Miscalculations by DH

[mauconnfan]

One simple way of looking at it all is they ended up with Diarra and Johnson as starters. That right there told you a lot about who they would be. These guys are really good 6/7 guys off the bench and needed to stay there.

Portal is huge for ‘25-‘26, misses can’t happen and real Husky toughness, both ends needs to return.

 

[RuffRuff]

It's crazy that people think this is a science. How quickly we forget that we barely missed out on Nick Timberlake before Cam fell into our lap.

I was just watching Nebraska and Gavin Griffiths is a sophomore on that team, averaging 2.4 points in 10mpg. He was a top 40 recruit that we all wanted badly before he signed with Rutgers.

Player evaluations are hit and miss.

Take a look at TJ Power at Virginia. McD AA out of Mass and Duke recruit. He’s just not very good. They’re everywhere. I give Scheyer credit for cutting bait how he did last year on a number of highly recruited kids.

Hurley needs to balance out the over focus on shooting. Ajax wasn’t a shooter, nor was Steph. We didn’t even shoot the 3 all that well last year and were dominant. You need them but it’s only a piece of the pie.

 

[djct1999]

I know Hurley gets a lot a lot of criticism for bringing in Mahaney but let's remember he was sought after by many other high profile programs...including St. John's.
View attachment 107256

Mahaney was highly sort after. He was a stud at St. Mary’s. He has a longstanding relationship w Gary Bennett dating back to aau in the Bay Area. From those days moving forward, Aidan was the golden child and everything was geared around him. Even at St. Mary’s. I am good friends w someone who knows his situation well. At the time, even my friend felt it was a great get for UConn. Aidan was always a scorer and looked to move to a high major to push himself to the next level. It seemed logical last spring No one, from Aidan to the staff, could have expected this.

 

[UCfor3]

Thank you for posting this. The Hurley defenders don’t realize that criticizing him for bad coaching, being stubborn, etc does NOT necessarily mean people want him fired or are running him out of town. We have every right to criticize just as much as we had every right to praise the last two years.

If people don’t want to concede that he’s done a pretty bad job this year, I don’t know what to say. That has no bearing on how good a job he did the previous two years. They can both be true.

Some on here criticize with way more enthusiasm than they praise. It's obvious who those people are. Same ones every time. I'm just going to leave that there. It's their right to do as they please or dislike who they dislike. To each their own.
Being the highest paid state employee shouldn't get thrown in your face every time you have a down year. Think he earned that. Calhoun got that thrown in his face also. Not a dime back. Outside of John Wooden from a bygone era, what coach/program legit challenges for a title every single year? Outside of maybe Duke, who gets whatever player they want, the nature of the sport makes it very difficult. Especially when going up against SEC programs with deep NIL pockets in the future..
As far as this year goes, I think it's more bad team construction(also on the staff) than bad coaching. Our best player is a freshman who missed 5 weeks and is at a physicality and athleticism disadvantage against almost every opponent. We have no ball handling, athleticism, we have bad individual defenders, no shot creators, and no bench depth. Karaban has been in a season long slump. Reed is enigmatic but promising.. Solo has improved. Not much beyond that. Diarra's knee made an already awful PG situation completely untenable. You could argue making the tourney is a pretty decent coaching job considering everything. If one more person mentions "all the talent" on this team. This team is not that talented at all and certainly the pieces don't fit together well. It's not even in the same stratosphere of the last 2 years in terms of talent. We lost Spencer, Newton, Clingan and Castle from last year and replaced them with nothing remotely close to equaling that. Blame the staff for a bad offseason assembling the team. All the armchair coaches that solely blame the game coaching is just lashing out in frustration. You could always point out things here and there that you disagree with like Reed playing more, but this team wasn't going to be that good regardless. You can't win in CBall with one decent guard(Solo), nobody that can dribble, and bad defense. We have a team of shooters that aren't shooting all that great. Losing is usually a collective effort.

 

[RuffRuff]

Mahaney was highly sort after. He was a stud at St. Mary’s. He has a longstanding relationship w Gary Bennett dating back to aau in the Bay Area. From those days moving forward, Aidan was the golden child and everything was geared around him. Even at St. Mary’s. I am good friends w someone who knows his situation well. At the time, even my friend felt it was a great get for UConn. Aidan was always a scorer and looked to move to a high major to push himself to the next level. It seemed logical last spring No one, from Aidan to the staff, could have expected this.

Interesting insights, thanks for sharing.

Left the open practice a major doubter, and it played out. You can’t teach size and foot speed. Also hard to call a 38% shooter from the field who can’t defend a stud. Nice player, for their system. A lot of faith in the name. This may have worked out well for Bennett as it will help him retain his profile.

Interesting looking back on his 247 HS profile was 143rd in his class sandwiched between AJ Storr and Jayden Pierre. He was a 3 star, but a little higher than I would have thought.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

It's crazy that people think this is a science. How quickly we forget that we barely missed out on Nick Timberlake before Cam fell into our lap.

I was just watching Nebraska and Gavin Griffiths is a sophomore on that team, averaging 2.4 points in 10mpg. He was a top 40 recruit that we all wanted badly before he signed with Rutgers.

Player evaluations are hit and miss.

The portal and player evals (Especially for non-Top 5 recruits) are actually quite a lot like poker...

There is a definite skill element that if you can master, you can be a long-term winner. But there is a BIG short-term luck element that can make you look like a loser...sometimes for much longer than you'd think.

There were many on this board who felt it was the Demise of Hurley that we didn't get local boy Gavin on our squad.

Man did we dodge a bullet on that one.

 

[80shusky]

Mahaney was highly sort after. He was a stud at St. Mary’s. He has a longstanding relationship w Gary Bennett dating back to aau in the Bay Area. From those days moving forward, Aidan was the golden child and everything was geared around him. Even at St. Mary’s. I am good friends w someone who knows his situation well. At the time, even my friend felt it was a great get for UConn. Aidan was always a scorer and looked to move to a high major to push himself to the next level. It seemed logical last spring No one, from Aidan to the staff, could have expected this.

UConn is going to need a stud point guard out of the portal to go with Nowell. I'm thinking moving Aiden to the two in a Joey C type of role would make him more comfortable and benefit him and the team. Let him come in and knock down some shots off the bench.

 

[RuffRuff]

l

The portal and player evals (Especially for non-Top 5 recruits) are actually quite a lot like poker...

There is a definite skill element that if you can master, you can be a long-term winner. But there is a BIG short-term luck element that can make you look like a loser...sometimes for much longer than you'd think.

There were many on this board who felt it was the Demise of Hurley that we didn't get local boy Gavin on our squad.

Man did we dodge a bullet on that one.

At the most basic level, the foundation of good recruiting is that you want fast, tall, physical and athletic. You can identify this stuff quickly, as can everyone else. That is your full house and best chance of winning the hand. There is then the element of evaluating smarts, skill, instincts and system fit, which is much harder to evaluate, especially if the foundation is lacking - would be a pair of 2s that might turn into a winning hand.

You can win with both but have a much better odds with the former. Hurley took a chance with a pair of twos on a kid like Mahaney.

 

[Kolumbo]

If Coach's brother kicked him off ASU, I seriously doubt that Coach would ever consider him to play here.

You guys are a tough crowd.

Hey, a 6'6" guard who can ball. Where have we seen this before? Maybe Bobby sucks as a coach. Some ASU fans are more upset with Hurley than with Freeman. Remember Caron Butler went through very tough times before being a huge success at UConn.

 

[FreeKlaiber]

We really gonna complain about 3 burger boys?

re-read. I am enamored with our recruits (3 at least). Very skilled, good shooters, high IQ (hopefully). But the qualities that THEY bring wont affect the "boys vs men" narrative some saw vs St Johns.

They are all skilled, but dont have the brawn/athleticism we will need, and dont have on our roster now as a whole. I am afraid if one will ever be able to play our D style based on his lack of brawn tbh. Will need portal for this to fix the mix (skill vs athlete) or we have same issues. Not hard to understand.

 

[djct1999]

Interesting insights, thanks for sharing.

Left the open practice a major doubter, and it played out. You can’t teach size and foot speed. Also hard to call a 38% shooter from the field who can’t defend a stud. Nice player, for their system. A lot of faith in the name. This may have worked out well for Bennett as it will help him retain his profile.

Interesting looking back on his 247 HS profile was 143rd in his class sandwiched between AJ Storr and Jayden Pierre. He was a 3 star, but a little higher than I would have thought.

It sounded like Bennet and the St. Mary’s staff was blindsided and crushed. Aidan’s dad is a stud analyst on Wall Street and is often on cnbc. His sibling has extreme special needs and he and Aidan are very close. He is a great kid. It really is a shame it didn’t work out better. I can’t imagine how hard this season has been on him, not meeting expectations and being so far from home.I will root for this kid wherever he goes.

 

[80shusky]

re-read. I am enamored with our recruits (3 at least). Very skilled, good shooters, high IQ (hopefully). But the qualities that THEY bring wont affect the "boys vs men" narrative some saw vs St Johns.

They are all skilled, but dont have the brawn/athleticism we will need, and dont have on our roster now as a whole. I am afraid if one will ever be able to play our D style based on his lack of brawn tbh. Will need portal for this to fix the mix (skill vs athlete) or we have same issues. Not hard to understand.

I have hopes for Furphy as far as toughness and physicality go. He's 6-6, 220 and shows some physical play in the video I've seen of him.

 

[FreeKlaiber]

I have hopes for Furphy as far as toughness and physicality go. He's 6-6, 220 and shows some physical play in the video I've seen of him.

my fave incoming recruit, but his lateral foot speed remains to be seen. I think he could have highest upside

 

[RuffRuff]

re-read. I am enamored with our recruits (3 at least). Very skilled, good shooters, high IQ (hopefully). But the qualities that THEY bring wont affect the "boys vs men" narrative some saw vs St Johns.

They are all skilled, but dont have the brawn/athleticism we will need, and dont have on our roster now as a whole. I am afraid if one will ever be able to play our D style based on his lack of brawn tbh. Will need portal for this to fix the mix (skill vs athlete) or we have same issues. Not hard to understand.

This frosh class is amazing but it doesn’t solve for next year. It takes exceptional freshman to lead teams to be NC contenders. Maybe if you got frosh built like men already and AJ, Boozer and Pedersen onto the same team. I don’t even think a kid like Ament is worth the one year bag as he’s going to get pushed around next year.


There is a massive physical adjustment for freshman pivoting to college ball. If we want to roll out the frosh and soph class as our core, so be it but it would be a developmental year and setting up for the following. I would set expectations appropriately as a fan if that ends up being the approach. I don’t think it will.

 

[ec33]

This team could have been fully healthy all year and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in what they could do in March. It’s a massively flawed roster and the tape is out. Most teams are banged up by this point.

Sure, some of the problem is the "just grab them so they cannot cut and then outmuscle them" of the Big East -- but when healthy, this team was still undefeated on the continent. That competition was better than anything the Big East offers.

Once March came and '"just grab them so they cannot cut and then outmuscle them" suddenly became a ton of fouls, then things would have opened up again.

Championship caliber? No. Just about everything went wrong outside of McNeeley perhaps being better than expect with Reed and Ball being okay. Somewhere on the verge of Elite 8. Not bad when everything goes wrong.

But you are welcome to be pissy and bitter about it. Thank Hurley is a fool. See how that works for you.

 

[dennismenace]

BJ Freeman - Guard - 6'6" 200 lbs

Arizona State's leading scorer has been dismissed. Can he transfer today? A few discipline issues, no biggie.

BJ Freeman College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

BJ Freeman - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more

www.sports-reference.com

BJ Freeman no longer with ASU due to detrimental conduct

BJ Freeman is no longer with the Arizona State men's basketball team due to conduct detrimental to the team, a team spokesperson confirmed on Sunday.

arizonasports.com

Looks like BJ was not the only player or coach having problems with officials:

Bobby Hurley says Adam Miller ejections uncharacteristic

 

[RuffRuff]

Sure, some of the problem is the "just grab them so they cannot cut and then outmuscle them" of the Big East -- but when healthy, this team was still undefeated on the continent. That competition was better than anything the Big East offers.

Once March came and '"just grab them so they cannot cut and then outmuscle them" suddenly became a ton of fouls, then things would have opened up again.

Championship caliber? No. Just about everything went wrong outside of McNeeley perhaps being better than expect with Reed and Ball being okay. Somewhere on the verge of Elite 8. Not bad when everything goes wrong.

But you are welcome to be pissy and bitter about it. Thank Hurley is a fool. See how that works for you.

For as many close losses we had close wins. There was never a point this season where we looked in command. We had some hot shooting streaks and individual performances that put a ton of lipstick on the situation.

Last I knew being undefeated on the continent wasn’t a banner. It’s just a way of making one feel better about this team, lol. If anything our resume looks watered down as Baylor, Zags, Texas bubbly. Marquette is falling apart, Creighton was a one man show.

We got outmuscled by Seton Hall, that’s all you need to know. We were more skilled offensively but they were the more athletic and a tougher team, took 5 more shots than us. Thats where we are. I saw that one up close up.

This is not an elite 8 team fully healthy. Our best hope for any kind of run is that Solo, Liam and AK all get hot at once from 3. That is the only ticket we have.

I’m not pissy about it - this season has always been gravy. Set expectations right and you can just enjoy. I’m not gonna play the what if game unrealistically, that’s for sure.

 

[superjohn]

Sure, some of the problem is the "just grab them so they cannot cut and then outmuscle them" of the Big East -- but when healthy, this team was still undefeated on the continent. That competition was better than anything the Big East offers.

Once March came and '"just grab them so they cannot cut and then outmuscle them" suddenly became a ton of fouls, then things would have opened up again.

Championship caliber? No. Just about everything went wrong outside of McNeeley perhaps being better than expect with Reed and Ball being okay. Somewhere on the verge of Elite 8. Not bad when everything goes wrong.

But you are welcome to be pissy and bitter about it. Thank Hurley is a fool. See how that works for you.

You're talking nonsense here. The competition wasn't better than anything the Big East offers. Outside of playing Memphis in Hawaii Gonzaga is considered the best team we played out of conference and they're ranked 35th in the country. St. John's is by far the best team we've played.

 

[mauconnfan]

Mahaney was highly sort after. He was a stud at St. Mary’s. He has a longstanding relationship w Gary Bennett dating back to aau in the Bay Area. From those days moving forward, Aidan was the golden child and everything was geared around him. Even at St. Mary’s. I am good friends w someone who knows his situation well. At the time, even my friend felt it was a great get for UConn. Aidan was always a scorer and looked to move to a high major to push himself to the next level. It seemed logical last spring No one, from Aidan to the staff, could have expected this.

Yep agree and still do. This was not a “miss”by Dan and the staff it just didn’t work out for some reason. Most that were after him had great program history. It’s too bad I loved the kids game at St Mary’s thought it was huge and the URI exhibition had to make you excited. Go figure!

 

[boog204]

We really gonna complain about 3 burger boys?

Wow, you missed the point. One of the major issues on this team is a lack of foot speed and athleticism. DH was quoted before the year that they value offensive players that they can turn into defensive players. That didn't work, and that philosophy needs to be addressed.

We have four excellent recruits coming in. But it is a viable concern that none of them are considered great athletes and two have well-established question marks about how thin (Adams) they are and their current conditioning level (Furphy). If our defensive issues are linked, in part, to being outclassed athletically and our lack of foot speed/quickness, then DH needs to rethink how we play defense. Putting guys who lack foot speed/defensive fundamentals on an ISO defensive island with no rim protection is not effective and this year's layup drill/help defense debacle is proof of it. Forcing poor defensive players to rotate and get manhandled by mismatches because our 5 is hedging in the parking lot is not ideal.

We need to bring in some players from the portal to up our overall athleticism and as Husky429 stated, have some "violence" in their game. Who knows who returns but our entire team, minus Reed (most of the time), a healthy Hass, and Liam are very finesse in either physicality or nature.

 

[Dogdeacon]

You know what else we are missing this year? An off the bench scorer. Joey California was the guy in 2023. Diarra played that role last year and to some extent in 2023. This team would really benefit from a microwave type off the bench when shots aren’t falling. Who is that guy on this team?

Diarra was a defensive stopper in 2023, full stop. Last year Diarra did provide some bench scoring punch, but it wasn't because he was creating it was b/c the team had 5 juggernaut offensive players so whoever came in got the benefit of opponent defense relaxing and focused on bigger threats.

This season the big threats other than McNeeley aren't gravitational pulls on defenders so would need more of a true create your own offense type off the bench. Still trying to adapt Mahaney into that role, while the need for ballhandling/backup PG makes it doubly tough as the kid hasn't been able to figure out either role. Tarris is scoring off the bench & like most bench scorers it is feast or famine.

Overall bench scoring is like #9 issue on the team. Any team that lost as many talented NBA players as UConn has the last 2 years is going to struggle. If UConn had 2 more returnees as strong as Clingan & Newton were (or Sanogo, Hawkins & Jackson yr prior) the team would be contenders yet again.

 

[RuffRuff]

Wow, you missed the point. One of the major issues on this team is a lack of foot speed and athleticism. DH was quoted before the year that they value offensive players that they can turn into defensive players. That didn't work, and that philosophy needs to be addressed.

We have four excellent recruits coming in. But it is a viable concern that none of them are considered great athletes and two have well-established question marks about how thin (Adams) they are and their current conditioning level (Furphy). If our defensive issues are linked, in part, to being outclassed athletically and our lack of foot speed/quickness, then DH needs to rethink how we play defense. Putting guys who lack foot speed/defensive fundamentals on an ISO defensive island with no rim protection is not effective and this year's layup drill/help defense debacle is proof of it. Forcing poor defensive players to rotate and get manhandled by mismatches because our 5 is hedging in the parking lot is not ideal.

We need to bring in some players from the portal to up our overall athleticism and as Husky429 stated, have some "violence" in their game. Who knows who returns but our entire team, minus Reed (most of the time), a healthy Hass, and Liam are very finesse in either physicality or nature.

Hurley 100% over indexed on shooting, both in the portal and this class. The nice thing is now you can fix it in the portal.