Expound or clarify, not sure exactly what you are saying. Sorry if im being dense, still have an OT loss hangover.
Stew is such an interesting part of this team. I have no idea how he’ll do as a backup 4.
Yes to clarify. Hurley will want to see him dominate in games against name quality teams to start him over Stew who was loyal in a time where players jump to another team ever year. He still values that. Time will tell and Mullins has to show that talent to get the nod but it’s just my opinion from observing Hurley all these years.
If you’re saying high usage means running offense through him, not sure I see it. At least not the way he’s played to date, which is taking lots of 3s (50% of shots). I’d love to see him create more offense near the paint, o rebounds and to just fill the box score in ways that a big strong kid like him can.
He’s played that way to date out of necessity. Him at his best (to me) would be more high usage in exactly the way you described.
So you start by questioning if I watched last year because I suggested Stew would at a minimum back up the 3 and 4….. and then immediately say Stew will back up the 3 and 4. Am I missing something here?
It was probably more of a situation with a player’s resistance to put in the effort the coaches wanted than a loyalty issue based on Reed’s interviews.
I don’t agree, he’d been building up Samson for 3 years, wall potential and all and started him. Reed could outrebound him from day 1. Samson outperformed what I thought he would do I admit.
Nice post. This pretty much matches my expectations, but I wouldn’t be shocked if one of the international players exceeds expectations and carves out a bigger role.
It’d be a neat story if Uros cracks the 9th spot, but the big really only has a chance if there’s heavy injuries at center, and the majority of people think Koroma would be ahead of him at center still.
I’m only relaying what Reed said in an interview. He indicated he resisted following what the coaches wanted him to do until January when he realized they were right.
Same thing will happen this year but I happen to think that Stew will get his shot.
If you’re implying Mullins will start and/or get more minutes than Ross or Stewart that’s certainly possible.
Hurley stated that Mahaney was one of the better players coming out of the summer and preseason practice and that is why he started. You know the rest.
Don’t believe that one bit. Hurley was throwing words all over the place last September. Toss that in with Ross looking like first rounder. I saw Mahaney in the open practice in August with my own eyes and it was glaring at how out of place he looked physically, and he played poorly. Hurley was trying to make the team something it wasn’t last year through pressers, as part of his quest for a 3peat. He overset expectations, never a good thing.
We can only infer that the staff felt Mahaney was the best choice to be the primary point guard. And therefore they would have indicated that to him to get him to UConn.
Couldn’t agree more with your last two paragraphs. Why it’s so hard to repeat in sports. It’s hard to stay focused and hungry, you’re more time constrained. They just happened to have a perfect combination of talent in 24.
And even with Cam there was an element of luck. Thank goodness Kansas gave the bag to Timberlake.
To be fair Nowell was injured but in some games played well for his minutes (see Georgetown).
I still think Mahaney just never found a fit. But also maybe Dan was wrong thinking he could be a PG. I mean Diarra ended up doing a great job considering he was a 6th man and hurt but not having a real good PG and no real depth turned out to be a huge factor. Let’s hope we have more than enough now!
in Big East play Nowell had only 2 FGs and 7 TOs. He was 0-6 on threes. He had only 1 steal. Missed all 2 of his FTs. He had 5 games where he played 5+ minutes. Dan Hurley’s son had more Big East points while playing significantly less minutes. I hope Nowell has more success at his next stop, but he had about as bad of year as anyone can have.