Middlesex Chamber of Commerce Virtual Luncheon featuring Dan Hurley, UConn Men's Head Basketball Coach (10/14/20 @ Noon) | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Middlesex Chamber of Commerce Virtual Luncheon featuring Dan Hurley, UConn Men's Head Basketball Coach (10/14/20 @ Noon)

MDHuskFan said:
Sounds like Hurley is sleeping in Springs....
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He sure is and it's a pretty sad indictment of Hurley and his staff to not see every day in practice what us fans can see from pregame warmups and sources within the program.
 
Chin Diesel said:
He sure is and it's a pretty sad indictment of Hurley and his staff to not see every day in practice what us fans can see from pregame warmups and sources within the program.
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Brown is the 7-1 center of the future and Sonago defines power forward.
 
BigErnMcCracken said:
Damn Isaiah Whaley is just a hell of a story. If you said you saw this coming you are lying.
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Even Chief can’t process that and is still skeptical. Could Hurley go from admittedly undervaluing Whaley to overvaluing him now?
As Chief said about Polley, you can’t overestimate the value Hurley puts on multi positional switching on defense. Chief knows it’s not even on the radar screen of most casual fans, but it opens up a whole World of defensive possibilities for the head coach.
 
Chief00 said:
Brown is the 7-1 center of the future and Sonago defines power forward.
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C'mon. Hurley is already giving this Brown the same treatment JC gave Justin Brown. The ole "His best days are ahead of him" routine.
 
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Fatroony5 said:
Certainly the most front court depth they’ve had in awhile. From what I’ve seen, just feels like Sanogos style of play will allow him to have an immediate impact.

Also Chief, I think you’ll like this. We discussed this the other day. Guys will play well with RJ because he doesn’t over dribble and gets the ball to guys on time. See this tweet.
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It’s so important to get a shooter the ball in the right spot and in rhythm.
 
BigErnMcCracken said:
Damn Isaiah Whaley is just a hell of a story. If you said you saw this coming you are lying.
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I think the majority of us thought he would be a starter this year, he was the best player on the court in a couple of those games near the end of last season. I don't think anyone saw him making the jump he made in the final 1/3 of the season last year, I don't remember any UConn player ever making that kind of jump before. I thought Hurley was making a mistake not finding him another school where he would play more, never happier to have been so wrong. Kid is a stud now.
 
Chief00 said:
Even Chief can’t process that and is still skeptical. Could Hurley go from admittedly undervaluing Whaley to overvaluing him now?
As Chief said about Polley, you can’t overestimate the value Hurley puts on multi positional switching on defense. Chief knows it’s not even on the radar screen of most casual fans, but it opens up a whole World of defensive possibilities for the head coach.
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Perfect.
 
CL82 said:
Haha, that is so unlike you, which, of course made it all the funnier.
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Yeah, usually HooperScooper has facts to back up his arguments, but he‘s got nothing this time, so he’s had to resort to gifs. As someone who has read his posts for probably 20-25 years on the many iterations of this board, it’s a little sad, but it is what it is.
 
navery12 said:
Well if Hurley doesn't say that he alienates half the players on the team by saying they're worse
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Yes I’m sure the AAC recruited players would have been devastated if Hurley told a virtual luncheon the Big East was a big boost to recruiting.

I guess we’re screwed anyway, because he only said Akok, Bouknight, Gaffney, and Cole were pretty good. Now Polley, Whaley, Carlton, Adams, etc have all been alienated. There goes our depth :rolleyes:.
 
Chief00 said:
It’s so important to get a shooter the ball in the right spot and in rhythm.
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Agreed. We see the elite shooters in the NBA (Steph, Clay, Korver, Reddick etc) not need great passes or spacing to get their shots. But guys at the college level definitely do.

We didn’t add much shooters this season outside of Cole, but better spacing, timing, and rhythm can help make decent shooters into better shooters. That difference can turn a team that shot 32% from 3 last year into a team that shoots 35% from 3 this year. That should be the goal.
 
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7774 said:
I'd love for you to show me 1 post in our discussion where I said this year's recruits didn't say the Big East was a factor. I agreed with you over and over on that. The only thing I said close was talking about the article Jordan Hawkins wrote himself, and how when he was presenting his own thoughts on his reasons for committing he didn't bring up conference at all.

I'm amazed you think canned answers 17 year olds give to reporters are super meaningful. I remember when Ben Gordon committed there were articles where he was talking about how the Dairy Bar was one of the big reasons. So I guess people here actually think a top 50 recruit committed to us because of ice cream.
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I thought everyone knew Gordon came to UConn because Duke didn't offer him.
 
superjohn said:
I thought everyone knew Gordon came to UConn because Duke didn't offer him.
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Nope. Now I understand why you would think that, because it’s both logical and factually accurate, but he didn’t give a quote to a reporter saying that was a reason, so it can’t be a reason. Everyone knows that only things 17 year olds say in response to questions asked by reporters count as real reasons, come on superjohn.
 
7774 said:
Yeah, usually HooperScooper has facts to back up his arguments, but he‘s got nothing this time, so he’s had to resort to gifs. As someone who has read his posts for probably 20-25 years on the many iterations of this board, it’s a little sad, but it is what it is.
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Are you this stubborn with everything in your life? I hate when people are stubborn about facts. You were wrong about a fact but you wouldn't admit it even though I showed you the facts. That's what I was arguing about.

While I do believe the Big East has helped recruiting, what I was arguing with you about was that Jordan Hawkins said in at least 2 different articles by 2 different reporters (they were not the same interview) that the Big East was a big factor in him committing to UConn. I showed you where he said that but you referenced his blog "This is Why I Committed to Connecticut" where he didn't say anything in the article about the Big East. So you kept arguing that the Big East couldn't have been a big factor because he didn't say it in his blog. I said he did say it in 2 other articles and that proved it was a factor. But you said that doesn't count because we don't know how the reporter asked him the question, and some other reasons that I don't remember, where the blog was his own words written by him.

The argument whether the Big East has and will help UConn in recruiting is an opinion and each person can have their own. We can argue but at the end of the day it's an opinion that has no right or wrong answer.

Please answer this simple question. Did Hawkins say or did he not say the Big East was a factor in his decision to pick UConn? Yes or no? If you can't say yes then I give up.
 
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I liked Whaley from the get go. Excellent hops, quick off the floor, good mobility his freshman year. Offensive game was what could be expected from a freshman front court player. I was surprised he was nailed to the pine soph. year till the very end when he played well. Last year he could not be ignored. Played good D, rebounded well and made positive steps on offense. Outside of shooting 3's he was really solid last year.
 
BigErnMcCracken said:
Damn Isaiah Whaley is just a hell of a story. If you said you saw this coming you are lying.
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Screen Shot 2020-02-23 at 4.43.44 PM.png
 
navery12 said:
Well if Hurley doesn't say that he alienates half the players on the team by saying they're worse
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I think you're right. And it cheapens the efforts of his assistant coaches who recruited those guys. Hurley coming around though. See the last sentence. ;)

Oh, and don’t tell Hurley that the Big East has led to his program’s improvement in recruiting.

“I think Bouknight, Akok Akok and Gaffney would all beg to differ. We recruited those three guys — two potential draft picks, and Gaffney, who’s a top-level player ... and R.J. Cole, before we even changed leagues. I see that (written), and to me it cheapens the efforts of my assistant coaches, Kimani and Tom recruited those guys. It’s kind of a lazy hot take. But, look, the league has helped us recently.”

Dan Hurley breaks down 2020-21 UConn men’s basketball roster
 
If anyone thinks Whaley was anything other than awful in 2019, they’re bad at watching basketball.
 
Fishy said:
If anyone thinks Whaley was anything other than awful in 2019, they’re bad at watching basketball.
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Granted you didn't say he would never be good. We'll just chalk it up as a hot take that didn't age well. ;)
 
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7774 said:
Nope. Now I understand why you would think that, because it’s both logical and factually accurate, but he didn’t give a quote to a reporter saying that was a reason, so it can’t be a reason. Everyone knows that only things 17 year olds say in response to questions asked by reporters count as real reasons, come on superjohn.
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I remember back in the day I would get the ESPN magazines and there was an interview with BG. I believe it was one of his first years in the league and was asking about his time at UConn and winning the title. Duke got brought up and he ended with “I just hate Duke.”
 
Chief00 said:
Could Hurley go from admittedly undervaluing Whaley to overvaluing him now?
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I think what Hurley is doing here is important. We won't know whether or not Whaley was playing over his head to end last season until this season gets rolling. Regardless, he was extremely productive when we got hot at the end of the season, especially over those last six games. And obviously, he brings energy both in game and in practice.

This is a message to everyone on the team that if you put in the work and put up results, you will be rewarded. You can go from someone who averaged, what, 3 minutes per game to a starter on a borderline top 25 team. I think putting Whaley on a pedestal like that shows the guys who probably won't be seeing too many minutes to start the season (Springs, Brown, maybe even Sanogo) that in the long run their personal goals will be attainable in this program.

Maybe Whaley will regress out of the gate, who knows. But with the depth this team has, overvaluing him to start the season doesn't hurt. I don't foresee Hurley having to force things this year - if a player doesn't have it that game, he has plenty of guys to go to off the bench.
 
Fishy said:
If anyone thinks Whaley was anything other than awful in 2019, they’re bad at watching basketball.
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well he played like 100 mop-up minutes all season in 23 games and the coach later offered a mea culpa for burying him on the bench incorrectly and then once he got regular minutes in the rotation he became a beast while maintaining essentially the same statistical profile(Reb+, BL+, TS+)

but ok ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Chin Diesel said:
He sure is and it's a pretty sad indictment of Hurley and his staff to not see every day in practice what us fans can see from pregame warmups and sources within the program.
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Hurley has said in the past..and did say in virtual conf call this week..That Springs is a "talented" player.. There is a ton of competition at the 4/5 for minutes.. He will certainly benefit from the daily development in practice vs this stable of talented Bigs ... KFree..his positional coach..will have a major impact on him as well.....Once the dust settles after this season is over and some of our roster makes their plans for the future..and/or graduates..IMO.. Yarders will be happy to have Springs on the roster going into the 2021 season.. Let's enjoy the 2020 version of the Good Guys for now..
 
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