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husky429 said:
I'm not talking about the recruiting. That just happens sometimes, and I'm talking about starting and playing him 20-25 for the first bit of the season.
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That’s fair. I just also like to imagine how differently things would’ve played out if that evaluation hits or they get another player (insert whatever productive pg here). Team had its issues but they weren’t that far off, especially if they nailed that guard spot. Really shows how difficult it is to compete at the top year in year out.
 
UCfor3 said:
It is a meritocracy. Nowell did not look good or ready in the minutes he got. Mahaney was playing better at the end of the year. Nowell was worse than Mahaney on defense, shooting and getting the ball up the court. The decision was made by the 2x champ coach who with his great staff has seen these players in practice every day and watched the game film of both. He is trying to win, not lose. Either you are being purposely obtuse and argumentative because you like to rail against Hurley for sport, or you think you know more than our coaches. I'd say take the L and move on, but clearly you can't or don't want to admit the possibility that you may be wrong here.
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I remember reading somewhere that freshmen can get better with good coaching.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I remember reading somewhere that freshmen can get better with good coaching.
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611's post log? I've never seen anything like it. He's siting Calhoun for the 800th x as grounds for developing freshmen. It's rare you come across a more baseless argument. Meanwhile we have the portal blowing open where everyone is for sale, including developed freshmen, lol.

Focusing on developing freshmen is single handedly the dumbest strategy on the planet in today's landscape, truly the dumbest. If they are bonafide ready to help you win in the given year, go for it. Otherwise play the players that will help you win that year.
 
HuskyWarrior611 said:
I’m more curious on the top example of the freshman Calhoun didn’t give PT too that ended up being major players for us.

All of Calhoun’s freshman seemed to be ready or got ready.

The biggest example of Calhoun going with a freshman and forcing him into the lineup in hopes it sped up his progress and not working was Deandre Daniels. And he did it over returning national champions Roscoe Smith and Niels Giffey.

It didn’t work, but he tried because his philosophy was you get guys ready by playing them in general. Not through no stupid practice where they have to earn minutes there first.

(You see how I give clear examples of these things and not just say stuff cause it sounds good making stuff up out of thin air)
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So Giffey and Daniels both played about 10 mpg in 2012, Roscoe Smith 18 mpg. Keeping in mind that as the season wound down, the last 4 losses that season, Daniels was DNP, 3 min, DNP, DNP. If that is the top example, this notion is kaput.
 
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husky429 said:
I never understand this argument. Our coaches aren't playing less talented players on purpose. Why would anyone do that? When someone is good enough to contribute... they play.
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The whole premise is idiotic. Our staff, lauded as one of the best in the country, plays the guys they think will give us the best chance of success. We saw, very clearly, mind you, how overmatched the player in question was when he EARNED the PT.
 
caw said:
The obvious answer was the 2011 team because they started three freshmen at all times that year I believe, at least two. Olander, Giffey and Lamb started the first game. Roscoe, Okwandu and Napier started some also I believe. Now this was obvious due to necessity as the roster was Kemba, Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, Beverly, Oriakhi and 7 freshmen. I think the only freshman who didn't start was Wolf. And the other six all saw tons of minutes. I wouldn't say they were all "ready" though they did perform better than hoped.
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The key part of the equation, however is "wasn't ready". For one, he didn't have a choice, and I'm not sure I call the team that won in Maui full of "not ready" freshmen.
 
RuffRuff said:
611's post log? I've never seen anything like it. He's siting Calhoun for the 800th x as grounds for developing freshmen. It's rare you come across a more baseless argument. Meanwhile we have the portal blowing open where everyone is for sale, including developed freshmen, lol.

Focusing on developing freshmen is single handedly the dumbest strategy on the planet in today's landscape, truly the dumbest. If they are bonafide ready to help you win in the given year, go for it. Otherwise play the players that will help you win that year.
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Balance. It is like the NBA. You can't build a team solely through free agency (transfer portal) because it is just too expensive. As Marquette proved, you can't build a team solely through the "draft" (recruiting), because there are always a couple of misses. You need to get it right on both.

Balance.
 
UCfor3 said:
It is a meritocracy. Nowell did not look good or ready in the minutes he got. Mahaney was playing better at the end of the year. Nowell was worse than Mahaney on defense, shooting and getting the ball up the court. The decision was made by the 2x champ coach who with his great staff has seen these players in practice every day and watched the game film of both. He is trying to win, not lose. Either you are being purposely obtuse and argumentative because you like to rail against Hurley for sport, or you think you know more than our coaches. I'd say take the L and move on, but clearly you can't or don't want to admit the possibility that you may be wrong here.
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Indeed. And Nowell did get opportunities, at least when he was healthy. The ideal situation would be that during these opportunities, he would eventually click with the guys on the floor and excel. That just never really happened. C'est la vie
 
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RuffRuff said:
611's post log? I've never seen anything like it. He's siting Calhoun for the 800th x as grounds for developing freshmen. It's rare you come across a more baseless argument.
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Citing possibly the greatest developer ever in college sports is a bad idea?
 
DRBackup said:
Yeah, out of conference against cupcakes for the most part. Exactly the time to do that. Kinda like Mahaney, as it turns out.
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You asked a question that I answered man. This has nothing to do with your question and I don’t even know the point you’re trying to make. Mahaney isn’t a freshman.
 
djct1999 said:
Hurley said last year in a revealing interview that UConn recruits certain kids and starts w the parents. Part of Nowell’s problem is having an unrealistic outspoken father. Hurley did t miss on the kid, he missed on the parent.
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This is also stupid because with this logic, we wouldn’t have recruited Caron Butler?
 
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DogMania said:
I'm sure it's been brought up many times, but opening the Portal on March 24th while 16 teams are still playing does not create an even playing field.
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This season I was disappointed that our portal pick-ups did not exceed expectations like the gems our staff had previously mined out of the portal.

But this thread is reminding how much of that mining process was playing out while our staff was occupied with, you know, winning a championship last year.
 
djct1999 said:
Hurley said last year in a revealing interview that UConn recruits certain kids and starts w the parents. Part of Nowell’s problem is having an unrealistic outspoken father. Hurley did t miss on the kid, he missed on the parent.
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Saw that interview also. We don't know yet whether he nissed on the player but yeah, the parent is quite outspoken and looks like a miss there. I think theoretically earning minutes and waiting your turn sounds good during the recruiting process. When you are actually going through it some parents get impatient, irrational and don't trust the process.
 
UCfor3 said:
Saw that interview also. We don't know yet whether he nissed on the player but yeah, the parent is quite outspoken and looks like a miss there. I think theoretically earning minutes and waiting your turn sounds good during the recruiting process. When you are actually going through it some parents get impatient, irrational and don't trust the process.
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I don’t think the coaches pitch waiting your turn. It seems like they pitch earning playing time.

Which is probably why they get upset with the Mahaney situation and get outspoken about it.
 
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Coming off the bench is very hard if you know you’ll be taken out quickly if you don’t make a shot, or if you turn the ball over, or get beat on defense. Players can develop by practicing and waiting their turn but most develop better by playing extended minutes in games. I’ll always respect the guys that can come off the bench and be fearless.

I have no idea what happened with Mahaney and Nowell but my guess is that they both were in their own heads and not playing well and Hurley went with the guy who has at least has a history of being productive in college.

I’m really not worried about that happening again though. We will get a very good point guard or 2
 
BFieldHusky said:
Great article. Obviously a lot up in the air, but I've been trying to say for a while UConn is in great shape here, as well as the rest of the league.
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We just have thread the needle football-wise until ~2030/the next big shakeout. Buckle up.
 
HuskyWarrior611 said:
It’s a pretty bad message if I can do whatever I want and not get benched for the freshman just because I’m an upperclassman and they are a freshman.

Sorry that I’m a believer in meritocracy and not seniority.

Fun memory of freshman Tyler Olander cutting up Syracuse 2-3 zone. That seems virtually impossible today because the assumption would be that there’s no way he can even give a team the chance to win. And we’re talking bottom of the barrel recruit (no offense Big T you did great things)

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Good God. No one is saying that Newell didn’t get a chance (or shouldn’t have gotten a chance) BECAUSE he was a freshman. They’re saying he didn’t get more of a chance (because he was given a few chances and didn’t show anything, unlike a Diggins who absolutely never got a chance) because he never convinced the coach that putting him in would benefit the team. I know you think he would have, but why do you have such problems grasping the obvious — that given a choice between relying on the conclusion of professional evaluators (coaches) who watch in practice every day and a fan who doesn’t see practices, all rational people will assume that it’s far more likely the coaches are going to be right.
 
HuskyWarrior611 said:
Please spare me the earn it in practice cop out. Mahaney did not earn a starting job in practice. You saw that for yourself at the one you went to.

He kind of proved this year all that stuff was baloney
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You’re just wrong. I know you don’t see that, but you are
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Calhoun is the best player development coach in NBA history, and he put some guys that flat out sucked as frosh and sophomores (ex. Tate George, Donny Marshall, Hilton Armstrong) into the League. I did not think Taliek Brown or Kirk King would ever be any good, and they were solid starters on nationally ranked teams by their junior years. Players do get better.

If it was easy to tell which players would get better, and which players would not, everyone would be a college coach.
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Players do get better. Not sure what you are arguing here. The whole original issue is why didn't Nowell play over Mahaney. HuskyWarrior even claimed it wasn't a meritocracy. Nowell performed worse than Mahaney when healthy and given a chance. Hilton didn't didn't play a lot as a freshman because he wasn't ready. Same with Nowell who was not ready as a frosh or was a miss. Calhoun had misses too and guys that didn't develop Scott Hazelton, Jamaal Coombs, Ajou Deng, Ater Majok, Curtis Kelly(was ok at K-State), Mandledove, Marcus Johnson, etc. There are many more.
 
boog204 said:
The whole premise is idiotic. Our staff, lauded as one of the best in the country, plays the guys they think will give us the best chance of success. We saw, very clearly, mind you, how overmatched the player in question was when he EARNED the PT.
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You know who else was overmatched? Hawkins. Couldn't dribble the ball. Couldn't defend a traffic cone. Missed most of his shots except for one game. But Hurley kept throwing him out there mostly because we didn't have anybody else. By the end of the year he could dribble a little without bouncing it off his feet, his defense was almost adequate and his shooing touch came back.

The staff isn't infallible. I think this year in particular, the chase to "threepeat" warped what should really have been a year focused on developing the sophomores and freshmen.
 
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