Very close to an Ollie season.
This team has gotten worse
- Thread starter aburks41
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Our players are more talented and more athletic than PC's players and we're deeper. Hurley was badly outcoached today.
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I feel very confident saying this is not the case
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Which of our players is better than David Duke? Which of them are better than Watson?
I'd listen to Jackson and Sanogo. But they're freshmen and clearly not as good as them right now.
Duke and Watson are upperclassmen. Look, when your upperclassmen are as bad ours are, you aren't going to beat many good teams.
That’s just not accurate at all. But I’m not gonna argue w you anymore. We have way more talent than PC that was on the floor TODAY.
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They had—objectively—the two best players on the floor. They've played more games. They've had more practices. They're best players are upperclassmen with Big East experience while our upperclassmen are A10 level talents and our best players are injured, were recently injured, and all are underclassmen. Give us a healthy Bouk and we still win.
In two years we're rolling out teams that house a team that looks like this PC team. I just don't understand why people can't objectively look at the what we've got.
I dunno Hurley has been mixed in my casual fan opinion. Great reset of the culture, brought in top recruits and coaching during the pandemic is challenging but the injuries are piling up, the in game coaching has been so-so—I see him staring at that little piece of paper almost every time they cut over. What happened with Hunter leaving? And Brown? Guess only time will tell...
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UConn broke the press and then sat and waited for the defense to set up. I don’t think even once did they try and attack the basket once they broke the press. I consider that a tactical error/coaching error. It’s not necessarily fast but it’s an attacking approach. I think our offense is much too passive for a team without offensive firepower.
I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word objectively
QDOG5
I dont have a drug problem I have a police problem
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Let's focus on some things that can change for the better. On the offensive end AJax consistently ran to the corner to start our offensive sets. He is not a 3 pt threat so teams will gladly allow a pass to him there. Dan Hurley needs to get him the ball at the top of the key early in the sets. He is clearly the best, most instinctive passer on the team. He had a sublime pass to IW that was not handled. He had at least two nice passes to TP that allowed TP to set his feet before shooting. AJax is going to make mistakes but he is also going to create offense. TP has to learn that the 3pt line pump fake, then one dribble inside the 3pt line and take a shot is the worst shot in all of basketball. Dan Hurley runs the back screen to AJax for a dunk and we never see the play again. There are so many effective counters off of that set. No more doubling down in the post off of a same side shooter. We got burned for 3's a few times doing that. Lastly, I will make the case for Josh to get 12 minutes or so a game. Today he played 6 minutes and was 2-2 for 4 points with one rebound. Against SH he had 2 rebounds in 5 minutes while IW and AS had 4 in 52 minutes. I would pair him with AJax who is an excellent(and willing) post passer. He had 6 boards in 10 minutes against Butler. Our last victory btw.
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Because when we get thumped by a terrible team we're supposed to adjust our expectations downwards and our excuses upwards. Coach Cooley had his guys ready and Coach Hurley didn't. Along with our anemic shooting that hasn't been resolved that's the entire story. Not prepared and can't shoot. If I'm the Coach I'm making adjustments in preparation and gameplan. Shuffling the lineup has already been exhausted when everybody is just repeating the same plan and coming up empty. And I'm tired of the sideshow where my Coach seems more focused on extraneous calls than our lack of execution. We adjust too little, too late. Without a coach on the floor, a go to guy we look lost.
Here's how I rank the players from the two teams over the course of the season.
Watson
Duke
Martin
Whaley
Sanogo
Cole
Gaffney
Jackson
Horchler
Polley
Reeves
Adams
Carlton
Breed <--- This guy started and played 33 minutes for Providence tonight
Gantt
Crosswell
Goodine
Monroe
Bynum and Nichols would go somewhere in the cluster of our guys. But this version of the Providence team we played tonight is really bad. Duke (outside of a couple minute stretch) wasn't even very good. They are mediocre AAC team bad. Tulsa level. This is not "You guys are complaining about losing to a good Big East team" reaction. This is we're in year 3 of Hurley with tournament aspirations and we lost to Tulsa.
Watson
Duke
Martin
Whaley
Sanogo
Cole
Gaffney
Jackson
Horchler
Polley
Reeves
Adams
Carlton
Breed <--- This guy started and played 33 minutes for Providence tonight
Gantt
Crosswell
Goodine
Monroe
Bynum and Nichols would go somewhere in the cluster of our guys. But this version of the Providence team we played tonight is really bad. Duke (outside of a couple minute stretch) wasn't even very good. They are mediocre AAC team bad. Tulsa level. This is not "You guys are complaining about losing to a good Big East team" reaction. This is we're in year 3 of Hurley with tournament aspirations and we lost to Tulsa.
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Honestly, which non-Bouknight player on our team is consistently better than Duke or Watson?
Martin? Cole? Seriously man, are you high?
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Any list that has Adams higher than Carlton is laughable. Adams is just awful.
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If you have the two best players by a wide gap—and let's be clear, much as I like Martin, the gap between him and Watson and Duke is pretty wide—I just don't know how many times you're going to win given you can only play 5 players at a time. I'd put Reeves a bit higher—definitely than Polley, and I'd say the difference between Martin and Reeves is probably equivalent to the difference between Watson and Martin. So...this isn't cross country.
You give me the two best players, and three players who are worse than your best five...but pretty good, can play their role, I'm going to beat you pretty much every game no matter how good a coach you are.
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For people that’s saying Hurley is on the hot seat.. do y’all realize where our program was at 4 years ago? The fact that we lost arguably our most talented big in akok, one of the best players in the country in bouk, and our top incoming recruit for a stretch in Dre Jackson and that we have been competitive in most of the games we have played without those players I mentioned above is a testament in itself and speaks volumes, I love the yard but some of y’all takes after games ESPECIALLY losses really are mind blowing
You're just wrong about this for college basketball. Having the best guy (or two) is not as devastating as it is in the NBA if your teammates are crap. See: Simmons, Ben, Young, Trae, and Fultz, Markelle. Especially if they can't fundamentally take over the game. Neither Duke or Watson are that good. They're not All American level. Watson needs to be fed (only took 2 shots in the 1st half) and we killed him personally on the glass and Duke can't score inside the perimeter very well (he was inefficient tonight, 91 ORTG).. How did we do when Jalen Adams was the best player on the court for both teams?
The baseline for quality in the NBA is fairly high. So there's not going to be that big a gap between mediocre teammates and bad teammates. But the best players in the NBA are unfreakingbelievably good. Much better than the best players in college relative to average. But between decent college players and bad college players is a biiiig gap. The Breed guy that started for them tonight as a freshman and played 33 minutes would never even be considered for recruitment at UConn. We wouldn't even look at him. And they had 4 guys who played tonight who are worse than him. Their "next 3" after Watson and Duke are not pretty good! That's my point! It's a shooter who can't shoot, a mid major transfer who they benched earlier in the year but had to go back to him when the guy who replaced him got hurt, and a 300+ freshman recruit.
And we lost to them by double digits! This is just flat unacceptable.
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Current UConn: is Polley or Adams or Jarlton a recruit? Whaley?
So much of our talent has not had consistent practice time together because of injuries or COVID, and the best of it is young and injured. When you're playing a team who has the best two players and they're juniors and seniors, they're just going to win more times than not, I don't care if that's the NBA or at the Y or me coaching 7 year olds against you. You give me a guard and a big, and they're both better than anyone on your team, and I'm going to win most times no matter your game-planning.
You can have a system and all and that can mitigate that. But that system would require (a) practice and (b) cohesiveness of your players. Which of those has Hurley had?
On 247:
Tyler Polley - 168
Josh Carlton - 178
Brendan Adams - 178
Alyn Breed - 327
It's not even the same ballpark. We wouldn't have recruited Breed in the AAC with Ollie. And those guys are juniors and seniors and he is a freshman. And again, they had 4 guys in their rotation worse than him.
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I'd suggest the mistake you make is that recruiting rankings are particularly accurate outside of 75-125 or so. It's not some clear, linear progression that because someone is 327 they are going to be necessarily significantly worse than someone who is 178. Once you're outside of that rankings are sort of the wild-west. College basketball tends to be far more logarithmic in terms of talent
That's not to suggest than Breed is any good. But I don't find high school rankings particularly compelling outside of 125ish.
Well said
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I don't disagree, but It's an expected value. It's not linear, but there IS a big difference between top 150 (like Adams was in some rankings) or borderline such and 300+.
Offers will illustrate it. His best non-Providence offer was probably La Salle? Or maybe Hofstra?
Aside from us...
Polley had offers from LSU and USC.
Carlton had offers from Cincy, USC, Georgetown, and Maryland.
Adams had offers from Georgia, Minnesota, and Seton Hall.
He's not a rotation level Big East recruit. ESPECIALLY not as a freshman. This kid is just a guy. And it's not like he's a diamond in the rough that earned a spot in the lineup. He stinks, he's done nothing all year, he's only playing because of an injury and them having no one else. And their bench stinks even more. And we let them outplay us.
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So you think Hurley should be on the “hot” seat?
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Man oh man 😂😂😂
Don’t try being rational with this guy. He doesn’t know what “objective” means. He has his narrative and he’s sticking to it.
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You can disagree with me that the team that can have the two best players will win most times. I think you're wrong, and I've laid out why I think so. But I respect auror. He isn't sitting here pretending PC didn't have the two best players on the floor.
But you seem to think that, sans Bouknight, we have a player currently better than one of their best two players. By any objective measure, we don't. You've never countered that argument. Because it's false.
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Who do you root for this year?
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