My Apologies to Dan Hurley

[Waquoit]

A lot more people should be willing to say this. I’d guess 0-3 people total on this board have even close to the experience or knowledge to discredit what he was doing as a coach. All they saw is results not being what they expected and determined he didn’t know how to coach. He does. Good on you for admitting it.

It's a process, not a switch to be flipped like some are still insisting.

 

[NJHoops]

I don’t think anyone should have to apologize. I do believe it would be nice if, when something goes wrong in the future (a broken play, a recruiting miss, whatever), some people could stop and think, wait! Do I now have any background knowledge that would make this particular thing I want to say or do not be prudent at this juncture? Probably not, but a girl can dream!

 

[jake14mw]

There's a HUGE difference between questioning coaching decisions and questioning a coaches ability, or acting like because a particular thing happened in a game or is happening in a game that the coach doesn't see it or know it or coach it.

Questioning particular coaching decisions is a normal part of fandom. Fans question certain decisions of every hall of fame coach ever. We can question Geno's decisions, and people would and should question certain Hurley decisions going forward. Winning a NC doesn't make you a god or perfect.

Dan Hurley comes from a talented knowledgeable family background. He paid his dues in coaching, and was successful everywhere he went before this job. He put together a quality staff. The thing that always made laugh on this board was the geniuses that would come here and mock him as if he wasn't qualified. The people who would come here and drop all their knowledge about what they were seeing and what was wrong with the team with the delusion that somehow Hurley and the staff wasn't smart enough to see what our resident boneyard genius was seeing.

Certain things can't get fixed overnight. I thought during the bad stretch this year that the two main things that needed to be addressed by the coaching staff was the poor guard play, and figuring out how to handle Andre's struggles. There were many different ways to address them, and the UConn staff addressed both beautifully.

 

[HooperScooper]

Is @BostonBay still around? He owes Hurley an apology. I know a lot of us questioned things Hurley did like strategy, etc., that's just natural of a fan, but that's different than a definitive statement that he'll never take the team to the next level. Last post from him was about a year ago so maybe he's not around any more.

Hurley will never take UConn to the next level

Totally outcoached tonight. No FG in last 7 minutes...Are you kidding me? He had the deer in headlights look & didnt know how to change things up to get an easy basket or 2 down the stretch. Same pattern with him in close games against good teams over the years. Nothing has changed.

www.the-boneyard.com

I never forget: Hurley will never take UConn to the next level

This team will never take the next step with Hurley as coach

He just seems to push the wrong buttons over and over in close games. He's had enough time to prove himself. He's a much better recruiter than coach.

www.the-boneyard.com

 

[Waquoit]

Is @BostonBay still around? He owes Hurley an apology. I know a lot of us questioned things Hurley did like strategy, etc., that's just natural of a fan, but that's different than a definitive statement that he'll never take the team to the next level. Last post from him was about a year ago so maybe he's not around any more.

This team will never take the next step with Hurley as coach

He just seems to push the wrong buttons over and over in close games. He's had enough time to prove himself. He's a much better recruiter than coach.

www.the-boneyard.com

I look back and see I didn't get any likes when I stated two years ago "Hurley is way ahead of where JC was". I thinks it's OK to enjoy the Championship with over doing the JC love. Yes, he brought us into this world. But he also almost took us out of it.

 

[Kemba15]

Is @BostonBay still around? He owes Hurley an apology. I know a lot of us questioned things Hurley did like strategy, etc., that's just natural of a fan, but that's different than a definitive statement that he'll never take the team to the next level. Last post from him was about a year ago so maybe he's not around any more.

Hurley will never take UConn to the next level

Totally outcoached tonight. No FG in last 7 minutes...Are you kidding me? He had the deer in headlights look & didnt know how to change things up to get an easy basket or 2 down the stretch. Same pattern with him in close games against good teams over the years. Nothing has changed.

www.the-boneyard.com

I never forget: Hurley will never take UConn to the next level

This team will never take the next step with Hurley as coach

He just seems to push the wrong buttons over and over in close games. He's had enough time to prove himself. He's a much better recruiter than coach.

www.the-boneyard.com

He wasn’t the only one

 

[UConniki]

I'll admit, I lost faith that he was the guy during that January stretch. I didn't want to fire him, but I didn't think he could get us to the promised land.

Took him not even three months to prove me wrong. I'm happy to eat the crow.

Me too, I was down on all the fighting with the referees but I never said I wanted him fired, kinda wanted him to get ahold of his emotions and concentrate on coaching instead of turning all of the referees against UConn putting us at an unfair disadvantage. I didn’t think he could pull it off but he did it. I’m ecstatic to have been wrong about this. Hurley’s the man.

 

[HooperScooper]

He wasn’t the only one

Yeah but I just remembered this one the most. I hope @BostonBay is still out there and got to enjoy the championship he said would never happen.

 

[ctchamps]

Hurley might even make the Top 25 coaches list next year.

One is not like the others:

Other legends such as Michigan State's Tom Izzo (67), Houston's Kelvin Sampson (67), Tennessee's Rick Barnes (68), West Virginia's Bob Huggins (69), Iona's Rick Pitino (70), Miami's Jim Larranaga (73), Florida State's Leonard Hamilton (74) and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim (77) are either approaching or enjoying the twilight of their careers.

 

[ctchamps]

That is not a good look. I am all for honesty, candor and authenticity. And I get the whole New Jersey don't take any bull spit attitude.

But "jerk off" and "arse hat" need to be removed from her vocabulary because it really doesn't help. It lowers the conversation to vulgarity. It reflects on her husband and the university. And it will turn off as many people as it pleases. It's a net loser.

I don’t think anyone truly cares. Maybe shift the conversation to a member of our coaches family getting spit on. She can call them whatever she pleases

I had to give Pal a like because 50% in this family agreed with him. I did my best to not show my hand.

 

[tzznandrew]

I look back and see I didn't get any likes when I stated two years ago "Hurley is way ahead of where JC was".

Because it's not a fair comparison. Calhoun started at a school with little history which was a doormat in the toughest conference in the country. Of course that took longer than Hurley taking a program with 4 national championships but had fallen on hard times back to a mountaintop no one had ever thought was climbable until JC showed everyone how.

Hurley is on his own trajectory. A title under his belt is usually the feather in a coaches' HOF hat: he has the feather now; he just needs to make the hat.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Top 25 coaches list

Good grief. That's the worst list (of anything) ive ever seen. I've had grocery lists worth more.

It's flawed, but decently reflective of the, "You are what your record says" school of thought, and thereby not nearly as bad as your claim.

Either way, consider that going into this season, Hurley had middling success in the past coaching victories over Boeheim (22), Sampson (5), and Cronin (9) before the 2021-2022 season.

In 2021-22, DH went 1-5 against Pearl (8), Huggins (16) Cooley, and McDermott (25).

This past season, Hurley went 8-2 against Few (2), Musselman (10), Pitino (11), Cooley (21), Altman (23), Bennett (24), and McDermott (25).

Seems to be trending well.

 

[giddyup]

No he didn't and if losing a few tough Big East games, and one bad loss at home, is rock bottom then he did an amazing job all season.

We lost 6 of 7 games, I call that going off a cliff after starting 14-0.

 

[giddyup]

A lot more people should be willing to say this. I’d guess 0-3 people total on this board have even close to the experience or knowledge to discredit what he was doing as a coach. All they saw is results not being what they expected and determined he didn’t know how to coach. He does. Good on you for admitting it.

Here we go with revisionist history. There are plenty of people on the board with knowledge and sufficient experience to know what they were looking at, and many of criticisms were situational and valid. It hasn’t been 5 years of perfection. Not even close. Where he’s come to after 5 years is a really good coach that figured out how to win in the big moment and why that isn’t sufficient in itself is a curiosity,

 

[Waquoit]

Because it's not a fair comparison.

True, JC had NBA players leftover from the previous coach. I remember when Hurley took over more than one said he would never make it because he didn't run Whaley off the team.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Me too, I was down on all the fighting with the referees but I never said I wanted him fired, kinda wanted him to get ahold of his emotions and concentrate on coaching instead of turning all of the referees against UConn putting us at an unfair disadvantage. I didn’t think he could pull it off but he did it. I’m ecstatic to have been wrong about this. Hurley’s the man.

I'm really glad you're happy now and have changed your tune, but you had many many many more issues with Hurley than just fighting with the referees...for example:

All in the past, let's radiate positivity and win back-to-back

 

[Mr. French]

Here we go with revisionist history. There are plenty of people on the board with knowledge and sufficient experience to know what they were looking at, and many of criticisms were situational and valid. It hasn’t been 5 years of perfection. Not even close. Where he’s come to after 5 years is a really good coach that figured out how to win in the big moment and why that isn’t sufficient in itself is a curiosity,

This is wild, but you know that. I never said there were no valid criticisms.

People were saying he had no clue how to coach offense. That’s 2 vastly different things. And people were acting like they KNEW what to do and why things weren’t working, like he couldn’t see what they saw.

That’s insane and delusional, and more people should admit that.

 

[Kemba15]

Here we go with revisionist history. There are plenty of people on the board with knowledge and sufficient experience to know what they were looking at, and many of criticisms were situational and valid. It hasn’t been 5 years of perfection. Not even close. Where he’s come to after 5 years is a really good coach that figured out how to win in the big moment and why that isn’t sufficient in itself is a curiosity,

Criticisms are fine. There’s not a single person who believes Hurley is above criticism. But many, many people on here badly overreacted to a January swoon.

They said the program is being steered in the wrong direction and has gotten worse, that his seat should be warm, that he’s guaranteed to get bounced early again, that he plays the wrong guys, that he totally whiffed on point guard, that he can’t coach offense, that many other coaches can come in and do better, so on and so on.

Do not for one second act like that if we got bounced by Iona or St. Mary’s that all of these negative nancies would be shouting from the rooftops at the “Hurley stans.”

It works both ways, just own it.

 

[SubbaBub]

You are all confusing people who lost their minds because a bunch of practice players who they barely saw in games, if at all, transferred and people who saw a dominant team start losing a bunch of games due to obvious flaws in their approach. Those aren't similar criticisms.

The team that ripped through the non-league games including the NCAA like a hot knife through butter lost 7 games in conference play. Yes, the BE was good but we didn't fair well in close games because if they played well, the games weren't close. AJ got a lot of deserved heat, but there were other problems that Hurley should have corrected earlier than he did. Something he himself admitted.

People really wander around in their own little dream worlds, don't they? Also a newsflash, Jim Boeheim stayed too long at the fair and set his program back decades. We all saw it, but up in southern Canada, they were all orange lensflare. Don't be like them.

Hurley got it together and won big. Up until that point, nobody really knew if he had it in him. Well, he does. Remember that next season, but the criticism was valid at the time it was given. There is no need to suck up with self-serving apologies. It's pathetic, and no one cares.

 

[giddyup]

Criticisms are fine. There’s not a single person who believes Hurley is above criticism. But many, many people on here badly overreacted to a January swoon.

They said the program is being steered in the wrong direction and has gotten worse, that his seat should be warm, that he’s guaranteed to get bounced early again, that he plays the wrong guys, that he totally whiffed on point guard, that he can’t coach offense, that many other coaches can come in and do better, so on and so on.

Do not for one second act like that if we got bounced by Iona or St. Mary’s that all of these negative nancies would be shouting from the rooftops at the “Hurley stans.”

It works both ways, just own it.

There were a few outliers calling for his head from what I recall, and they were summarily pounded.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

There were a few outliers calling for his head from what I recall, and they were summarily pounded.

I'm not particularly invested in this debate because it is 100% certain that the same cast of characters - cough, cough - are going to be melting down in the chat next year when they're down 8-4 at the first media timeout and ripping Hurley for whatever anodyne comment he makes at a press conference but you're soft-pedaling just how unbearable this board was this season.

 

[XLCenterFan]

I appreciate your honesty @60'sfan. I too must man up.

There were points in the season where I said "DH is great recruiter....a great motivator...but he's not good with X's and O's."

I said "if we lose round 1, put him on the hot seat."

I said "Alleyne should be benched and Joey C and Diarra should take all his minutes."

I said "Joey C hasn't hit a meaningful shot since Georgetown, bench him."

I said "play Sanogo with Big Don."

I said "Luke will win tonight," when DH had covid.

I said "I guess we aren't the best team in the country after all."

I said "Ajax is going to cost us down the stretch."

I stayed home the from the XL Butler game (the ONLY home game I did not attend) because I was sad, angry, and furious and it was my form of "benching" them.

All of this being said, I showed up to every home game and I brought it. I went to MSG, went to Albany. Bought the gear, and talked the talk. Bet us to win it all and bet almost every game. This was the funnest I have ever had in any season, and I'm a 40 year old who's mom went to UConn and my father has had season tix my whole life, and now I have my own. I dressed up like DH for the SH Gampel game. My wife says I act like we are a cult. No other season compares. This was so fun I can't even explain. I am ready to do it all over again next year...I am all in.

I am a complete fool. I will never doubt DH or these players again.

 

[UCan3]

A lot of us questioned about Hurley, especially coming from URI. But he had a clear vision for the program and the massive ability to achieve it. Hope Jim Mora can achieve his vision for the football team within a couple of years.

JIm Mora, what he did with our Football program last year, is not far off from the awesome job Hurley did.

Obviously not a national championship but what Mora started with and where he got us to, it was coach of the year stuff IMO.

Yes, he’s got a ways to go but it was awesome what he did and should not be overlooked.

 

[giddyup]

I'm not particularly invested in this debate because it is 100% certain that the same cast of characters - cough, cough - are going to be melting down in the chat next year when they're down 8-4 at the first media timeout and ripping Hurley for whatever anodyne comment he makes at a press conference but you're soft-pedaling just how unbearable this board was this season.

Dude, whatever. It’s a sports board with people that have opinions.

 

[tzznandrew]

I'm really glad you're happy now and have changed your tune, but you had many many many more issues with Hurley than just fighting with the referees...for example:


View attachment 86980 View attachment 86981

All in the past, let's radiate positivity and win back-to-back

lol. The double big. The sign of someone who has no ******** clue about modern basketball.

We won a title precisely because we did not use a double big. I hope most people see that, though I do not have faith that they do.