 
NJHusky said:
I agree it was built for Bouk. But your only offense can’t be “everyone give the ball to James”....that’s what they do in kids rec league.
I think Hurley has been holding his breadth waiting for Bouk.
Reminds me of when Jerry Manuel was coaching the Mets. It was always when x comes back from injury we’ll be good. But that was always his mantra. Well be good next month and they never were. Collins came in and said we can’t wait for x to get better someone has to step up and they did make a deep run.
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There really was little choice if Gaffney isn't ready. Nobody but Martin and Gaffney can consistently get by his man, and the former can't make a layup or FT and the latter doesn't seem to have consistent confidence. Semi-normal, actually, for a 4-star sophomore PG. Sanogo is great but a freshman who fouls too much. Cole has moxie but not the athleticism. Akok is injured.

Everyone else is A10 talent. A10 talent with a healthy Bouknight can win games. A10 talent without a healthy Bouknight is going to lose most nights to Big East teams.
 
4xChamps said:
I don’t have a problem with what he’s saying about Bouknight. I do have a problem with him blaming the crappy offense on the PG play and lack of confidence from the players. Anyone with two eyes can see that the offensive sets are abysmal and that starts with the coaching staff.
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That’s true, but if Polley just hits a few shots today we probably win too. So it’s a litany of small things that roll up into Ls. There’s no depth at SG behind Bouk so that has hurt too. This roster wasn’t constructed to endure losing its best player.
 
Hurley will get a pass for this season. We’ve had it rough with multiple Covid shut downs. Even programs that have not been shut down and are run by some of the best to ever do it (Duke and Coah K) are having historically bad seasons. The Bouknight situation is very bizarre. That doesn’t help things. We still have plenty of games to play. The season is not over yet by any means. Im not giving up.
 
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UConnStats said:
That’s true, but if Polley just hits a few shots today we probably win too. So it’s a litany of small things that roll up into Ls. There’s no depth at SG behind Bouk so that has hurt too. This roster wasn’t constructed to endure losing its best player.
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If he hits 1 shot (the 3 to tie the game with around 3 minutes left), we win the game
 
UConnStats said:
There’s no depth at SG behind Bouk so that has hurt too. This roster wasn’t constructed to endure losing its best player.
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And given what Hurley came into, the only way to really do that was to run off a bunch of players. And I'm glad he didn't. But there are short-term consequences to that.
 
This team is built around James.

That's an issue in itself. A coach recruits kids to make them better, prepare them for games, to perform at the highest level themselves; not to fill-in around one person. What if that one person, God forbid, should not be able to play anymore? You throw up your hands and say, Oh well I can't win without my star? That's what it looked like today.
Any coach worth his weight recruits the best for every position, finding the best players to do different things needed to be successful AND recruits to avoid having any one player carrying the team. Most importantly the coach gives the players confidence that they can do the job without "the star". I don't hear that coming from Dan Hurley now, I hear excuses.
That's Coaching 101
 
CTBasketball said:
Seriously. He’s in a very difficult position. James is getting information from his own personal surgeon and advisors - not connected to the university at all. They don’t talk to Hurley. They communicate through James and his people.

Hurley cannot publicly say “James went against University advice, got his own surgeon and advisors, and is now paying for that with either:
A) a faulty unsuccessful surgery
B) a successful surgery, but he is not playing because he or his party doesn’t want to hurt his draft stock

Option B, which is more than likely at least partially true, would be a team killer. Bouknight is toying with the coaching staff, and Hurley can’t throw his player under the bus. He’s giving the information just as he gets it.

If James and his people truly wanted to be out there he would be. The initial 2-4 week timeline was estimated by team doctors because they know how minor of an injury this really is.
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Hurley is clearly frustrated that the situation is out of his hands, and not in a medical sense.

Bouknight's handlers (yes, at this point it's fair to use that term) went outside the team to find their own surgeon and are using that guy as a shield for their decision-making.

Hurley's tired of dealing with it, he's tired of not knowing if or when Bouknight is going to be available, and he's tired of fielding questions about something that he's not in control of.

And as I said in another thread, this uncertainty seems to be affecting his teammates too -- very little "rally" in those guys right now.
 
gtcam said:
This team is built around James.

That's an issue in itself. A coach recruits kids to make them better, prepare them for games, to perform at the highest level themselves; not to fill-in around one person. What if that one person, God forbid, should not be able to play anymore? You throw up your hands and say, Oh well I can't win without my star? That's what it looked like today.
Any coach worth his weight recruits the best for every position, finding the best players to do different things needed to be successful AND recruits to avoid having any one player carrying the team. Most importantly the coach gives the players confidence that they can do the job without "the star". I don't hear that coming from Dan Hurley now, I hear excuses.
That's Coaching 101
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100%

I hate excuses. You play the hand you’re dealt. And you make adjustments. You don’t throw kids under the bus and you don’t whine about missing your best player.
 
polycom said:
Didn't realize 2003=2021. I missed when they played covid seasons during 2003. I missed the culture change of securing the bag in 2003?
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I don't think his analogy has anything to do with Covid
It's about if a player opts out of playing to save himself for the draft
 
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His team was built around Jackson-Akok-Gaffney-Bouknight. There was a time last year we imagined all of them would be healthy at the same time playing together this year.

Forget, for a moment, that this team has lost all sorts of practice time during Bouknight's injury. All four of those dudes had injuries that kept them out, and three of them for significant time.

If the injuries keep up, that's on our staff. But right now it just strikes me as fate continuing to punish us for 2011 and 2014.
 
He took a big boy job, he gets paid big boy money

We go with it
 
Yeah he gets a lot of money to have plan a,b,c etc. if he isn’t he isn’t the guy for the job. The offense of itself isn’t good and it’s definitely not just the players. He’s gotta get creative. We don’t look good at all. We could in all honesty lose all of our games left without Bouk. Ever since our big transfered, it seems like a dark cloud has been around the program, like just bad energy. Hope it goes away
 
bendm said:
i disagree. whaley is a great defender at the PF spot but his O has been a liability.

heading into this season everyone expected akok to be back by now and making gains off his great frosh year
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Coming off of achilles tear in less than a calendar year? That type of injury needs time to recover from.
 
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UCFan1513 said:
Wait the bone spurs didn’t come from the impact on the play?
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From what I heard I don't believe so but like everything with what's going on we've had very little clarity.

I have no personal info but I remember hearing that, not sure if it was Goodman or someone else in the media.
 
I think the fact that Akok was cleared for 5on5 practice in early December and still hasn’t gotten up to game speed is concerning a tad. Then again he had the bruised shin so idk how long that setback is on top of pauses.

Also we probably don’t have enough guys to go 5on5
 
NJHusky said:
Akoks been out for a year. He’s had plenty of time to plan around that. It’s not that we’re loosing. It’s how bad we look doing it. The offense is a shinty show. And Akoks absence impacts the D more than the O
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Is Akok mamadou 2.0?
 
gtcam said:
This team is built around James.

That's an issue in itself. A coach recruits kids to make them better, prepare them for games, to perform at the highest level themselves; not to fill-in around one person. What if that one person, God forbid, should not be able to play anymore? You throw up your hands and say, Oh well I can't win without my star? That's what it looked like today.
Any coach worth his weight recruits the best for every position, finding the best players to do different things needed to be successful AND recruits to avoid having any one player carrying the team. Most importantly the coach gives the players confidence that they can do the job without "the star". I don't hear that coming from Dan Hurley now, I hear excuses.
That's Coaching 101
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The Coaching 101 syllabus doesn't typically include "year 3 of a total rebuild," a significant jump in competition in a new conference, a worldwide pandemic, an injured lottery pick, and significant injuries to the next two most highly regarded recruits.

Hurley's overall offense, rotation management, and in-game adjustments have been less than sparkling. BUT his three fall signings meet identified needs, and both Sanogo & Jackson showed growth in skills and attitude in an othrtwise very disappointing game today. The Bouknight situation is no less than unsettled and unsettling.

Last year's team didn't get over its hump and start closing out games that were "excruciating losses" until about this point in the season, and by then they had quite a few more games played. This team may or may not get sufficiently coached and collect itself to win without its star. And it may or may not get its star back. We'll see.

I'll be watching.
 
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CTBasketball said:
This team is built around James. When you remove him things get difficult and you need to adapt. It’s easier said than done.
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Agreed. I am tired of all the screaming headlines too. Hurley isn’t the one to go outside of the regular process, he’s working at pulling things back into normal processes. As I have said, I believe he is making progress at doing that but undoing something that’s off the tracks is always harder than if it’s done the right way in the first place. James is a victim in all this too, so people shouldn’t pick on him either. He’s a 20 year old kid trying to navigate all this.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Hurley is clearly frustrated that the situation is out of his hands, and not in a medical sense.

Bouknight's handlers (yes, at this point it's fair to use that term) went outside the team to find their own surgeon and are using that guy as a shield for their decision-making.

Hurley's tired of dealing with it, he's tired of not knowing if or when Bouknight is going to be available, and he's tired of fielding questions about something that he's not in control of.

And as I said in another thread, this uncertainty seems to be affecting his teammates too -- very little "rally" in those guys right now.
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but what about the lying? A couple of days ago Hurley mentioned Bouknight putting pressure on the medical staff to let him play. Now Hurley says the medical staff have no say in the matter. When akok was made inactive, he said it was a “shin bruise” when it clearly wasn’t.
I would respect Hurley more if he just said “these are unpaid college students and I’m not going to disclose anything about their injuries to the public”. But instead he lies.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Hurley is clearly frustrated that the situation is out of his hands, and not in a medical sense.

Bouknight's handlers (yes, at this point it's fair to use that term) went outside the team to find their own surgeon and are using that guy as a shield for their decision-making.

Hurley's tired of dealing with it, he's tired of not knowing if or when Bouknight is going to be available, and he's tired of fielding questions about something that he's not in control of.

And as I said in another thread, this uncertainty seems to be affecting his teammates too -- very little "rally" in those guys right now.
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Yeah, that’s what I said a month ago about the advisers then.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Hurley is clearly frustrated that the situation is out of his hands, and not in a medical sense.

Bouknight's handlers (yes, at this point it's fair to use that term) went outside the team to find their own surgeon and are using that guy as a shield for their decision-making.

Hurley's tired of dealing with it, he's tired of not knowing if or when Bouknight is going to be available, and he's tired of fielding questions about something that he's not in control of.

And as I said in another thread, this uncertainty seems to be affecting his teammates too -- very little "rally" in those guys right now.
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Well said. There seems to definitely be a sense of the players playing like they are just holding on until Bouk comes back and takes over the reigns. Not the first time this has happened in team sports.

At a certain point, it's better for Hurley to make the call and shut down Bouk and let the players know they are sinking or swimming as the group that remains. The program and the team need to be bigger than any player.
 
Chin Diesel said:
At a certain point, it's better for Hurley to make the call and shut down Bouk and let the players know they are sinking or swimming as the group that remains. The program and the team need to be bigger than any player.
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Good point...waiting for Godot is not good for the rest of team. is it time for Hurley to take the decision out of the hands of Bouk's handlers?
 
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