RJ just not good enough

[auror]

I'm honestly surprised at the number of "dislikes" that this comment received. I can't believe anyone can objectively look at the coaching this season and think that it hasn't been a significant concern. We haven't seen improvements from our young players outside of Andre Jackson (most notably, Jordan Hawkins), we've seen regression from others (most notably, Gaffney), we've seen an inability to manage a rotation, we've seen players whose confidence has seemingly been diminished and we've seen ridiculous late-game management. There are pro's too for sure, excellent recruitment, tough defense, etc. -- but still so many question marks. Hurley has significant room for improvement, and I'm hoping he's going to get there.

What were your expectations that a top 20 ranking, top third of the Big East standing, beating the #1 team in the country, and winning 5 of the last 6 equates to a significant coaching concern?

You're just going to ignore Sanogo's improvement? He's improved significantly on both sides of the ball. Especially moving his feet on perimeter defense, free throw shooting, shotblocking technique, and most recently developing some more passing.

I'm not sure what inability to manage a rotation means. The rotation has been fine. Our best players play. Gaffney demonstrated he wasn't playing up to par, so now he plays less. Akok and Hawkins' minutes fluctuate a bit with matchup and how they look. The other freshmen don't play because they're not good enough.

Kinda hard for a guy's confidence not to be shaken when he just loses the ball the instant he starts dribbling for multiple games in a row (Hawkins). Either way, he's come back to have better games lately, so I don't see the concern there.

Hurley's track record isn't Cooley's in late game situations. You take some bad with the rest of the good and hope he figures out the issues there (because I can't really pinpoint any one thing specifically.)

 

[Connecticut13]

What were your expectations that a top 20 ranking, top third of the Big East standing, beating the #1 team in the country, and winning 5 of the last 6 equates to a significant coaching concern?

You're just going to ignore Sanogo's improvement? He's improved significantly on both sides of the ball. Especially moving his feet on perimeter defense, free throw shooting, shotblocking technique, and most recently developing some more passing.

I'm not sure what inability to manage a rotation means. The rotation has been fine. Our best players play. Gaffney demonstrated he wasn't playing up to par, so now he plays less. Akok and Hawkins' minutes fluctuate a bit with matchup and how they look. The other freshmen don't play because they're not good enough.

Kinda hard for a guy's confidence not to be shaken when he just loses the ball the instant he starts dribbling for multiple games in a row (Hawkins). Either way, he's come back to have better games lately, so I don't see the concern there.

Hurley's track record isn't Cooley's in late game situations. You take some bad with the rest of the good and hope he figures out the issues there (because I can't really pinpoint any one thing specifically.)

We'll agree to disagree. Hawkins has gone scoreless the last two games. He's only shot threes, and is 0 for 6 in that timeframe. Looks like a shell of the player we saw at the beginning of the year.

An inability to manage a rotation means just what it sounds like. He's essentially using 6 players -- hasn't developed the rest of the rotation, guys are gassed. You need to find time for Akok and Hawkins and I would expect that they'd be able to provide productive minutes at this point in this season.

He's allowed the other team to dictate the pace of player 100% of the time. And the late game situations are mind boggling.

I want Coach Hurley to succeed. We all do. I look at the talent on this team and I expect more than what we saw last night. And what we've seen on multiple other occasions this season. We look unprepared at times, we look scared more often than not, and we looked a bit out of shape. I put that on the Coach.