Outcoached

[olehead]

Poorly assembled team. Parts don't work well together. No shooters. No one who can get a bucket.

Hurley knew this the moment Bouk left but refused to go hard in the transfer market. Now he we are, strong in stance, and we suck on offense. We are a team with inept offensive scheming w/out a go to guy. Dan Hurley will learn this year. Guaranteed he will never as a UConn coach take offensive skill and the portal lightly again.

 

[mrl2016]

We got embarrassed and they were missing arguably their best player.

Novas #8 in kenpom and we lost on the road

Have some water

 

[EnochRoot]

But you can’t blame him if he is our best PG available can you? There’s no one else to lead this team that’s on the staff.

This is also true. Sanogo should be posting up getting the ball down low 15-20x a game. That's an easy half dozen assists right there.

 

[Bthlhf79]

I think it may be time to bring Jackson off the bench. He simply isn’t productive on offense. Let’s see more of Hawkins.

 

[EnochRoot]

Novas #8 in kenpom and we lost on the road

Have some water

Wright is superior to Hurley by an order of magnitude. Then again, he might just be the best coach in the NCAA?

 

[UofCT]

Novas #8 in kenpom and we lost on the road

Have some water

We got embarrassed

 

[CTBballfan243]

Nothing else to say

LOL. …….. LOL

 

[mauconnfan]

This is also true. Sanogo should be posting up getting the ball down low 15-20x a game. That's an easy half dozen assists right there.

Agree but the issue is he can’t get space because we can’t shoot. No coach will let him beat them they will double down and move him away from the basket. And our staff doesn’t have an answer.

 

[auror]

Naturally Villanova was the team we chose to finally (briefly) break the zone out against. Not exactly setting it up for success

It was a good idea with Moore out, as they were only really playing 2 shooters (Daniels and Gillespie, Slater and little Arch takes them but aren't very good).

But we still don't have ideal personnel for it (short and short-armed guard, 2 slow bigs) and likely don't practice it much so it didn't work.

 

[Mr. French]

This is why I am more critical of Hurley's roster construction and offensive personel than his coaching. We are just so damn limited offensively in players that can attack and score/shoot. We play four frontcourt players most of the time because our backcourt is so undermanned. Just not a lot of answers out there. It's such a disadvantage. You just can't win consistently against decent teams under these circumstances. The guy that started in place of Moore for Nova made several offensive moves that nobody on our roster makes and he comes off the bench for Nova. I don't think Danny can gamble again solely on offseason development. Might be time to hit the portal this offseason.

I like these points a lot ... I just don't know how much is Hurley's fault and how much is bad luck in development, OR how much is the individual players' faults.

But overall, our players are not great individually on offense. Think about what each guy gives you on O, and it's just not an overall recipe for success. Our players aren't great with the ball in traffic, can't finish that well under control in traffic, and we don't really have any knockdown shooters or shot creators.

If people notice, every guy on Villanova for the last 10 years at least plays EXACTLY the same, regardless of their skill set. They may be able to do MORE if they're more skilled than others, but they all use jump stops, controlled ball fakes, ready on the catch, and they can all shoot. It's like a watching a fundamentals clinic every season, every roster. So whatever Jay does, whether it's his skills development, recruiting the right guys, or (more than likely) a combo of both, it is impressive.

We need better guards/scoring wings. We have some freak athletes, but right now it's not really translating to consistent buckets, unless we feed Sanogo.

 

[mauconnfan]

I like these points a lot ... I just don't know how much is Hurley's fault and how much is bad luck in development, OR how much is the individual players' faults.

But overall, our players are not great individually on offense. Think about what each guy gives you on O, and it's just not an overall recipe for success. Our players aren't great with the ball in traffic, can't finish that well under control in traffic, and we don't really have any knockdown shooters or shot creators.

If people notice, every guy on Villanova for the last 10 years at least plays EXACTLY the same, regardless of their skill set. They may be able to do MORE if they're more skilled than others, but they all use jump stops, controlled ball fakes, ready on the catch, and they can all shoot. It's like a watching a fundamentals clinic every season, every roster. So whatever Jay does, whether it's his skills development, recruiting the right guys, or (more than likely) a combo of both, it is impressive.

We need better guards/scoring wings. We have some freak athletes, but right now it's not really translating to consistent buckets, unless we feed Sanogo.

I hear you but heres the issue though. We automatically said our prior coach couldn’t develop players. Now we have better players supposedly and many aren’t getting better, they continue to make the same mistakes game after game. They can’t shoot, can’t create. I blame B.B. IQ for some but why is it ok for AJ to continuously play out of control and make really awful decisions when he came out a huge recruit. Gaff as well as others. I mean I don’t want to give up on the man but if you’re not frightened we haven’t hit our ceiling then you’re not watching closely.

 

[Sea Goat]

The whole direction of UConn athletics was changed for hoops...
Hurley was supposed to be the guy... Another Benedict bust?

 

[freescooter]

Curious who you think he should run out there instead?

Actually that is the problem. We have nobody and we didn’t go to the portal to find somebody. As I said in October, Cole is average. You don’t go very far with average lead guard in college basketball. But he played for Daddy, so Danny wasn’t going to replace him.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

You people are endless in your criticism. How many open shots did we miss? Hard to change a game plan when you can’t make a damn shot.

We're they well-chosen shots, we'll-setup, within optimum range, squared up, without rushing it too soon in the clock or too late in the clock, or were they short-armed, too circus-like, a lesser shot than somebody passed up?
We do all of these to an alarming degree.

I know that good defenses force this kind of stuff, but I think we're more prone to this as a matter of how the team chooses or is coached to play.

 

[auror]

If people notice, every guy on Villanova for the last 10 years at least plays EXACTLY the same, regardless of their skill set. They may be able to do MORE if they're more skilled than others, but they all use jump stops, controlled ball fakes, ready on the catch, and they can all shoot. It's like a watching a fundamentals clinic every season, every roster. So whatever Jay does, whether it's his skills development, recruiting the right guys, or (more than likely) a combo of both, it is impressive.

We need better guards/scoring wings. We have some freak athletes, but right now it's not really translating to consistent buckets, unless we feed Sanogo.

And a lot of them stick in the NBA despite not being elite athletes. Of their last 8 guys drafted, I think 7 will (or did) stick in the league (Hart, Brunson, DiVincenzo, Bridges, Paschall, Bey, JRE). Only JRE was a top 20 recruit (Brunson 22).

 

[freescooter]

If you just watched Andre Jackson play and blame Cole you need glasses. Cole is the very least of this teams issues.

I don’t think anybody thinks Cole is the issue. At least I don’t. The problem is he isn’t the solution either. When your most important player is only average, you aren’t going far.

 

[freescooter]

Novas #8 in kenpom and we lost on the road

Have some water

Ok. Good to here. So we shouldn’t have bothered showing up I guess. Next time just take a forfeit and save on travel.

 

[ucp990411]

Watching this is occurs to me how tough a job Hurley has compared to Wright.

Depending who's on the floor our game plan needs to change. Even something as straight forward as Polley coming in for Jax. We have no interchange parts.

Every player had their game and thats about it. Only Cole, Martin and to a lesser extent Whaley are even a little bit versatile.

That is a very good point about our game plan changing depending on who is on the floor.

 

[ucp990411]

Idk what our coach is supposed to do when our “best player” gets dominated all game and can’t run an offense or hit a shot.

This team is going nowhere so long as RJ Cole is a part of it.

You need to go away. The guy scored 25 points today. And he got dominated the whole game?

 

[EnochRoot]

You need to go away. The guy scored 25 points today. And he got dominated the whole game?

He's a PG. Four assists, five turnovers.

 

[mauconnfan]

I don’t think anybody thinks Cole is the issue. At least I don’t. The problem is he isn’t the solution either. When your most important player is only average, you aren’t going far.

You’ll need to go back to my original reply where someone did blame it on Cole.

 

[NJHusky]

Naturally Villanova was the team we chose to finally (briefly) break the zone out against. Not exactly setting it up for success

I gave up before the end of the game but I thought he only played zone for a few possessions. And it worked ok. Neither Whaley nor Adama got called for a foul. Maybe if he played the first 2 min of the game ins zone we wouldn’t have 2 fouls on adama ??

 

[gtcam]

You aren't going to win when your "best player" decides to take 1st halves off vs Creighton and Nova (not talking about RJ)
You aren't going to win when your "best player" isn't under the boards fighting for rebounds vs the better teams
You aren't going to win when you have a 2 guard start and play so many minutes and not score
You aren't going to win when your coach doesn't play his highly regarded freshmen and expect them to have any confidence by keeping them on a short leash
You aren't going to win when you create nothing to free you shooters and your PG refuses to pass to the open players when he drives into the trees and your big fails to pass out of a double team 90% of the time
You aren't going to win when you have a team that has no idea what to do in a half court offense
You aren't going to win when you do not shake up your rotations and continually try to force players into positions that they are not suited or comfortable. Coach to your players strengths not how you envision things would look like in a perfect scenario.
I could go on
Time is ticking and tournament seed is dropping
Time for change - not in replacing the coach but instead how you have to react to what is going on the court
The players are there, the talent appears to be there - lets put it together the right way

 

[NJHusky]

That is still no excuse how unprepared we were for this game.

That’s because it was a trap game before the Marquette game. Oh wait…that’s right the Chreighton game was a trap for this game. Oops

 

[mauconnfan]

He's a PG. Four assists, five turnovers.

He’s the only guy who can man the position he didn’t play great but we have zero other answers you make no sense. Gaff is dreadful and the coach doesn’t even give the other guy any minutes. Cole is fine considering the whole situation.

 

[NJHusky]

Coach to your players strengths not how you envision things would look like in a perfect scenario.

Bingo!!

 

[navery12]

I gave up before the end of the game but I thought he only played zone for a few possessions. And it worked ok. Neither Whaley nor Adama got called for a foul. Maybe if he played the first 2 min of the game ins zone we wouldn’t have 2 fouls on adama ??

Yeah was just the first 2 possessions of the 2nd half I believe. 1st one we got a stop, 2nd one we gave up a 3 and then I think we went back to man. Hopefully it's not the last time we see it this season, can be an effective tool in short bursts. The cynic in me says Hurley will be headstrong and use the 3 they hit as a reason to bury it for the rest of eternity though.

 

[DMIL]

RJ cole isn't the issue. We don't have anyone else that can hit a jumpshot which is our problem. If we could have more than one shooter hit a jump shot it would open the lane for Sanogo and Cole to get baskets inside.

Cole isn't the sole issue but for us to be more successful he has to be more consistent with his decision making. We need him to be great however we get o.k. to good to not so good from him. He needs to be the conductor on the floor, the leader and that starts with less turnovers, more consistent at the free throw line, better entry passes and passes in the right spots setting up his teammates, better at setting UCONN's game pace, better shot selection. Based on the pieces we have this is the key need right now and everything else will open up for this team particularly on offense. It's not just scoring that we need from Cole. If Cole is able to elevate his game a bit the rest of the team will respond.

 

[DMIL]

Hawkins is hitting.

Hawkins is hitting more than some others and a liability on defense along with his turnovers. It's a net negative short term right now that he at least needs to move to neutral. When Hawkins is in the game he should not be handling the ball and Hurley should run set plays for him.

 

[Giddyup5]

Yeah was just the first 2 possessions of the 2nd half I believe. 1st one we got a stop, 2nd one we gave up a 3 and then I think we went back to man. Hopefully it's not the last time we see it this season, can be an effective tool in short bursts. The cynic in me says Hurley will be headstrong and use the 3 they hit as a reason to bury it for the rest of eternity though.

Our defense and offense are just too easy for other coaches to prepare for.

I can’t blame the offense directly on Hurley cause offense is limited by player skill set to a degree.

Defense on the other hand is all on Hurley. We have the size, length, and athletes to be elite. We are just too 1 dimensional in our schemes. Easy for good coaches to prepare for.