Three Takeaways – St. Joe's edition

[Shine33]

And it’s to no fault of his own.

Exactly, because he should never have to start on a UConn level team. Thanks for making my point

 

[KodiacKemba]

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 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 ..??

 

[Towney007]

I miss the days when I got pig piled for saying the Ollie players mostly stunk.

 

[uconngb]

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.

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.

 

[KodiacKemba]

I can see this is gonna be an interesting season

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

Exactly, because he should never have to start on a UConn level team. Thanks for making my point

I think your eyes are fooling you. You don’t shoot better than any UConn guard since 2004 because you’re not a UConn level player. You don’t rebound better as a guard than any UConn player since 2004 because you’re not a UConn level player.

 

[Shine33]

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 ..??

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.
His upperclassmen peers aren’t very talented either. Carlton and Polley have some potential but they are soft minded

 

[A10 fan]

Ouch! I didn't expect this. St. Joe's isn't a middle of the pack A10 team. Every prediction I've seen has them just above Fordham at the bottom of the league. Got to be one of those fluke games, or the Huskies just didn't take them seriously.

 

[ucawn]

Does this damage our confidence?
Hell yes!
Was this embarrassing?
Hell yes!
Was this fun to watch?
Hell no!

Don’t take this game to heavily even though I like many of you are furious on our teams lack of effort or will tonight. The team could’ve played better but we need to keep working. This should be a great motivation piece to never be embarrassed like this again. Not that worried because it’s normal for teams to slip up early in the year but still was a terrible loss and performance by the team and we can’t stress that enough. But you can make it up to us by winning on Sunday @ 3. Bring the energy and start quick for the love of god. There’s still a lot of b-ball to be played. Just play every game like it’s your last and always bring the highest energy possible every night.

So pissed this will be one that hurts for a while but we’ll move on. My expectations for the non conference schedule are still high. 3 losses, you just lost to St. Joes so now you have to split with Florida, beat Indiana, and lose to Villanova. But Villanova had a poor showing tonight so you never know. Honestly a long season to look forward to but please team never do this again please it was miserable at least look like you care and/or are trying

 

[Shine33]

I think your eyes are fooling you. You don’t shoot better than any UConn guard since 2004 because you’re not a UConn level player. You don’t rebound better as a guard than any UConn player since 2004 because you’re not a UConn level player.

My eyes are fine. I can’t even with you. You must know him or be related to him so if that’s true then I am sorry for being so harsh.
But this is reality. I’ve been watching UConn starters since the 90s and he doesn’t have the physical gifts nor the skill set that basically any of them have had.
He would be great as a seventh man off the bench on a tourney level UConn team bc of his heart. Problem is this is not a tourney level UConn team

 

[Towney007]

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.

 

[KodiacKemba]

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.
His upperclassmen peers aren’t very talented either. Carlton and Polley have some potential but they are soft minded

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 lol

 

[ClifSpliffy]

'little al' is short. mr 'stop touching me' prolly is allergic to boards. of these 3 starters, at least cv does stick his nose, which is bent far too often, in the mix. he has to, since he's doing all the rebounding for starters at the 1,2, and 3 spots. other than that, the rest of the gang looks like fun. im optimistic. I have belief that january dawgs won't look like this 'no d, no a' version.

 

[Shine33]

I apologize for being so harsh on vital and Gilbert my guys. I want what everyone else here wants and I just speak my mind. Our rise will be with the young guys not the guys that Ollie recruited unfortunately

 

[Cuse Socks]

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.

 

[Shine33]

-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

Exactly this

 

[AntG168]

We can still win 18-22 games this year. We can’t let tonight ruin a whole season. We have a lot of games in front of us to make this one up. We have Bouk coming back. And two really exciting recruits so far for next year. Make tonight an outlier this season. Make this game up against Florida. Go Huskies!

 

[kansashusky]

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.

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.

I agree Christian isn’t exactly our ideal situation, but We score 50 a night without him.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Year two of a rebuild.

 

[buddy]

I think you guys are too hard on CV. It seems sometimes like he is the only one interested.

 

[Towney007]

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.

To be fair - you can't blame either, really.

So far as the players are concerned - they're not good. I don't know what people expect Hurley to be able to do with them. His first recruiting class has been here for two games.

Hurley probably takes more of the blame here in terms of some things he could have done or not done to steal a win. But at the end of the day, you also have what you have.

It's just part of rebuilding. People are going to have to stop being babies about it and let it play out. You're not getting a Duke level reload here.

 

[intlzncster]

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.

Whelp, that sums up my feelings exactly.

 

[Husky1972]

• A hoist up the first shot that shows, no need to look for better options Offense
• Chase after 'em but don't get in their way Defense
• "OK it's yours" Rebounding
• A coach who appears OK with it all (remember the old days with timeouts @ 19:30 of the 1st half? The "Hook"?)

The above isn't about talent or lack of it. It's about competing with energy, effort, discipline, and teamwork. None of which were on display for a significant amount of time this evening.

Really disappointed.

 

[metsfan2323]

On the bright side this Akok kid looks like the type of player you build a championship team around.

 

[bmayuc]

Yeah, how the heck does that happen? Crazy.

Not a secret.

1. Our two guards are an undersized pg who has never been able to finish near the rim and a good shooter who has limited dribbling/driving ability. Two guys who can't get to the rack

2. Our best big man had a D- game and missed a bunch of bunnies he usually makes

3. Our other big men are finesse players with limited to no down low game. Polley is a spot up shooter, Sid literally has no niche offensively and typically just gets the ball at the elbow, takes a dribble and a random jump stop, and then wildly chucks the ball toward the rim. I swear to god, that's like 60% of his shots in his career. And Akok is basically teh same as polley. Spot up finesse big.

So, that's all of our players, and not a single even average finisher in the paint, outside of Carlton, who had the worst game of all players on our team today and was completely inneffective.

so, thats how 8-34 happens.