This season was a failure.

[Uconngal]

Was the outcome tonight the one that anyone wanted? Of course not. Is it frustrating and disappointing? Absolutely. But you know what - it’s because we as a fan base are engaged and emotionally invested again. I’ll take that feeling any day over apathy like we had for several years post the last title.
This season was not a failure. Our seniors RJ, Tyrese, Tyler and Isaiah gave us hope for a win in most games and played their hearts out.
I think we all sometimes forget that these are young men that play the game that they love for our enjoyment. If you have children, take a moment to think how much this hurts for them. At the end of the day it’s a game, a season, a small group of moments in their and our lives. Personally I would be proud to call any of these young men my son. Let’s thank them for their efforts in returning us to more success than we have had in some time.

Do we have more to do? Yes. We can always improve and I’m sure after reflection and some time we will.
Can’t wait for next season. Go Huskies!

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Was the outcome tonight the one that anyone wanted? Of course not. Is it frustrating and disappointing? Absolutely. But you know what - it’s because we as a fan base are engaged and emotionally invested again. I’ll take that feeling any day over apathy like we had for several years post the last title.
This season was not a failure. Our seniors RJ, Tyrese, Tyler and Isaiah gave us hope for a win in most games and played their hearts out.
I think we all sometimes forget that these are young men that play the game that they love for our enjoyment. If you have children, take a moment to think how much this hurts for them. At the end of the day it’s a game, a season, a small group of moments in their and our lives. Personally I would be proud to call any of these young men my son. Let’s thank them for their efforts in returning us to more success than we have had in some time.

Do we have more to do? Yes. We can always improve and I’m sure after reflection and some time we will.
Can’t wait for next season. Go Huskies!

Alright Andrea

 

[CaptainRon]

What could Hurley truly have done better? At some point you have to assume the guys on the court should do what they are capable of. Can we blame Hurley foe Sanogo fouling Allen late for a three. Did Hurley cause Cole to force a horrific turnover? No. It was the players. THey didn’t execute tonight. That’s on them, not the coach.

He could have gotten thrown out more? That seemed to work pretty well. Sorry, I’m just pissed right now.

 

[Jaydumo20]

People shouldn’t sound like huge bitches, constantly. You have zero impact on the program, no matter what your aspirations.

Spot on. We are powerless. If you can't change the situation (which we can't) change your attitude instead. I sincerely hope our players don't read this pap

 

[UConnJim]

This season was not a failure. Our seniors RJ, Tyrese, Tyler and Isaiah gave us hope for a win in most games and played their hearts out.

The four seniors high school rankings from 24/7 Sports:

Cole: #479
Martin: #220
Polley: #168
Whalley: N/R

All were key players on the team, not highly thought of coming out of HS, and developed by Hurley and staff. They all had great college careers and played their hearts out.

 

[jibsey]

Do we have a talented guard tandem that can score next year?.( And don't tell me Diggins).

 

[Horatio]

And stop bringing in “projects”, “pro potential if he develops”, “he needs to work on his basketball skills, but he’s a pro talent”, “ he’ll fix that jumper once he gets to UCONN “, etc.
One of those is fine but this team was full of them. Way too many.

 

[Jaydumo20]

Maybe KY should can Cal by our logic. Suck it up. Be adults. My 7 year old nephew handled this loss better.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

In addition, the two St. John's wins were luck and the Nova win at home as well.

Jesus we have some dog fans.

 

[CaptainRon]

Jesus we have some dog fans.

No offense, but if you had rushed the floor and got carted out, we might have won this thing.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

No offense, but if you had rushed the floor and got carted out, we might have won this thing.

I feel you, if the game had been on the west coast I would have tried.

 

[djct1999]

Jesus we have some dog fans.

Is he a fan?

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Gotta go into the offseason assuming both Cole and Martin are gone. And transfers are okay Danny. They tend to help a lot. They can coexist with your own recruits. It’s a good happy medium.

Also, Adama apparently needs to learn how to make a layup again, so work on that as well.

 

[CaptainRon]

I feel you, if the game had been on the west coast I would have tried.

Solid

 

[BugsyCT]

Not spoiled, there is an expectation that comes with the programs success. If some wins and first or second round exits from the NCAA is the expectation, be a Cincinnati fan. This is UConn…expect more

Look, we know who we are and what we've accomplished. I get the disappointment and frustration tonight - we played a lousy game and got burned by a kid that couldn't miss. But to trash the team, coach, and whole season like people are doing sounds like spoiled, petty whining. Yeah, we expect more because we're UConn but winning isn't exactly a birthright either. Are we expecting another Jim Calhoun to take the helm? Those guys aren't easy to find. I'm not even a Hurley fan but some of the takes on here are way over the top.

 

[3rdbass]

Gotta go into the offseason assuming both Cole and Martin are gone. And transfers are okay Danny. They tend to help a lot. They can coexist with your own recruits. It’s a good happy medium.

Also, Adama apparently needs to learn how to make a layup again, so work on that as well.

Well it would help if he wasn't triple team all the time since we have no other consistent offensive threats to worry about.

 

[SaeHusky]

We lost because we played tighter than a drum in the first half, not because we failed to find a way to stop a great player from having a great game. We'll see in future years whether the tightness was a failing of this particular group or a failing of the coach.

Totally agree on the first half. I truly feel if we had won this game we would have been more relaxed for 2nd game and would have gotten to sweet 16

 

[Glastonhusky]

Without question, Hurley must embrace the portal. We need backcourt depth.

Agree. Teddy Allen, Ryan Hawkins, Kadary Richmond, Freeman-Liberty. All transfers who have burned us at one point or another. Time to hit the portal.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Well it would help if he wasn't triple team all the time since we have no other consistent offensive threats to worry about.

Lol don’t be ridiculous. Double* team or not, he killed us these 2 elimination games. If he showed up even slightly in either, we win.

 

[Kitaman]

Look, we know who we are and what we've accomplished. I get the disappointment and frustration tonight - we played a lousy game and got burned by a kid that couldn't miss. But to trash the team, coach, and whole season like people are doing sounds like spoiled, petty whining. Yeah, we expect more because we're UConn but winning isn't exactly a birthright either. Are we expecting another Jim Calhoun to take the helm? Those guys aren't easy to find. I'm not even a Hurley fan but some of the takes on here are way over the top.

Temper tantrums are normal after a loss and especially after getting booted. By the weekend things will settle back down.

Lot of hurt, disappointments, ruined expectations, frustration, jealousy, etc....

My brother, sister God son and others were watching this game and we put up a stinker. So I am very disappointed right now especially because I immediately lost interest in one of the greatest sporting events in the world.

So for me its grief, acceptance and then I'll transition to appreciating what our team did, especially our Seniors.

Don't know about others but I need a day or two, cuz this suxs really bad.

 

[Avon]

That wasn't the argument. The argument was that the NMSU team played well. They did, unequivocally.

7 players scored 33 points. 1 player scored 37. We did nothing to take Allen away. I can count on 1 hand the amount of times we doubled. Our hard hedge rarely works. This is coaching. Teddy Allen is not an AA. He could have been disrupted way more than he was.

Exactly
No excuses
This L is on Hurley
Inexcusable to let 1 player score 37 and sink you. When the scouting report was they only had 1 player Allen
He averaged 19 all season we let him bury us with 37
No adjustment/ no game plan to take Allen out of the game
Mind boggling

 

[kcc1442]

No doubt we should've won this game. Season was NOT a failure but this game certainly was.

Our program's trajectory is just about plateauing now. We were marginally better this year compared to last. There is no denying that Hurley has made substantial progress and improvements from when he took over though. Need I remind everyone of KO's last days and how dysfunctional we were.

Hurley certainly needs to improve and evolve as a coach. As some have said, you can win in those lower level leagues against lower level comp with good recruiting and hoo rah rah coaching and motivating but not at this level. You need to be able to design plays to get guys open, put your best players with the ball in a position to succeed and make sure your role players know exactly how to play their role on offense. When and how they should cut. I'm sick of watching the "Chase us" offense that we play where we purposely run through several screens with several ball screen handoffs only to drain the clock where we go pick and roll under 5 seconds and get low percentage looks 40% of the time. We should've made it a point to play faster. We were pretty slow paced this year and with the way we played half court offense we should've pushed the ball WAY more. Hell we made our comeback tonight with three pointers in transition to Martin and Polley.

When it comes to half court offense it's a whole lot of movement in the first 25 seconds to just end up trying to dump it to Sanogo in the mid post or going pick and roll with less than 5 seconds left. We rarely hit any of our rollers so bigs stop worrying about them, we play to east and west with our screening early on, there is no flex style screening (we got beat twice on simple flex screens out of nowhere today. Would be a killer way to get Adama the ball lower on the block), very few back door looks (and even when we go back door in our motion our guys don't make the pass, why? Are they that poor of passes or are they not being encouraged to).

As for Defense I thought we were above average for most of the year. We had a solid rim protection vibe all year long. I think our decision making and foul trouble hurt us in some games. On ball defense including not reaching (Ajax tonight!) and teaching them to have active nuisance type hands/and attack style defense is something that needs to be encouraged much more. We get complacent/tired and we are willing to just meet them at the rim (other than Cole, his on-ball defense and hands are pretty good). Mixing in zone and being more aggressive in trapping in full court pressure are also areas of improvement.

Overall. Hurley is NOT on the hot seat due to how he far he has brought the program. But there are certainly steps which he needs to make in the next year or two that I'm worried he may not be able to make in his current form. He needs to evolve. His staff needs to challenge him and help him understand his deficiencies. His style is going to grow old quick with these results. Because they won't be compared to the KO years for much longer.

 

[TheRealKBuks]

Our best team under Hurley was the team that finished the 19-20 season that got cut short.

Last year's team with Christian vital would've been a real contender

 

[Skiblets]

On the bright side, at least my judgement to not drive to Buffalo was spot on.

If only we’d bought more tickets

 

[djct1999]

No doubt we should've won this game. Season was NOT a failure but this game certainly was.

Our program's trajectory is just about plateauing now. We were marginally better this year compared to last. There is no denying that Hurley has made substantial progress and improvements from when he took over though. Need I remind everyone of KO's last days and how dysfunctional we were.

Hurley certainly needs to improve and evolve as a coach. As some have said, you can win in those lower level leagues against lower level comp with good recruiting and hoo rah rah coaching and motivating but not at this level. You need to be able to design plays to get guys open, put your best players with the ball in a position to succeed and make sure your role players know exactly how to play their role on offense. When and how they should cut. I'm sick of watching the "Chase us" offense that we play where we purposely run through several screens with several ball screen handoffs only to drain the clock where we go pick and roll under 5 seconds and get low percentage looks 40% of the time. We should've made it a point to play faster. We were pretty slow paced this year and with the way we played half court offense we should've pushed the ball WAY more. Hell we made our comeback tonight with three pointers in transition to Martin and Polley.

When it comes to half court offense it's a whole lot of movement in the first 25 seconds to just end up trying to dump it to Sanogo in the mid post or going pick and roll with less than 5 seconds left. We rarely hit any of our rollers so bigs stop worrying about them, we play to east and west with our screening early on, there is no flex style screening (we got beat twice on simple flex screens out of nowhere today. Would be a killer way to get Adama the ball lower on the block), very few back door looks (and even when we go back door in our motion our guys don't make the pass, why? Are they that poor of passes or are they not being encouraged to).

As for Defense I thought we were above average for most of the year. We had a solid rim protection vibe all year long. I think our decision making and foul trouble hurt us in some games. On ball defense including not reaching (Ajax tonight!) and teaching them to have active nuisance type hands/and attack style defense is something that needs to be encouraged much more. We get complacent/tired and we are willing to just meet them at the rim (other than Cole, his on-ball defense and hands are pretty good). Mixing in zone and being more aggressive in trapping in full court pressure are also areas of improvement.

Overall. Hurley is NOT on the hot seat due to how he far he has brought the program. But there are certainly steps which he needs to make in the next year or two that I'm worried he may not be able to make in his current form. He needs to evolve. His staff needs to challenge him and help him understand his deficiencies. His style is going to grow old quick with these results. Because they won't be compared to the KO years for much longer.

He needs a better roster. The truly elite teams have players. Our best guy was an undersized pg. Who on this team can truly create their own shot? Truth is, our roster was filled with a bunch of great role players. We had no real alpha. To win this tournament , when we won this tournament, we always had a true alpha.