That was basically awful

[djct1999]

No but between 89-90 and 98-99
2 nit, 3 sweet 16, 2 final 8, 1 round of 32.
Seed doesn't matter, it's what you do with it.

Sometimes your coach can have a decent game plan and the players on the floor simply don't execute. Last night wasn't on Hurley. Maybe direct your anger to the guys who missed layups, wide open threes, had senseless fouls, and ghastly turnovers. They failed you, not our Coach.

 

[Kathy]

If social media existed back then the way it does now Calhoun would have been ticked off by our fanbase after 94, 95, 96 and he probably would have bolted and flipped us the bird on the way out.

I disagree

 

[nychuskyfan]

Sanogo
Jackson
Hawkins
Akok
Samson
Diggins

That is this year's Top 75 talent.

One has never been the same after tearing his Achilles
One didn't play because he was concussed.
Two have been stapled to the bench as freshmen.

So they really only played 2 Top 75 players.

I like the four seniors. But the talent in the next two years is about to be on a very different level than what we have now.

If we were getting exclusively top 25 recruits like Duke does, I’d agree with you. But 5th year RJ, 5th year Whaley and 4th year Tyrese are likely average or better outcomes than the 50-100 pool we’re fishing in. Put another way I don’t see Floyd, Clingan and Karaban being a materially better trio in say their junior seasons.

I do think we were missing an alpha this year and also within this talent pool we can probably put together a more balanced team. But I don’t see the overall talent level taking a huge step forward.

Also, the fact that we’re going down the line and explaining why 5 out of 6 top 75 players either haven’t made the leap or didn’t contribute at all makes my point - he’s gotta do better with what he has.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Sometimes your coach can have a decent game plan and the players on the floor simply don't execute. Last night wasn't on Hurley. Maybe direct your anger to the guys who missed layups, wide open threes, had senseless fouls, and ghastly turnovers.

Fascinating stat.

Shows that we performed pretty closely to our quality-of-shot and they shot out of their minds, which is basically true.

Based on their season averages, on 17 3-point attempts, they should have hit 5 or 6. They hit 11. That's a 15+ point swing.

 

[Kathy]

Calhoun was a cool customer in the biggest games.

He was very different in post season games - more relaxed. In some ways I think being regular season champ meant more than winning the conference tournament.

 

[Jaydumo20]

Perspective 4: I don’t give a rats ass about other teams winning or losing games. I care about UConn and disturbing patterns HERE.

Sweet Fancy Moses! Let's all just breathe

 

[Kathy]

Sometimes your coach can have a decent game plan and the players on the floor simply don't execute. Last night wasn't on Hurley. Maybe direct your anger to the guys who missed layups, wide open threes, had senseless fouls, and ghastly turnovers. They failed you, not our Coach.

Analytics don't tell you everything you need to know.

 

[djct1999]

Analytics don't tell you everything you need to know.

Tells us more than impulsive emotional outbursts.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Analytics don't tell you everything you need to know.

No, but this unequivocally tells you that we took better shots than they did and they just happened to shoot out of their minds.

We could have gotten better shots for ourselves, made more of the ones we did take (though by this metric we actually overperformed), or done even more to deny them the (already bad) looks they got, but the numbers strongly support the eye-test and box-score conclusions that they had a ridiculously hot shooting night.

 

[uconnfn34]

I think what in the end made this season so frustrating was how close we came to an overall great season. It's nice not getting blown out obviously, but when you end up with 8 losses that were one or two possession games, a few in game decisions become heavily scrutinized.

I'm hopeful that Hurley can see how some of his slow adjustments, stubbornly sticking with struggling players during first half runs, and avoiding timeouts like the plague helped doom this season to an early end. I don't think many of us rationally saw a title this year, but a draw of NMSU and Arkansas seemed like a good shot to give us another Sweet 16 appearance to tack on the walls at Gampel and been a successful year by pretty much all accounts.

I think this is the last season he gets a pass for those issues though. If he's not hitting the portal hard and we see more slow starts next year while not at least making the second weekend of the tournament, his seat should rightfully be warm. I wish we didn't have to wait 8 months to see the Huskies again.

 

[djct1999]

No, but this unequivocally tells you that we took better shots than they did and they just happened to shoot out of their minds.

We could have gotten better shots for ourselves, made more of the ones we did take (though by this metric we actually overperformed), or done even more to deny them the (already bad) looks they got, but the numbers strongly support the eye-test and box-score conclusions that they had a ridiculously hot shooting night.

It also suggests that last nights outcome wasn't because of poor coaching.

 

[superjohn]

He was very different in post season games - more relaxed. In some ways I think being regular season champ meant more than winning the conference tournament.

He got most of the crazy antics out of the way during the season. He would tear kids down to build them up and get them ready for the biggest moments. Some kids couldn't take it, the ones who could became great players and were ready for the most adverse circumstances. Calhoun and the team almost always were relaxed during tournament time because of it.

There doesn't seem much rhyme or reason to Hurley's craziness, the players aren't worried about him calling a timeout and pulling them all out of the game to get yelled at because Hurley doesn't take players out for screwing up and he doesn't use his timeouts. They all know who is going to play and exactly how much they're going to play.

Last night was really strange because Hurley and the players didn't look interested in the game from the very start. There were a few times Calhoun had teams like that, most notably the super individually talented team that got blown out in the first round by Iowa State but that team was a mess all season long and you never knew if they would show up. I didn't expect this team to not show up in the first round because they played really hard all season.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

We’re all wasting our time here.

I learned this as a Marshall Crenshaw song, but this version honors Ronnie Spector who died in January of this year.

 

[2Infinity]

How many bunnies did Hurley miss last night? How many turnovers did he have? Last night wasn't about coaching, it was about execution. The boys on the floor did a really bad job at executing last night.

Executing what?? In the first half we weren't running anything! I can't recall seeing us out there playing with as little purpose and direction as we had in the first half last night. That is all about coaching, or lack thereof. Our guys looked startled by the aggressive play of NMST and had no response. Their coach gave them a plan and they executed it well...unfortunately, ours didn't seem to!

 

[Woodson]

Executing what?? In the first half we weren't running anything! I can't recall seeing us out there playing with as little purpose and direction as we had in the first half last night. That is all about coaching, or lack thereof. Our guys looked startled by the aggressive play of NMST and had no response. Their coach gave them a plan and they executed it well...unfortunately, ours didn't seem to!

Not sure why people are beating around the bush - our guys choked in the first half. They took our lunch money and we counted down the seconds until half time. I hate saying that about a college team, this group of guys in particular, but that's what happened. RJ stepped up in the second half. Just couldn't pull it off. Regroup and keep getting stronger.

 

[RJScootin]

Didn't get to go through full thread but something that really hurt UConn this year especially vs better competition (outside of Auburn game) is all the empty mins Polley played when they desperately needed a scorer. Last night was another example.

20 mins, 0 reb, 0 assists, 7 pts

3 games vs Nova
59 mins, 1 reb, 0 assists, 17 pts

2 games vs Creighton
46 mins, 1 reb, 1 assist, 8 pts

Great young man and felt for him as he left the court in tears last night. But really was hoping more from him this season.

 

[Dogdeacon]

That’s not true at all. Calhoun inherited Cliff Robinson, who is better than anybody who has been at UConn while Hurley was here. Phil Gamble was pretty good too. He or Dom recruited Tate and Pikiell. In Calhoun’s 2nd season, Cliff averaged 17.9 and Phil 15, to lead the team by a big margin. Both Perno’s guys.

Half true, Calhoun did inherit Cliff, BUT in Cliff's frosh year he was in Perno's doghouse, played 15mpg (less in BE games), shot 37% (zero 3's although to be fair they didn't exist yet and averaged 5.5 points.
Calhoun was instrumental in molding Cliff into who he became.

 

[husky429]

Allen single handily beat us. 37 of their 70 points. He could not be stopped. Not many adjustments can be made to stop a guy who was hitting every shot, some of which looked awful but still went in.

The kid can clearly play. He was at WVU and Wichita St. for a reason. Clear as day he has off the court problems which is why he’s at NMSU.

I can think of a half-dozen ways to stop a guard who is shooting 3s and driving to his right going off for 37, and I'm not even a good coach. The fact that we tried exactly NOTHING other than "go get him Andre!" speaks volumes about our in-game coaching adjustments. We may not have stopped him anyways... but you have to do SOMETHING.

 

[husky429]

Sometimes your coach can have a decent game plan and the players on the floor simply don't execute. Last night wasn't on Hurley. Maybe direct your anger to the guys who missed layups, wide open threes, had senseless fouls, and ghastly turnovers. They failed you, not our Coach.

I will never understand people willing to blame players. Bad games happen for players. They're not paid to be here--they're just kids leaving it all on the floor if they can. It's the coaches job to put them in a position to succeed.You know who should rightfully be blamed? The guy with an 11 million dollar contract who can't manage to win a tournament game in 4 years and one of the worst close-game records of any high-major coach in the country.

 

[Brettloaf]

I will never understand people willing to blame players. Bad games happen for players. They're not paid to be here--they're just kids leaving it all on the floor if they can. It's the coaches job to put them in a position to succeed.You know who should rightfully be blamed? The guy with an 11 million dollar contract who can't manage to win a tournament game in 4 years and one of the worst close-game records of any high-major coach in the country.

100% agree. It all starts and ends with Hurley.

I see a lot on here that we should be recognized as a "blue blood" due to national championships and I would agree. However, UConn as a whole usually operates at a MAAC level when it comes to ineptitude. We fired KO a few years after winning a national championship, yet Hurley has been here 4 years and hasn't won anything and people here are fine with keeping him. If we are truly a blue blood program demanding excellence Hurley would be fired.

 

[Woodson]

can't manage to win a tournament game in 4 years

People keep saying this. The first year - the less said the better - everyone knows what he took over. One of the other years there WASN"T EVEN A FRICKIN TOURNAMENT. Just a little context for pete's sake

 

[Woodson]

100% agree. It all starts and ends with Hurley.

I see a lot on here that we should be recognized as a "blue blood" due to national championships and I would agree. However, UConn as a whole usually operates at a MAAC level when it comes to ineptitude. We fired KO a few years after winning a national championship, yet Hurley has been here 4 years and hasn't won anything and people here are fine with keeping him. If we are truly a blue blood program demanding excellence Hurley would be fired.

Good god. Ollie last 2 years - 30 W's and 35 L's. We couldn't win 10 games in the AAC let alone sniff the tournament. The team visibly quit in games and Coach Ollie - god blem 'em - either didn't notice or didn't care. Hurley last 2 years 38-18. In the Big East.

 

[husky429]

People keep saying this. The first year - the less said the better - everyone knows what he took over. One of the other years there WASN"T EVEN A FRICKIN TOURNAMENT. Just a little context for pete's sake

And? Everyone knows this information.

It's interesting how you conveniently cut out the part of my post where I said "and one of the worst close game records of any high major coach on the country"... creating a strawman by ignoring half my post is all I need to know about how strong your argument is.

If the body of evidence was only 2 NCAA tournaments I wouldn't complain nearly this much. It is MUCH more than Marylabd and NMSU.

 

[djct1999]

I will never understand people willing to blame players. Bad games happen for players. They're not paid to be here--they're just kids leaving it all on the floor if they can. It's the coaches job to put them in a position to succeed.You know who should rightfully be blamed? The guy with an 11 million dollar contract who can't manage to win a tournament game in 4 years and one of the worst close-game records of any high-major coach in the country.

Your trophy is in the mail. Thank you for participating.

 

[djct1999]

I will never understand people willing to blame players. Bad games happen for players. They're not paid to be here--they're just kids leaving it all on the floor if they can. It's the coaches job to put them in a position to succeed.You know who should rightfully be blamed? The guy with an 11 million dollar contract who can't manage to win a tournament game in 4 years and one of the worst close-game records of any high-major coach in the country.

actually, some are being paid to be here now.