Got bored and decided to see if Hurley is 1) actually a defensive coach like he claims, 2) every has played fast.
UCONN offense/defense rankings under Hurley (then URI)... then adjusted transition pace ranking, whatever it's caled. All from torvik.
21: 18/30...303
20: 59/65… 169
19: 84/126… 107
At URI
18: 78/53… 161
17: 58/28… 263
16: 109/73… 324
15: 176/14… 120
14: 194/70… 181
13: 189/145 …. 285
1) Any ideas on why Hurley every year of his career (including at Wagner) had a better defense than offense, but at UConn has had the exact opposite all 3 years.
In my opinion? The level of competition has improved. His strategy of in your face, hard hedging ALL the time is basically "be bigger, better, badder, faster basketball"--and it's really fun to watch. And highly effective a lot of the time. But high-major, top-25 bball takes a more nuanced approach than that. It will work versus some matchups, but other teams? You're going to need a press in your back pocket, a zone to protect guys in foul trouble (ehem, Sanogo), and teach your less athletic guys (Sanogo, hopefully Clingan) to play in drop coverage depending on the matchup and circumstance.
2) Hurley has never had a top-100 pace, and has had a top 50% pace all of twice. Our pace has dropped each year he's been here. This years was staggeringly slow. And that can be okay... we can be a team that plays slow, but we also need to recruit accordingly. Bringing in freak athletes with limited skill (Jackson, Akok, Johnson) means you need to play fast to utilize their strengths. Heck, even Gaffney plays better when he has license to play fast. I would put Rese in the camp of players that would fare better in transition as well, and Whaley. Even Polley is great at hitting those trailing wing threes on the break.
I wonder if our recruiting of guys like Diggins and Hawkins (awesome half-court player despite being a great athlete), as well as our only recently prioritizing half-court players like Karaban and Fillipowski is a signal that we're going to try to take a more balanced approach to recruiting skill vs athleticism. It also did seem like later in the year our players were getting more freedom to get out and run.
I doubt we're ever going to be a top 20 pace team. It isn't in our coaches DNA. You need to be willing to accept a lot of TOs if it means more layups... a cost-benefit analysis. And Hurley always seem to err on the side of less TOs.
I hope going forward that amazing offensive rebounding and tenacity on defense remains our priority. I'm sure we'll continue to elevate our recruiting. I also hope that we add more half-court proficient players (read: shooters), allow our bigs to play in drop coverage, and start letting the dogs run more. Getting back to around 100 or so like we were his first year would be a fair place to be IMO.