Rahsool Diggins transferring (merged threads)

[Ports21]

This is why I don’t like transfers for us. It’s year what 4? And we aren’t going to have our own guard to develop until Castle. We aren’t going far getting caught up in this cycle of bringing in transfers.

Miami got to the elite 8 with their best 2 players being transfer guards (Moore and McGusty)

Caleb Daniels, Brady Manek (not a guard), and Remy Martin all in the final four, all transfers playing key roles on their teams.

It'd be great to have all 4 year players who develop but it's just not the environment anymore. If player's don't get to play -- they leave.

Adapt or die

 

[KingLurk]

He’s thinking of 2005-2006

whoops, confused his senior year with the year he played a lot.

 

[KingLurk]

whoops, confused his senior year with the year he played a lot.

That 2005-2006 season is fun to look at... Marcus Williams missed half the season due to suspension.. they had 5 future NBA players plus Rashad/Denham... and Craig Austerie started 24 games.

 

[UCSouth]

Pitt is a great fit. Close to home as he said he wants and they need players. He will get a chance.

What are your thoughts on RD playing for Pitino?

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

That 2005-2006 season is fun to look at... Marcus Williams missed half the season due to suspension.. they had 5 future NBA players plus Rashad/Denham... and Craig Austerie started 24 games.

The most unpleasant Elite Eight run I can imagine. Every single game was a struggle. I still remember leaving the office when they were down 12 to Albany in the second half.

 

[tzznandrew]

The most unpleasant Elite Eight run I can imagine. Every single game was a struggle. I still remember leaving the office when they were down 12 to Albany in the second half.

I get flashbacks every St. Pattie's Day because I remember being out partying in Hartford with it on in the background of every bar...and the growing sense of dread ruining the evening.

 

[Waquoit]

call it a recruiting miss or call the kid a bust, same difference in the end.

Exactly, call it whatever you want. I'm glad were not indulging in the sunk cost fallacy.

 

[JeffConn]

I don’t believe we saw enough of him to comment in his potential.

Not speculating on his potential. All I am saying is that he was a top 100 recruit which is where the national rating services graded him. How many high school players are there across the country? Thousands? After getting the sales pitch from various high level college programs (affirming they can play) and after making a school decision, a lot of top 100 recruits and their families come in expecting to get some serious playing time in the first year. Diggins didn't get any significant minutes.

 

[upstater]

I am fairly shocked at the lack of a handle for so many of our players. Whatever we're doing in scouting recruits, we're really not looking at how they handle the ball.

It's been going on now for a few years.

I am always nervous when Gaffney and Hawkins have the ball.

From the little I saw of Diggins, I was very concerned at how he was handling it for a PG.

I mean, I had infinitely more confidence in Tyrese dribbling out there as a small forward than I did with Hawkins, Gaffney and Diggins.

If it takes bringing in a guy like Taliek Brown who has a handle and can run an offense, I am all for it.

 

[Waquoit]

Problem is that DH is the one making the assessment on who the top portal guards are. Not his strong suit so far is it??

He's 1-1 in picking up transfer point guards. Try ginko biloba.

 

[Waquoit]

That 2005-2006 season is fun to look at...

Yeah, it was a real laff riot

 

[navery12]

Not speculating on his potential. All I am saying is that he was a top 100 recruit which is where the national rating services graded him. How many high school players are there across the country? Thousands? After getting the sales pitch from various high level college programs (affirming they can play) and after making a school decision, a lot of top 100 recruits and their families come in expecting to get some serious playing time in the first year. Diggins didn't get any significant minutes.

And yet freshman all across the country came in and didn't get significant minutes in their first year. And some of them are going to still be great players once they do get their minutes

 

[UCDaveD]

The most unpleasant Elite Eight run I can imagine. Every single game was a struggle. I still remember leaving the office when they were down 12 to Albany in the second half.

The Kentucky game was the only one that wasn’t absolutely nauseating and we won by what? 4 points?

 

[bigknight3]

Where did you hear this?

Somewhere between pages 1-19 of this thread...

 

[UCTitleTown]

Not speculating on his potential. All I am saying is that he was a top 100 recruit which is where the national rating services graded him. How many high school players are there across the country? Thousands? After getting the sales pitch from various high level college programs (affirming they can play) and after making a school decision, a lot of top 100 recruits and their families come in expecting to get some serious playing time in the first year. Diggins didn't get any significant minutes.

550,000 Boys play high school basketball in the US, so divide that by 4 years, and roughly that's 140,000 Seniors. So being Top 50 to 100 puts you in the top 99.9994 percentile. Not too shabby...

 

[Fishy]

We now have zero point guards. Of all the point in America, we currently have none of them.

I feel like I might be onto something with these roster management complaints, but absolutely keep telling me that this is totally cool in 2022 because of the portal.

 

[HuskyHawk]

We now have zero point guards. Of all the point in America, we currently have none of them.

I feel like I might be onto something with these roster management complaints, but absolutely keep telling me that this is totally cool in 2022 because of the portal.

I honestly think it's a bit of both. We will survive it just fine. And a very good looking PG is recruited for next year. But this is clearly not an ideal situation and Hurley takes responsibility for that.

 

[UConNick]

I honestly think it's a bit of both. We will survive it just fine. And a very good looking PG is recruited for next year. But this is clearly not an ideal situation and Hurley takes responsibility for that.

A good, balanced take. Obviously this is not what Hurley envisioned. But with the portal there’s an easy path to fill these holes and ensure we don’t miss a beat. Neither of these guys should end up being a significant loss so long as Hurley gets his ish together in the portal. Yes, you don’t want to build a whole team through it necessarily, but grabbing pieces from it is critical in today’s game.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

We now have zero point guards. Of all the point in America, we currently have none of them.

I feel like I might be onto something with these roster management complaints, but absolutely keep telling me that this is totally cool in 2022 because of the portal.

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that next year’s starting point guard (yes, from the portal), will be a better player than the two kids who transferred this week.

And as long as that’s the case, the net impact of these moving parts would be a better roster than what we started with.

I thought that was the idea when it comes to roster management.

 

[dennismenace]

The biggest problem I think is philosophical. He's trying to build an NBA style roster and sees that college shooting guards often become NBA point guards. A former PG he seems to think he doesn't need a PG on the court - he still wants to be PG from the sideline? He thinks he can teach a SG to be a PG? Whatever it is, in general the roster has lacked natural PGs. Last year he recruited one natural PG (Diggins) and two combo guards (Cole, Gaffney) and only played the combo guards.

Whereas Calhoun & Ollie had greatest success playing two PGs and converting PGs to SG - Ricky Moore playing off Khalid, Doron playing off Ollie, Shabazz off Kemba, Boatright off Shabazz.

We need a little more creativity on the court to get to the highest level. Personally I like watching guards play more than watching Samson Johnson, Richie Springs, Akok Akok sitting on the bench while two centers are on the court. I get that big men need time to develop, and Whaley and Sanogo were two of our best players, but if we can have so many big men why can't we have one natural PG who plays?

Thanks for clarifying another piece to the PG puzzle in your post. Your insight into changing scoring guards into point guards makes sense about DH motivation. Looking ahead we see Castle (6-5 shooting guard) year 2023 and 6-5 Hawkins and 6-3 Floyd shooting guards next year. Roll the dice on the transfer to get one or more PGs (or maybe more shooting guards!) and pass on Diggens for his performance in practice. The big problem I see with this is the better teams we will play (let alone elite teams) will pressure the ballhandlers because their defensive prowess will overpower the "transitional would be point guards". If your theory is correct, and our only ballhandler (Cole) just said goodbye he has made a huge gamble on next season and possibly beyond.

 

[dennismenace]

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that next year’s starting point guard (yes, from the portal), will be a better player than the two kids who transferred this week.

And as long as that’s the case, the net impact of these moving parts would be a better roster than what we started with.

I thought that was the idea when it comes to roster management.

What, going out on a limb?

 

[Dogdeacon]

Diggins PT - I generally agree with those positing that he shoulda played in Nov/Dec. But given that is SO obvious it can also be true that he simply didn't have the strength/skills & defensive fundamentals to play at a UConn level - that is certainly what we saw in the limited minutes he did play.
Gaffney - He was very frustrating this year. A lot of it was poor decision making. He is very athletic, capable of spectacular plays yet not able to consistently make the 'right play' in games.
So I posit that Gaffney turning the corner at some point in the year was deemed way more possible & probable than Diggins developing into a contributor in the short OR long term. Gaffney plays too fast due to nerves or some other in-game disconnect that leads to mistakes, but his athleticism was superior to his game performances and possibly he was better in drills/practices.

So the most logical conclusion on "Why did Gaffney get the minutes?' is he had the better potential for 21-22 and 22-23. The knock is he could never earn more than the 5-10 minutes he played down the stretch of the season nor could he adequately hold down the fort during those 5-10 minutes, for 21-22 his style of play was uncorrectable. Now that 22-23 is also lost it seems like a bad limited upside bet on him vs the possible short-term pain but longer therefore higher upside of Diggins.

The way the minutes were allocated & the performance the last 2 months of the season losing both became more and more possible. The short-term prioritization didn't work and the long-term was sacrificed for little benefit.

Samson Johnson's season falls into a similar conundrum. Clearly the long-term even if its just 22-23 considerations argue for more burn for him. The only plausible excuse is that it is more customary for freshman big men to play sparingly and still develop into big-time college players (PG arguably the 2nd hardest position, yet great ones do play right away in college b/c typically the fundamentals are there). Regardless, Samson Johnson's minutes in 21-22 were under-allocated for the short-term with limited upside benefits of Whaley. Can see how this happens as Whaley and infinitely better defender, team guy and someone to reward for his hard work & loyalty. But in the end even though he played very well, rewarding Whaley didn't reap enough 21-22 benefits (ie. a flawed team exists, NMST dares Whaley to shoot) to offset delaying Samson's development.

 

[Guapo]

We now have zero point guards. Of all the point in America, we currently have none of them.

I feel like I might be onto something with these roster management complaints, but absolutely keep telling me that this is totally cool in 2022 because of the portal.

You’re not onto anything, whoever we bring in will be an upgrade over what we had.

Nothing against Diggins and Gaffney personally, but they were really bad fits. Forcing out pieces that don’t fit in order to bring in pieces that do is how modern, big time programs work. I’m happy that we’re behaving like the big time program we are.

 

[RayRay]

Now that we see Gaffney has entered the portal, any chance Diggins changes his mind? Would Hurley take him back? Maybe he comes back in with a fresh motivation given the clear path to minutes if he performs. Just a thought.

 

[dennismenace]

Do you really think that Hurley was caught off guard by this and they don't have some one lined up to replace him? This is college basketball 101. I guarantee you the staff has been in touch with multiple ball handlers who will contribute next year far more than Diggins would have. This was expressed to Diggins and the choice to transfer was mutual. This happens in every program in America. People slammed Hurley for not acknowleding his mistakes. Now they are slamming him for admitting them. Its insufferable.

Excuse my apparent ignorance but how is our staff able to discuss things with players from other programs without seriously violating NCAA recruiting policies and the related penalties?