Questions About Our Player’s Summer Workouts

[Kitaman]

This just isn't true at all.

What's not true? Hurley's death practices doesn't remove smiles?

 

[Kitaman]

Pretty much. This is a silly take rooted in some weird 80s vision of what a basketball practice should be like. Hurley yelling and guys playing hard isn't some psycho coach running guys into the ground. Hurley doesn't do that. If you've watched many of his practices (I have), you'd know he's a PERFECTIONIST more than anything.

Practices are competitive. When guys win or don't make progress in practice, they smile. When they're frustrated or lose, they don't. This isn't that hard to get.

Day one practice is about surviving not positioning or competing. Vets know how to handle it. They may be smiling and jovial but it's mainly laughing at the rookies vomiting.

 

[3rdbass]

 

[Mike Honcho]

Pretty much. This is a silly take rooted in some weird 80s vision of what a basketball practice should be like. Hurley yelling and guys playing hard isn't some psycho coach running guys into the ground. Hurley doesn't do that. If you've watched many of his practices (I have), you'd know he's a PERFECTIONIST more than anything.

Practices are competitive. When guys win or don't make progress in practice, they smile. When they're frustrated or lose, they don't. This isn't that hard to get.

I can't speak to Hurley's practices, but there were absolutely reports of freshman vomiting from Calhoun's first practices (one was Marcus Williams). Pretty sure AK also talked about a super tough practice late last season where Hurley made the team run stairs over and over in one of his interviews with Kotler.

Here's the vomit story:

A few hours earlier they had been celebrated as a team capable of hanging another championship banner at Gampel Pavilion and cheered by nearly 10,000 fans.

By midafternoon, as freshman guard Marcus Williams was vomiting in the corner of the gym, all of that was forgotten.

The UConn men’s basketball team got started for real with a stern three-hour practice Saturday.

“The usual first day,” Emeka Okafor said. “Coach never fails to disappoint.”

This usual first day was a message to a team that oozes talent and has been hyped without having won a game. The honeymoon ended with morning wind sprints.

Jim Calhoun’s infamous rebound drill was what undid Williams, who was caught in the spin cycle for about five minutes. After it was over he had to leave the floor. His new teammates understood.

“I remember after my first practice, afterwards I was in bed second-guessing myself,” Okafor said. “It was ‘Dang, is this for me? Am I meant to play this sport?’ I was hurting everywhere. I saw Marcus throwing up and it was ‘Welcome to the team.”‘

Williams finished practice. Even those not as affected were thankful when practice ended.


“I’m pretty happy I got this one out of the way and I’m still standing,” freshman Charlie Villanueva said. “Now I know what to expect.”

Actually, it usually gets a bit easier. For years the first practice has been a message from Calhoun to his players.

“Hopefully, the kids learned about the character of playing here,” Calhoun said. “The toughness they are going to need to be a team that other teams are going to look at and try to come after. Part of developing that toughness is not saying ‘No,’ to a rebound drill which means you say ‘No’ to not getting beat.”

Here's one article about JC:

It was a fairly typical first practice for the UConn men's basketball team. The freshmen were shocked by the intensity and the amount of running. Most of the players had a few colorful words spoken about them by the head coach.

And another:

IF Jim Calhoun would tell his players one anecdote before the season’s first practice, he might curtail how often he yells, stomps, and whirls around to the fans behind the Connecticut bench – arms raised and that look of and righteous outrage at the latest call that has gone against the Huskies.

If the players knew why Jim Calhoun is the most driven and one of the best coaches in college basketball, maybe they wouldn’t have to endure a practice like last Wednesday’s.

“I’m sure a few guys might have felt a tad bit of a blow-torch up their [you-know-what],” Calhoun said.

Jeremy Lamb talked about it in a recent interview:

"The first practice, right? They cover all the windows, cover everything, I'm sitting there like, 'What they about to do to us?,'" he said (at 20:58). "And that first practice was crazy. Oh my ... it was crazy, I'm sitting there like, 'Yo, what?' He had us running suicides, every time we do something wrong we gotta run a sprint. He cussin' us out, he goin' ham. He was like, your mom, your dad... they not here."

So, uh... not sure what you're talking about.

 

[formerlurker]

 

[Mike Honcho]

Well aware of all this. Puking in practice just means you ate too much or had an adrenaline dump. It's not really what I'm worried about and it's no big deal.

Notice how I talked about Hurley and not the guy who coached for us 13 years ago?

Calhoun was old school. Hurley is not. Pretty simple really. You can't coach like that in 2025 and expect to run a program. It's a different world.

You wrote, "This is a silly take rooted in some weird 80s vision of what a basketball practice should be like." I gave a number of different quotes from Calhoun's practices in the 2010's. And Emeka, Charlie, and Jeremy Lamb's quotes directly contradict your position.

Also, I'm not going to dig it up but AK specifically talked about Hurley making the team run stairs over and over in a late February practice this season. He's clearly not Calhoun in this regard but you are moving the goalposts on this argument.

 

[Son of Robert]

I seem to remember reports of Kevin Freeman's lips bleeding from exertion during a first practice.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

AK looks quicker/better foot speed...