Nowell in the transfer portal

[RuffRuff]

Has anyone seen a list of potential Nowell suitors?

No

 

[FfldCntyFan]

It's a damned shame that our coaching staff knows so much less about basketball than a message board poster.

Hell, the poster was able to figure things out while watching a few minutes here and there that the staff couldn't figure out watching him in practice daily.

It may be time to clean house and find a new coaching staff.

 

[Excalibur]

Danny hasn’t had a single hit as far as HS PGs go in about 8 years. Thats not normal.

I know I know it doesn’t matter because we can buy a player someone else developed to play.

This is a legitimate criticism. He either struggles to identify talent or struggles to develop them. I think it's more the former than the latter, given that none of the points who have left have proven to be great elsewhere (Gaffney was the same player he was here, and Diggins is a high volume chucker on a bad team).

 

[RuffRuff]

This is a legitimate criticism. He either struggles to identify talent or struggles to develop them. I think it's more the former than the latter, given that none of the points who have left have proven to be great elsewhere (Gaffney was the same player he was here, and Diggins is a high volume chucker on a bad team).

100% the former. He developed Newton just fine. It's a hard position to recruit given the transition from HS to college is steep in how it impacts the role. You can't just dribble by guys anymore. Meanwhile we have some here that feel he should try to develop any one we recruit into All American's at all costs, when the portal offers the opportunity to fix mistakes.

Speaking of which, there is a certain ex PG on the roster who's status is still out there.

 

[NJHoops]

Not even going to lie, but I take a lot of enjoyment from the fact that a handful of people here dislike Hurley so much that it has to have taken away some of the happiness they feel about the recent success. It truly gives me life.

 

[alphasigko]

Not even going to lie, but I take a lot of enjoyment from the fact that a handful of people here dislike Hurley so much that it has to have taken away some of the happiness they feel about the recent success. It truly gives me life.

It is not dislike, but rather offering opinions on his obvious shortcomings. Just because he won 2 natties in spite of these, there is no reason to get your panties in a knot, as it is just postseason Boneyard chatter.

 

[Excalibur]

It is not dislike, but rather offering opinions on his obvious shortcomings. Just because he won 2 natties in spite of these, there is no reason to get your panties in a knot, as is is just postseason Boneyard chatter.

All it took was one mere 24-win season for people to start airing long-held grievances.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

This is a legitimate criticism. He either struggles to identify talent or struggles to develop them. I think it's more the former than the latter, given that none of the points who have left have proven to be great elsewhere (Gaffney was the same player he was here, and Diggins is a high volume chucker on a bad team).

The other legitimate wild card in the current NIL era is whether we can afford the player. I think the staff does at least a decent job of identifying talent. They have to balance talent ID with realistic ability to the the player here...

We were a very strong contender for Pettiford but ultimately he went to Auburn. My guess is $$$ was a part.

If Pettiford came to UConn, the "talent identification" argument would be put to bed.

 

[Inyatkin]

The other legitimate wild card in the current NIL era is whether we can afford the player. I think the staff does at least a decent job of identifying talent. They have to balance talent ID with realistic ability to the the player here...

We were a very strong contender for Pettiford but ultimately he went to Auburn. My guess is $$$ was a part.

If Pettiford came to UConn, the "talent identification" argument would be put to bed.

Even take the money out of it. It's still a two-way street. You identify great talent, they still have to want to come here and not somewhere else

 

[Gurleyman]

This is a legitimate criticism. He either struggles to identify talent or struggles to develop them. I think it's more the former than the latter, given that none of the points who have left have proven to be great elsewhere (Gaffney was the same player he was here, and Diggins is a high volume chucker on a bad team).

Gaffney and Cole came in during the same year. One was considered our future point guard, and the other was a depth piece, at a time when we were a .500 team and not a destination place for top tier talent.

Diggins was recruited during the COVID shutdown without really seeing him play .. and realistically, we still weren't re-established yet.

Nowell, I don't know. Might just be a talent evaluation miss, or maybe the lost practice time for injuries was a killer for him and he'll be better with a fresh start. But I do know I didn't feel comfortable with him penciled in as a starting point guard next year. At all. If he wanted to stay and try to carve out the role that bench Hassan had, sure, and maybe he'd make the starter leap as a junior. By contrast, I saw enough flashes in Solo last year where I was happy to pencil him in at the 2, even though his stat line at the end of the year didn't look great. But it takes some moxie to take on UNC at the Garden and get us some big buckets. And he had a couple 4-5 games where you could see what he could do.

 

[TroyHall98]

This is a legitimate criticism. He either struggles to identify talent or struggles to develop them. I think it's more the former than the latter, given that none of the points who have left have proven to be great elsewhere (Gaffney was the same player he was here, and Diggins is a high volume chucker on a bad team).

The offense may be too complex for a freshman to run.

 

[444JR]

There was one game he came in and immediately threw the ball straight to the other team for a turnover. Was bizarre. Don’t remember Nowell playing much after that for the rest of the season.

 

[pj]

100% the former. He developed Newton just fine. It's a hard position to recruit given the transition from HS to college is steep in how it impacts the role. You can't just dribble by guys anymore. Meanwhile we have some here that feel he should try to develop any one we recruit into All American's at all costs, when the portal offers the opportunity to fix mistakes.

Speaking of which, there is a certain ex PG on the roster who's status is still out there.

I disagree, I think he's a very good judge of talent. I think he's overconfident in his ability to develop PG skills - he thinks he can turn anybody with guard skills into a point guard, and often that doesn't work. There's a native talent which if you don't have, can't be taught.

 

[UCan3]

I disagree, I think he's a very good judge of talent. I think he's overconfident in his ability to develop PG skills - he thinks he can turn anybody with guard skills into a point guard, and often that doesn't work. There's a native talent which if you don't have, can't be taught.

I remember Shabazz coming in… Yes some things you can’t teach.

I think the big thing is how much do you need that point guard to do.

The best ones - Newton is great example - are the ones that can drive/penetrate/distribute when they need to and then drop 20 on any given night because the team in struggling offensively.

There was a lot of pressure on PG position because we were lacking in other areas this year. We were a little bit slow footed, had trouble getting open / creating when not much was there… Pretty much worst case for a FROSH PG in my opinion…

But with this latest pick up in the portal, Nowell was likely right out skidaddle out of Storrs. I hope he does great .

 

[3rdbass]

There was one game he came in and immediately threw the ball straight to the other team for a turnover. Was bizarre. Don’t remember Nowell playing much after that for the rest of the season.

Yeah, that was the road game against Xavier. He really only had one alright game againist Georgetown.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Gaffney and Cole came in during the same year. One was considered our future point guard, and the other was a depth piece, at a time when we were a .500 team and not a destination place for top tier talent.

Diggins was recruited during the COVID shutdown without really seeing him play .. and realistically, we still weren't re-established yet.

Nowell, I don't know. Might just be a talent evaluation miss, or maybe the lost practice time for injuries was a killer for him and he'll be better with a fresh start. But I do know I didn't feel comfortable with him penciled in as a starting point guard next year. At all. If he wanted to stay and try to carve out the role that bench Hassan had, sure, and maybe he'd make the starter leap as a junior. By contrast, I saw enough flashes in Solo last year where I was happy to pencil him in at the 2, even though his stat line at the end of the year didn't look great. But it takes some moxie to take on UNC at the Garden and get us some big buckets. And he had a couple 4-5 games where you could see what he could do.

Careful, a bit too much logic in this post for many here.

 

[Horatio]

If Nowell did have a shoulder injury this season, I think it was probably a lot more serious than reported. A Shoulder injury would absolutely limit what he could do. A mid level shoulder injury would hinder a freshman PG. Plus an ankle injury.

 

[RuffRuff]

Gaffney and Cole came in during the same year. One was considered our future point guard, and the other was a depth piece, at a time when we were a .500 team and not a destination place for top tier talent.

Diggins was recruited during the COVID shutdown without really seeing him play .. and realistically, we still weren't re-established yet.

Nowell, I don't know. Might just be a talent evaluation miss, or maybe the lost practice time for injuries was a killer for him and he'll be better with a fresh start. But I do know I didn't feel comfortable with him penciled in as a starting point guard next year. At all. If he wanted to stay and try to carve out the role that bench Hassan had, sure, and maybe he'd make the starter leap as a junior. By contrast, I saw enough flashes in Solo last year where I was happy to pencil him in at the 2, even though his stat line at the end of the year didn't look great. But it takes some moxie to take on UNC at the Garden and get us some big buckets. And he had a couple 4-5 games where you could see what he could do.

I highly doubt Nowell was just an injury/practice time issue. He would have still had plenty of chances to show what he's made of in practice and if the staff felt he had the goods going into a point guardless sophomore season, they would have pushed to keep. My guess is it was just an eval mistake. It's not like they're not prone as we can look at the Mahaney miss as an egregious one. They're generally very good at evaluating, but not flawless.

 

[caw]

Danny hasn’t had a single hit as far as HS PGs go in about 8 years. Thats not normal.

I know I know it doesn’t matter because we can buy a player someone else developed to play.

Umm, no. Stephon Castle was a high school PG. You can argue if he was the PG at UConn (I will argue he played PG a good amount of the time but wasn't always the main facilitator as a freshman with perhaps the best PG in the country as a fifth year player) but he is playing PG now in the NBA also (he's also played the two, but with Fox out he's gotten a lot more run as the PG).

Castle is also the only first choice PG Hurley has signed from high school IIRC, not sure on Gaffney.

2025 - Not sure there is a real PG in this class. Adams is much more of a combo than any of the other PG recruits below. He's also an unknown at the college level. TBD.
2024 - Nowell, Hurley wanted Pettiford I'm pretty sure, who signed pretty early with Auburn.
2023 - Castle
2022 - NA (got two transfers at PG in Newton and Diarra)
2021 - Diggins, honestly don't recall but I want to say UConn had interest elsewhere first, still a miss for UConn's level
2020 - NA (didn't even recruit one that I recall)
2019 - Gaffney (also brought in Cole) - Gaffney was decent and did play on a final four team, so I wouldn't call this a miss as much as not a home run.
2018 - Adams (solid and brought in as a backup. He played to the level he was recruited for.)

I honestly don't recall before that at URI. So you are talking about five HS recruits. 1 absolute HR in Castle. Adams and Gaffney were serviceable players who could play at UConn's level but were bench players and at least Adams was brought in as such. Diggins was not good enough for UConn's level at all but was also a COVID player where evaluations were bonkers. Nowell is a TBD (IMO) with him barely playing.

 

[UCFan1513]

I highly doubt Nowell was just an injury/practice time issue. He would have still had plenty of chances to show what he's made of in practice and if the staff felt he had the goods going into a point guardless sophomore season, they would have pushed to keep. My guess is it was just an eval mistake. It's not like they're not prone as we can look at the Mahaney miss as an egregious one. They're generally very good at evaluating, but not flawless.

Keep in mind he was likely our third option after missing on Pettiford and either missing or eventually passing on Fland

 

[Deleted at users request]

Keep in mind he was likely our third option after missing on Pettiford and either missing or eventually passing on Fland

We didn’t pass on Fland. We didn’t want to pay up for Fland.

 

[alphasigko]

We didn’t pass on Fland. We didn’t want to pay up for Fland.

And rightly so

 

[freescooter]

100% the former. He developed Newton just fine. It's a hard position to recruit given the transition from HS to college is steep in how it impacts the role. You can't just dribble by guys anymore. Meanwhile we have some here that feel he should try to develop any one we recruit into All American's at all costs, when the portal offers the opportunity to fix mistakes.

Speaking of which, there is a certain ex PG on the roster who's status is still out there.

Different situation. Newton was an established experienced D1 player. And a scorer. And about 2 years shy of collecting social security, LOL,. Different worjingvwith him than with a kid just out of high school. Less maturity, less experience in the game, less developed physically, too.

 

[MDHuskFan]

Different situation. Newton was an established experienced D1 player. And a scorer. And about 2 years shy of collecting social security, LOL,. Different worjingvwith him than with a kid just out of high school. Less maturity, less experience in the game, less developed physically, too.

Newton was a 22 year old senior. He was a young freshman. Let’s not act like he was one of these 25 year old fifth years. It’s just not accurate

 

[HooperScooper]

Newton was a 22 year old senior. He was a young freshman. Let’s not act like he was one of these 25 year old fifth years. It’s just not accurate

Yeah he was born April 26, 2001. So when he came to UConn for his senior year in 2022 after 3 years at ECU he was 21 years old and graduated with a degree from UConn just after he turned 22. Like most people in college.