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Our Ceiling

navery12 said:
I wouldn't say I'm concerned he's not the answer but I think it's time to accept Hurley can't coach offense. Doesn't mean he can't succeed as coach, but he needs to change something to make up for it. Maybe it's playing the freshman, maybe it's bringing in more scorers before next season, but something has to change
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I don't think his offense is great, but when 3pt shooters who have shot 40% like Polley shoot 1-7 (and 31% for the year), you're offense is going to look like crap.
 
The truth is I think Hurley thought he still had enough firepower offensively after the loss of Bouknight. He had a chance to go to the transfer portal and he didn’t. He may have made a miscalculation that is costing us now.

He’s going to have to figure out how to find scoring and giving it to Sanogo down low every time isn’t a sustainable answer
 
superjohn said:
I have the same worries, he has far too much experience to be this lost at this point. The culture and recruiting is great but you have to be able to coach. I'm worried the poor coaching could start to impact those other things.
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It seems that he comes to the game with a set plan, almost written down, and is too committed to that to adjust it. I think he’s smart enough and experienced to be a good offense coach
 
So many bad takes in this thread. Our ceiling is that our coach is stubborn we should be running transition offense almost exclusively since our shooters can’t hit a shot
 
polycom said:
So many bad takes in this thread. Our ceiling is that our coach is stubborn we should be running transition offense almost exclusively since our shooters can’t hit a shot
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It's just talk, he says we're going to run like crazy this year and use our depth. We should always run but he wants half court battles and to win defensively, it's even crazier that he has us playing a half court game now that we don't even have the guy we run the halfcourt offense through.
 
superjohn said:
It's just talk, he says we're going to run like crazy this year and use our depth. We should always run but he wants half court battles and to win defensively, it's even crazier that he has us playing a half court game now that we don't even have the guy we run the halfcourt offense through.
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The second half is true but we've been running significantly more this year than last. We were 309th in pace last year and right now we're at 192nd. For whatever reason we've played slower since Sanogo went down, we were in the 120s before that
 
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navery12 said:
The second half is true but we've been running significantly more this year than last. We were 309th in pace last year and right now we're at 192nd. For whatever reason we've played slower since Sanogo went down, we were in the 120s before that
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That is still pretty slow for a team this athletic that supposedly spent the offseason trying to figure out how to play faster.
 
navery12 said:
The second half is true but we've been running significantly more this year than last. We were 309th in pace last year and right now we're at 192nd. For whatever reason we've played slower since Sanogo went down, we were in the 120s before that
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Correlation is not causation. We’re playing better teams and not turning them over as much or getting as wide a rebound margin. Both create the run out opportunities.
 
navery12 said:
The second half is true but we've been running significantly more this year than last. We were 309th in pace last year and right now we're at 192nd. For whatever reason we've played slower since Sanogo went down, we were in the 120s before that
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We can thank Jackson for the increase in pace. He's the only one who pushes the ball up the court immediately after a rebound
 
OkaForPrez said:
Vs Providence on the ifs:
RJ - fail
AJ - pass
Adama - INC
Akok - fail
Gaff - fail
Polley-fail
Hawk-fail
Martin -inc?
Zay-pass
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I don’t think RJ failed he played a solid game but if he’s not shooting it well we’re in trouble. Hawkins isn’t a fail either not enough minutes to be fair. The rest minus the incompletes yep. Absolutely Fs next to Polley and Gaff.

Still waiting for that “depth” versus good teams. For now we’ve run short of players who can impact and help close.
 
mauconnfan said:
I don’t think RJ failed he played a solid game but if he’s not shooting it well we’re in trouble. Hawkins isn’t a fail either not enough minutes to be fair. The rest minus the incompletes yep. Absolutely Fs next to Polley and Gaff.

Still waiting for that “depth” versus good teams. For now we’ve run short of players who can impact and help close.
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RJ has saved our butts quite a few times this year. The problem is that he even has to save our butts . He shouldn’t have to. RJ is playing to his potential. He’s maxed out, and he is becoming increasingly inefficient in shot making because he is having to do too much. We are not going to get anymore out of RJ than he’s already given. He’s fully realized as a player. Time for others to step up or RJ’s shot ineffiency will continue
 
August_West said:
RJ has saved our butts quite a few times this year. The problem is that he even has to save our butts . He shouldn’t have to. RJ is playing to his potential. He’s maxed out, and he is becoming increasingly inefficient in shot making because he is having to do too much. We are not going to get anymore out of RJ than he’s already given. He’s fully realized as a player. Time for others to step up or RJ’s shot ineffiency will continue
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We were saying that since earlier in the season, it's just way too much of a burden being put on Cole. It's why it was so important to play Diggins in the cupcake games and to to maybe try and develop Jackson more as a point forward. Cole has been asked all season to basically play the entire game as our only point guard, the only guy trusted with the ball, the guy who takes all the big shots, and the guy stopping the ball on defense.
 
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mauconnfan said:
I don’t think RJ failed he played a solid game but if he’s not shooting it well we’re in trouble. Hawkins isn’t a fail either not enough minutes to be fair. The rest minus the incompletes yep. Absolutely Fs next to Polley and Gaff.

Still waiting for that “depth” versus good teams. For now we’ve run short of players who can impact and help close.
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I hear you Mau and there were lots of dynamics with the rest of the team which impacted RJ's performance but he was 5-19. The standard I failed him for in my previous post was one that gets us to a final four. He has to play at a really high level and 5-19 isn't that level for me.

As for Hawkins, I can see him as an INC. He needs to look for his offense more though. Creating more opportunities will be a sign of his growth.
 
OkaForPrez said:
If...

  • RJ can continue to perform at this level against high major talent trying to take him away
  • AJ does more rebounding and pushing tempo and less forcing passes that aren’t there and takes the shots the defense gives him.
  • Adama learns to read a double team early and find the open man
  • Akok becomes more aggressive with his offense while on the floor.
  • Gaffney plays tougher with the ball in his hands and stops turning the ball over.
  • Polley can be more 37% nightly and less 10%, 50%, 10%, 50%.
  • Hawk starts playing like an almost sophomore and with confidence.
  • Martin can eliminate his yips around the rim.
  • Zay can stay out of foul trouble while staying aggressive and making the open 3.
Then...this can be a final four team. Watching the IFs is what makes it fun.
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Vs SHU:
RJ-fail. A good game, but to reach our ceiling he has to be consistently great. He was inefficient, but still played smart and tough. We need all 3.
AJ-Pass+. AJ is the brightest spot on the season so far. He’s getting better and better. I’d like to see him look to finish more if he gets within 5 feet of the basket. The refs were whistle happy during the Kadary one man run. I thought AJ driving was the antedote. Surprised he didn’t get the whistle when the Big O got him down the stretch.
Adama- incomplete. We worked around his issue by running more pick and roll with RJ. I would have liked to force the issue with him more in the post. His two cheap ones changed the game.
Akok-pass. He took the shots when they were there, I want to run more sets with him as the extra pass.
Gaff-capital F fail. Concerning.
Polley-certainly a good Polley game but this is about consistency, let’s see what he does next. We rarely lose good polley games, that’s why this one stings so much. Kadary eating our lunch for 25% of the game erased great shooting.
Hawk-fail. starting to feel like he won’t be ready until next year.
Martin-1 yip. Surprised we didn’t see more of him. Fail for lack of attempts.
Zay-tough matchup for him. Did not play his best.

The bottom line: individually there’s still a lot of potential in this team and with most of the question marks not going our way we took the best shot of a top 25 team on the road and almost won. I know were all sick of moral victories but this result reflects what we are: a 20-30 team in the country.

Unfortunately there’s a lot of doubt now that we’ll fix our issue at reserve PG which makes us a fundamentally flawed team. I was a diggins must play guy early in the season but watching hawk struggle makes me think sool isn’t ready either. Our best option right now is to let AJ initiate the offense off the dribble when Gaff is in.

@UConnStats you got a +/- on Gaff yesterday?
 
Fringe top-25.

We need to win at least 1 game in the tournament or I'm going to be pretty pissed but I'd give him another season. If we don't have a tourney win in 5 years we'll need a new coach, period.

Can't imagine we won't get a couple wins with the talent we have coming in.
 
If stay a top 28 team I'll take it...keeps you at 7 seed or above. Hopefully push way up to top 20 and a 5 seed.

To stay a top 28 team need to win some upcoming games against likely / close ncaa tourney teams (Nova, Hall, Prov, Xavier, Creighton, SJU, Marquette).... are 1-2 so far. The good news is that Lunardi currently has 8 BE teams in the tourney so we'll have lots of chances for quality wins.
 
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navery12 said:
Gaffney was +4 in 11 minutes yesterday, 2nd on team behind Whaley (+6 in 23 minutes)
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9 points, 4 fouls, 3 rebounds, in 33 minutes and that's not even with the eye test
 
We've had numerous threads on how Diggins should take Gaffney's minutes or at least half of Gaffney's minutes, but if Whaley isn't playing like the Defensive Player of the Year he was, what does he bring?

1 three-pointer every other game? You can't dump it into him down low to get a bucket so our offense is perimeter orientated and easy to defend when he's at the 5. He's regressed. Either he has to improve or Hurley needs to have someone down low who can get a bucket.
Whaley doesn't even try to faceup and hit a midrange jumper anymore.
 
UConnSwag11 said:
9 points, 4 fouls, 3 rebounds, in 33 minutes and that's not even with the eye test
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Huh? Not sure if you were trying to reply to a different post

Edit: I see you were combining Gaffney and Whaley's stats now
 
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