Liam recovering on fast track?

[superjohn]

It has been. I think Hurley misused him earlier this year going with Mahaney far too long, and missed Nowell's development window. I thought he looked pretty sharp in the limited minutes he was getting in November and December Later on Nowell did get some run, and he didnt take advantage of it. He could've earned some time and he just didn't get it done and had some crucial mistakes. It's hard to deliver in short windows, its a lot of pressure, but it was a shot, and he didnt pass the test. I look forward to some future great contributions from him though, I really like this kid.

My question about him is where does he fit in? There's no possible way we roll with Nowell and Mahaney as our point guards next season and we desperately need a large sized stud point guard from the portal to start with Ball and Mullins. We would simply be too small with Nowell starting with them and it would be way too risky considering Nowell hasn't shown anything this season.

Not giving up on the kid but I just can't see him starting and I'm sure he thought he would be a starting point guard by his sophomore year.

 

[RuffRuff]

My question about him is where does he fit in? There's no possible way we roll with Nowell and Mahaney as our point guards next season and we desperately need a large sized stud point guard from the portal to start with Ball and Mullins. We would simply be too small with Nowell starting with them and it would be way too risky considering Nowell hasn't shown anything this season.

Not giving up on the kid but I just can't see him starting and I'm sure he thought he would be a starting point guard by his sophomore year.

Right there with you on this one. He’s small. That’s the part of the selection that is puzzling, bringing on a small guard with all the other small guards. If the staff subscribes to the success they saw with big guards, where does he fit? Unless he continues to be a backup 5-10mg kid in his senior year, how do you use him?

 

[Gurleyman]

We obviously just won two natties in a row with size at all 5 positions, but we aren’t that far removed from seeing a Bazz-Boat backcourt terrorize larger guards in the tournament. Kemba-Bazz played heavy minutes alongside each other too. El-Amin-Ricky and Taliek-Ben were small backcourts. Hurley didn’t coach all those teams, of course, but he did build around RJ Cole so he isn‘t a “go big or go home” type with personnel.

Nowell seems like he has potential as a defender who gets in your grill. Just didn’t see much of him on offense in his limited time - he had a nice stretch of passing against Colorado where he seemed comfortable running things. Maybe he does what Solo did this year and take a leap when given the opportunity to start.

 

[August_West]

My question about him is where does he fit in? There's no possible way we roll with Nowell and Mahaney as our point guards next season and we desperately need a large sized stud point guard from the portal to start with Ball and Mullins. We would simply be too small with Nowell starting with them and it would be way too risky considering Nowell hasn't shown anything this season.

Not giving up on the kid but I just can't see him starting and I'm sure he thought he would be a starting point guard by his sophomore year.

I can see Nowell starting. I think he has Bazz and Boat in him. I really do. Time will tell. Your views are not illogical though, they are earned concerns.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

My question about him is where does he fit in? There's no possible way we roll with Nowell and Mahaney as our point guards next season and we desperately need a large sized stud point guard from the portal to start with Ball and Mullins. We would simply be too small with Nowell starting with them and it would be way too risky considering Nowell hasn't shown anything this season.

Not giving up on the kid but I just can't see him starting and I'm sure he thought he would be a starting point guard by his sophomore year.

While I don't necessarily disagree with anything you are saying, development is so non-linear where college basketball is so unpredictable.

Time to eat crow: I totally wrote off Ball this offseason. He was so bad towards the end of last year where I didn't expect him to be a key rotation guy this season. Now, he's averaging 18 ppg over the last seven. Incredible.

There's a lot to really like about Nowell and I'm super excited for his potential. Just we won't see it though this year, and I'll be honest, I didn't see it in Ball last year. I freakin' love bulldog PGs like Nowell.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

It has been. I think Hurley misused him earlier this year going with Mahaney far too long, and missed Nowell's development window. I thought he looked pretty sharp in the limited minutes he was getting in November and December Later on Nowell did get some run, and he didnt take advantage of it. He could've earned some time and he just didn't get it done and had some crucial mistakes. It's hard to deliver in short windows, its a lot of pressure, but it was a shot, and he didnt pass the test. I look forward to some future great contributions from him though, I really like this kid.

We have guys on this board who would have looked good against Maryland Eastern Shore. I don't get this "development window" stuff.

 

[RuffRuff]

I think he looked excellent against GTown, then overmatched last few games. The problem is we have such little margin for error so him coming in, going -9 in 3 minutes, is not going to help him get much time. I REALLY hope he uses this as a learning experience because there's a lot to like about his game.

RE: Mahaney. I'm still perplexed by how this all went down. If you had told me that by game 20 or so he'd be playing 10mpg and giving you 5ppg I'd thought you were nuts. There's lots of talk that Mahaney wasn't a PG. Except he was as a freshman on a really good St. Mary's team that arguably gave us the biggest battle in our 23 run. I don't think it was a poor decision to bring him in as he was viewed, pretty much universally, as one of the top players in the portal. It just hasn't worked out. He has talent and has had some nice moments here where you could argue his offense as either kept us in the game or helped us win games. His defense has improved although he still is a liability there.

St. Mary's is a system team and Bennett is an excellent coach. I don't think Aidan being there or not really says all that much, imo.

St Mary’s success without him is a more a recognition that some of Aidans success may have be hinged to working well in Bennett’s system.

Hard to see Solo’s 3pt prowess coming as it wasn’t part of his brand coming into UConn. I had a read of it being something very different in fact, and that he was a mega athlete. It’s played out very differently. He shot 3s at 31% last year, so there is no one on this board that saw this coming. 60% of his offense is coming off 3s.

 

[HooperScooper]

I don’t care about tonight. I just want mcneeley back for the Marquette game.

If he doesn't play tonight and then plays against Marquette I think you're going to be disappointed with how much he plays. Don't think he's going from 0 to 30 minutes in 1 game. We'll see how they handle it.

 

[gsmooth]

If he doesn't play tonight and then plays against Marquette I think you're going to be disappointed with how much he plays. Don't think he's going from 0 to 30 minutes in 1 game. We'll see how they handle it.

McNeeley isn't going to be the McNeeley that was clicking on all cylinders before he got injured for the first few games when he returns.

 

[UConnJim]

My question about him is where does he fit in? There's no possible way we roll with Nowell and Mahaney as our point guards next season and we desperately need a large sized stud point guard from the portal to start with Ball and Mullins. We would simply be too small with Nowell starting with them and it would be way too risky considering Nowell hasn't shown anything this season.

Not giving up on the kid but I just can't see him starting and I'm sure he thought he would be a starting point guard by his sophomore year.

Nowell was the #33 recruit in 2024. Unfortunately, he has missed time to to injury which has stunted his development. He will be fine.

If you look at Nowell's stats and ratings, he is performing pretty well as a freshman. Miya stats rate Nowell the #6 offensive player and the #4 defensive player on the team. And, look at his stats per 40 minutes:

Per 40 minutes he ranks:
#2 assists/40 minutes
#2 steals/40 minutes
#3 rebounds/40 minutes
#5 blocks/40 minutes

Nowell:

12.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 1.8 steals.
80.0% FT shooting, 63.6% 2 pt FG %, 25.0% 3 pt FG %, 2.5 to 1 assists/TO ratio.

I'm not saying he will turn out like Kemba, but compare him to Kemba's freshman year:

14.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.7 steals
71.5% FT shooting, 52.2% 2 pt FG %, 27.1% 3 PT FG%, 1.6 assists/TO ratio.

 

[superjohn]

While I don't necessarily disagree with anything you are saying, development is so non-linear where college basketball is so unpredictable.

Time to eat crow: I totally wrote off Ball this offseason. He was so bad towards the end of last year where I didn't expect him to be a key rotation guy this season. Now, he's averaging 18 ppg over the last seven. Incredible.

There's a lot to really like about Nowell and I'm super excited for his potential. Just we won't see it though this year, and I'll be honest, I didn't see it in Ball last year. I freakin' love bulldog PGs like Nowell.

Agreed, I'm not writing him off. He could turn out to be really good or even great I'm just thinking of roster construction and the need for a proven point guard. The position is a problem for us this year because of lack of depth and we're a Hass injury away from being a bad team...

There will be much more uncertainly at the position with Hass leaving and we can't go into next season with that type of uncertainly at the most crucial position. If Nowell or Mahaney are good enough to man the position which is a huge if, it would make us a really small team because I don't see any way Solo and Mullins aren't starting.

Just look at this season, Hurley was banking on Ross and Jaylin making major jumps and it hasn't happened. Luckily that position isn't make or break for us but them not making that leap has been exposed and has really hurt us with Liam's absence.

 

[RuffRuff]

McNeeley isn't going to be the McNeeley that was clicking on all cylinders before he got injured for the first few games when he returns.

Yup - my concern. He’s going to be working back into the flow at the hardest chunk of our conf schedule. Why I was hoping he’d get warm tonight with some minutes. Now it’s just a gulp, let’s hope it all works out.

 

[Matt1010]

Nowell was the #33 recruit in 2024. Unfortunately, he has missed time to to injury which has stunted his development. He will be fine.

If you look at Nowell's stats and ratings, he is performing pretty well as a freshman. Miya stats rate Nowell the #6 offensive player and the #4 defensive player on the team. And, look at his stats per 40 minutes:

Per 40 minutes he ranks:
#2 assists/40 minutes
#2 steals/40 minutes
#3 rebounds/40 minutes
#5 blocks/40 minutes

Nowell:

12.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 1.8 steals.
80.0% FT shooting, 63.6% 2 pt FG %, 25.0% 3 pt FG %, 2.5 to 1 assists/TO ratio.

I'm not saying he will turn out like Kemba, but compare him to Kemba's freshman year:

14.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.7 steals
71.5% FT shooting, 52.2% 2 pt FG %, 27.1% 3 PT FG%, 1.6 assists/TO ratio.

I don't think you can place much value at all on Miya ratings/stats for a guy that has played 89 total minutes with more than half of them coming against Kenpom 300+ teams

 

[Hurleyman216]

I expect we could see 5-10 mins from McNeeley tonight (game time decision). Hurley wants to get him some minutes before throwing him into the Marquette game. If we don’t see him tonight I wouldn’t necessarily expect to see much of him against Marquette.

 

[Mike Honcho]

It has been. I think Hurley misused him earlier this year going with Mahaney far too long, and missed Nowell's development window. I thought he looked pretty sharp in the limited minutes he was getting in November and December Later on Nowell did get some run, and he didnt take advantage of it. He could've earned some time and he just didn't get it done and had some crucial mistakes. It's hard to deliver in short windows, its a lot of pressure, but it was a shot, and he didnt pass the test. I look forward to some future great contributions from him though, I really like this kid.

He didn't play a single minute in December due to a shoulder injury. His first game back was Jan 8 against Villanova.

Hard to pin that on Hurley.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I can see Nowell starting. I think he has Bazz and Boat in him. I really do. Time will tell. Your views are not illogical though, they are earned concerns.

I also am very confident that Nowell will produce for us once he has both opportunity and full health.

We need to keep in mind that we don't know how long before the announcement that he injured his shoulder and we don't really know what the severity of it was. There may still be some lingering effects.

We also don't know when he hurt his ankle or how badly he hurt it.

There could well be reasons for his limited playing time to date that aren't due to ability.

 

[RuffRuff]

I expect we could see 5-10 mins from McNeeley tonight (game time decision). Hurley wants to get him some minutes before throwing him into the Marquette game. If we don’t see him tonight I wouldn’t necessarily expect to see much of him against Marquette.

Fingers crossed. The presser didn't sound too promising. The three after this are all opportunities. Creighton & StJ are peaking (StJ without one of their starters).

Then we have 7 league games to figure it out.

 

[FearThePups]

You sure about not re-injury when coming back from a high ankle sprain. This is not the same as a rolled ankle sprain. From what I have seen on high ankle sprains you come back to soon then you can have a set back that will linger and then not heal correctly which then leads to surgery to stabilize the ligaments.

Just research what happened to Cooper Kupp when he tried to return from a high ankle sprain too soon. But everyone is different. Mahomes apparently can play through any injury since he is a normal human being, or at least thatch’s what the NFL is marketing him.

Liam was hurt early January. With a high ankle sprain it’s normally a 6-8 week recovery. That’s typical. Whomever thought he’d be back in a month was delusional. I knew we’d struggle mightily without him, but not to this extent. Face it, we are a really an average team this year.

 

[FearThePups]

Nowell was a dominant HS point guard but unless he’s Allen Iverson how was he supposed to shut down guys who are 4 or 5 inches taller and can leap over tall buildings? Or for that matter score over him. This is not to say he won’t contribute in the future in some way.

Part of the recipe is a 6’4” or taller point guard. We don’t have this.

 

[Methalius]

Wait, Nowell was injured? This is the first I'm hearing about him being injured. Granted, I haven't been able to follow as closely to our Huskies as I normally am due to work obligations but I only knew of Karaban's Concussion, McNeeley's Ankle and now Nowell with whatever he has had. I personally think Nowell is going to be a beast for UConn for years to come. I feel like he has the ability to be the Floor General that UConn needs in 25-26 and beyond.

I also think that McNeeley coming back when he is 100% and only 100% is what needs to happen. I want to see UConn ranked in every poll too but what really matters is where they are after the Big East Tournament. The worst thing that we could experience would be to rush him back and have him roll it again where he might require another month+ to recover. Bring him back when he is completely recovered. It's time for Stewart and Ross and others to rise to the challenge instead of what has been happening.

I actually feel like Ball has been the most consistent performer offensively for the Huskies all season. He is lethal from long range and he has that mentality that all scorers of his caliber possess. Amnesia. If he ever develops his defense to go along with his offense he is going to be a scary, scary man.

 

[freescooter]

My question about him is where does he fit in? There's no possible way we roll with Nowell and Mahaney as our point guards next season and we desperately need a large sized stud point guard from the portal to start with Ball and Mullins. We would simply be too small with Nowell starting with them and it would be way too risky considering Nowell hasn't shown anything this season.

Not giving up on the kid but I just can't see him starting and I'm sure he thought he would be a starting point guard by his sophomore year.

I agree with this. I thought it was strange that we even recruited Nowell. Sure there are a handful of sub 6 foot guys who make it but they are the exception not the rule. And the past 2 years we dominated with big guards. Maybe they were thinking Mahaney was the guy. The lack of size has been one factor in our defensive issues I think.

 

[RuffRuff]

I agree with this. I thought it was strange that we even recruited Nowell. Sure there are a handful of sub 6 foot guys who make it but they are the exception not the rule. And the past 2 years we dominated with big guards. Maybe they were thinking Mahaney was the guy. The lack of size has been one factor in our defensive issues I think.

I found recruiting Lewis on top of that this past cycle interesting. My take is we could have had him, team opted for Adams. Not sure if there are any tea leaves to be derived.

 

[Deleted at users request]

We have guys on this board who would have looked good against Maryland Eastern Shore. I don't get this "development window" stuff.

Those games are opportunities to get young guys minutes to help get their feet under them.

Very low stake situations to get a good feel for the offense, defense, etc. etc. in live time.

Not about performance is much as it’s about the developmental and experience for when better competition comes.

 

[RuffRuff]

Those games are opportunities to get young guys minutes to help get their feet under them.

Very low stake situations to get a good feel for the offense, defense, etc. etc. in live time.

Not about performance is much as it’s about the developmental and experience for when better competition comes.

Then you get blown in the face with real teams and Maui happens. Hoping that’s the last time we schedule like that. I get 2 cans or so, not 5. If it’s to play the system for metrics, can work against you just as easily.

 

[Deleted at users request]

I can see Nowell starting. I think he has Bazz and Boat in him. I really do. Time will tell. Your views are not illogical though, they are earned concerns.

If the goal is NC I’m not sure him starting would be conducive to that even though I’d like to see it.

Even with our greats, they pretty much all struggled their sophomore years. And that’s while having big roles their freshmen years.

Would like to find a way regardless to make sure he has a big role next year even if he doesn’t start.

 

[Deleted at users request]

Then you get blown in the face with real teams and Maui happens. Hoping that’s the last time we schedule like that. I get 2 cans or so, not 5. If it’s to play the system for metrics, can work against you just as easily.

Yeah I’m not really for playing the metrics game, especially at the expense of getting young guys valuable playing time and experience.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

Yeah, but he’s a doctor of Hoop. We need the opinion of a doctor of ankle.

This whole thread is a riot. I’m photoshopping a picture of Liam sitting in a wheelchair.

 

[August_West]

We have guys on this board who would have looked good against Maryland Eastern Shore. I don't get this "development window" stuff.

Everyone needs some time to get their feet wet before the real trials start. It makes a difference in floor comfort level down the line. I think he couldve got more minutes than he did against a lot of that early schedule and it wouldve helped him. When he finally did get minutes it became a situation where he was pressing to show he belonged, and usually playing like that doesn't lead to great results. Certainly didnt in this case. The first injury took any other possible development time away too. This is just hindsight stuff on a message board. However, I would've preferred Nowell was in the heavy rotation from the get go and that isn't hindsight in the wake of Mahaney's disappointment. I was saying that before we knew what we know now about our guard position this year. I was willing to ride or die with that frosh. Certainly we could've died there too, but we will never know. Nowell hasnt showed out well since coming back from first injury. We decided to go to the portal and try to catch lightning in a bottle again. I get it. That gamble was obviously thought to be the only chance we could have at a 3peat. It didnt (well.......hasn't to this point, I will hold out hope) work out though, and now we have future questions at guard that could've been clearer (for better or worse) if we didn't go to the portal and stayed "in house" at the PG position.

 

[Mike Honcho]

I agree with this. I thought it was strange that we even recruited Nowell. Sure there are a handful of sub 6 foot guys who make it but they are the exception not the rule. And the past 2 years we dominated with big guards. Maybe they were thinking Mahaney was the guy. The lack of size has been one factor in our defensive issues I think.

We've won half of our titles with sub 6-foot starting PGs. 99/11/14.

 

[RuffRuff]

This whole thread is a riot. I’m photoshopping a picture of Liam sitting in a wheelchair.