I see a guy giving his all, flying around hustling muscling up and grabbing boards that our big man never seem to do or leave their damn feet , that’s my eye test now does he make head scratching decisions of course the whole team does including the coach getting a dumb technical... now I guess his teammates are what caliber a players if he’s A-10 talent ..??Vital has always padded his stats after we fall from behind.
He’s A-10 level talent and got schooled by superior A-10 level tonight.
I think this is a perfect summation of Christian Vital. Whenever he does something good, he does three things bad. He will go down as the greatest stat accumulator in modern UConn history. And nothing more.Vital has always padded his stats after we fall from behind.
He’s about to go down in history as the only UConn player to not see a postseason since like the 80’s.
His stats mean nothing to me. I use the eye test.
I’m so sick of ppl on here defending him bc of his “heart”.
He’s delusional and he flexed his muscles after he scored on a fast break when we were down by 20. And that isn’t the first time he has done that.
He’s A-10 level talent and got schooled by superior A-10 level tonight.
The younger teammates will be better than him and take us to a postseason. I know that for a fact and you heard it from me.I see a guy giving his all, flying around hustling muscling up and grabbing boards that our big man never seem to do or leave their damn feet , that’s my eye test now does he make head scratching decisions of course the whole team does including the coach getting a dumb technical... now I guess his teammates are what caliber a players if he’s A-10 talent ..??
Hey i love uconn so I hope these Hurley recruits take us to the promise land like u say man , but then again they have to beat out vital and Gilbert and we all know how Hurley likes to ride the upperclassmen so I’m very optimistic.... but I need to see them play a game first lolThe younger teammates will be better than him and take us to a postseason. I know that for a fact and you heard it from me.
His upperclassmen peers aren’t very talented either. Carlton and Polley have some potential but they are soft minded
Exactly this-The Ollie kids aren't going to get better and probably weren't ever going to get that much better because they're not good basketball players. I mean how many more college basketball games do people need to see to the point where asking anyone to 'develop' them becomes fruitless? It's the same thing every game - slow start, dig a huge hole, go on a run that gives you just enough hope to think there's some talent there
Who else can score though? Alterique is a midget, Tyler gets his feelings hurt if you look at him wrong, Josh has the toughness of a teletubby, a broomstick is stronger than Akok.Vital’s game is perfectly designed for losing teams.
He’s been here four years. He’s not fighting through a bad night, he’s a sixth or seventh man playing hero minutes for a bad team.
Twenty-one shots, two assists.
rebounding is a mindset not a product of size and strength (although it helps). Don't see that mindset in a lot of these guys.
That being said, I'm not blaming the kids as much as some of you are. A lot falls on Hurley here. You can't credit Hurley for wins and blame the kids for losses. It isn't fair.
I guess the three things I noticed:
-The Ollie kids aren't going to get better and probably weren't ever going to get that much better because they're not good basketball players. I mean how many more college basketball games do people need to see to the point where asking anyone to 'develop' them becomes fruitless? It's the same thing every game - slow start, dig a huge hole, go on a run that gives you just enough hope to think there's some talent there and then fold up like a deck of cards down the stretch making all the same stupid decisions they made earlier in the game. The faster we can cycle in the freshmen - the better.
-Hurley's gotta find some creativity. You can't let Vital and Gilbert go out and do what they did tonight. Rotate Gaffney in, rotate Adams in - rotate anyone in. There's no way it could possibly be worse than what we saw tonight. SO why not try it? And defensively I mean... they ran the same spread the floor, drive to the lane for an easy bucket play 25 times before we made an adjustment. When we found success pressing, he then inexplicably took it off and wham-o - right back to a double digit lead. All this from a team with a walk on who was shredding us and a bunch of guys who were 6'4. Speaking of which, someone tell Josh Carlton he's enormous. He clearly hasn't figured that out yet. I'm not down on Hurley or anything, but he was a steaming pile tonight.
-I don't know if this team is PTSD or what the deal is - but the lack of aggression on the boards and general knowledge that they're bigger, longer and faster than most of their opposition seems to be totally lacking with these guys. It's like they can drop it into a gear most teams can't but just refuse to - for whatever reason. it's a total mental thing. I don't expect Hurley to be able to develop bad basketball players - and the mental stuff is part of the reason they're bad - but there's gotta be some trigger somewhere. Their inability to come out right off the gate, the playing scared and with no confidence... it's just bizarre. I've never really seen anything like it...
Anyway - it's one night. It's game2 of year 2 and this is gonna be a 3-4 year thing. Far from the end of the world, but absolutely an unacceptable performance and frustrating. On to Florida.
Yeah, how the heck does that happen? Crazy.