UConn's Season a 'Huge Success' - Dan Hurley

[Tenspro2002]

Uh, not exactly. We were at least a bubble team last year when it all caved in, so this was a continuation and had we missed the tournament would have been a pretty large setback.

one thing that has concerned me about Hurley from the beginning, and I think it is the same thing theOP was getting at, is that he has the Seton Hall-Providence mind set where getting to the NCAA Tournament is the goal. That’s fine for Seton Hall, Providence, lots of schools really. But the great coaches, the Roy Williams, K, Boeheim, Wright, Pitino, Calhoun those guys go into every season with a higher goal. Hell, even though he is a scummy person, I heard a Pitino interview talking about telling his Iona team to pack for a long stay.

Again, the only way you could conclude this is if you think that Hurley would be saying the same thing 5 years from now.

He has said over and over again that that's now how he sees this job.

 

[SubbaBub]

Huge is quite stretch. It was an entertaining success, a needed success, and a welcome successful step forward. It was not huge.

For it to be huge, his incoming class needs to build on this season. Unfortunately for them, making the NCAA and winning the first round game will be the pass/fail line. Beating good teams is another one.

For the FB crowd. RE 1.0 built a lot of cred in 2002-2004 by beating Iowa St and a bunch of tomato cans. The 05-06 teams were not good but had a few moments that carried them into 2007-2010.

Next years team needs to be the bridge to greatness if this Hurley thing is going to work. Can't afford another 1st round exit unless there are some legit great moments along the way.

 

[tennmike]

I like Hurley and I think is was a good choice for the job. He's from a renowned basketball family, was a good D1 player in the Big East, relates well with his players, and is a great recruiter. He is executing his plan..."this is what to expect year 1, year 2, year 3 of a rebuild"; he is self-assured (good and bad). He loves the rebuilding process and has reverence for UConn basketball history.

I read and listen to everything he publicly says during the season, up to the NCAA tourney, and after the HUGELY disappointing loss to Maryland. He seems to excel at all of the stuff along the way..."better get us now," but against the best teams, he seems to get in his own way, despite having a very capable team.

Hurley appears to be introspective based on his interest in "improvement" books, but he is also stubborn. He shares practice videos with his pop. You have to believe they talk about strategy, but it is hard to envision the tough-as-nails elder Hurley (or Jim Calhoun for that matter) would waltz into a game so afraid of opposing players. "We're gonna get killed with 5-out, Sanogo is going to have trouble, we have no-one to stop Ayala, and so on. Why not check Maryland's 13 losses. How did Clemson, Rutgers, Purdue, Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Penn State, etc... overcome insurmountable odds (facetious) to beat them?

Hurley is the coaching parallel to the player, Andre Jackson. He has some terrific attributes, but he has some serious and immediate stuff to work on (in-game coaching and team preparation). I hope Hurley learns what he needs to get the program all the way back, but unlike certain comments in this thread, no one is afraid of our team.

So a quick NCAA exit against a mediocre Maryland team does not cap a season defined as a "huge success"; if we are to take Hurley at his word, then what was experienced this basketball season is only equal to his stated Year-3 expectation...nothing more.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I’m guessing you never saw Kevin Ollie at Grants at 1am on a Saturday (Sunday morning) night. When we had a 12pm tip on Sunday in the AAC. That barstool was warmer than his seat on the bench.

But if you like players like Rakim Lubin and Kwintin Williams over Sanogo and Jackson then yes I’d agree with you. You can’t possibly say the program wasn’t in bad shape when Hurley got here.

Ollie winning a National Championship = no big deal
Hurley making the tournament = greatest coach in basketball history

 

[metsfan2323]

Guys the quote was taken out of context, he was asked if he thought the season was a success, here is the full quote, what part of "we got a lot more to do" are you not understanding? nobody is resting on their laurels.

“We’ve got a lot more to do as a program in terms of recruiting and developing and continuing to increase the talent here and just continuing to grow as a program,” Hurley said on the season overall. “But, yeah, this was a huge success.”

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The Big East invitation happened after Hurley had already completed his first year and already had last year's class (Bouknight, Gaffney, and Akok) in the fold. He may have even had commitments from some of this year's freshmen already.

Hurley was not bailed out by the Big East.

UConn was talking to the Big East back in 2017. Hurley knew that UConn was joining the Big East when he came to UConn. There is no way UConn would have paid Hurley as much as it did and there is no way Hurley would have come to UConn over Pitt unless he knew we were joining the Big East.

 

[AntG168]

Ollie winning a National Championship = no big deal
Hurley making the tournament = greatest coach in basketball history

Nobody has said this. You are off your rocker

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Huge is quite stretch. It was an entertaining success, a needed success, and a welcome successful step forward. It was not huge.

For it to be huge, his incoming class needs to build on this season. Unfortunately for them, making the NCAA and winning the first round game will be the pass/fail line. Beating good teams is another one.

For the FB crowd. RE 1.0 built a lot of cred in 2002-2004 by beating Iowa St and a bunch of tomato cans. The 05-06 teams were not good but had a few moments that carried them into 2007-2010.

Next years team needs to be the bridge to greatness if this Hurley thing is going to work. Can't afford another 1st round exit unless there are some legit great moments along the way.

Good luck getting the Hurley apologists to commit to any objective standard for success next season that is not a complete sandbag.

 

[The Funster]

Not a "huge" success but in a crappy season we made the Dance. Agree that getting to the dance is the baseline and we should be there every year (or as much as JC did). Can't wait until next year.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Nobody has said this. You are off your rocker

The entire thread is saying this. Every post is some version of the program was in shambles when Hurley got here therefore none of the bad things that have happened since are his fault while any achievement that is not a 20 point loss to Central shows his genius.

 

[BlueDogs]

Huge is quite stretch. It was an entertaining success, a needed success, and a welcome successful step forward. It was not huge.

For it to be huge, his incoming class needs to build on this season. Unfortunately for them, making the NCAA and winning the first round game will be the pass/fail line. Beating good teams is another one.

For the FB crowd. RE 1.0 built a lot of cred in 2002-2004 by beating Iowa St and a bunch of tomato cans. The 05-06 teams were not good but had a few moments that carried them into 2007-2010.

Next years team needs to be the bridge to greatness if this Hurley thing is going to work. Can't afford another 1st round exit unless there are some legit great moments along the way.

It was a good season on a path to returning the program to a competitive status. We were a top 40 team. We returned to the NCAAs. All great stuff that shouldn’t be overlooked. The BET and NCAA performances unfortunately tarnished the shine because they exposed us as a talented, but ill-prepared team lacking in execution, mental toughness and mediocre coaching.

 

[8893]

Maybe Hurley was using his Borat voice?

 

[AntG168]

The entire thread is saying this. Every post is some version of the program was in shambles when Hurley got here therefore none of the bad things that have happened since are his fault while any achievement that is not a 20 point loss to Central shows his genius.

Saying the program was in shambles(which it was) is not the same as saying Ollie's championship meant nothing or that Hurley is the greatest coach ever. You pulled that out of you a**. That's a classic route someone who is losing an argument goes. If you don't think Hurley has the program in a better position then when he got here, then im just convinced you may be KO himself. Take the L

 

[Ts5034]

UConn was talking to the Big East back in 2017. Hurley knew that UConn was joining the Big East when he came to UConn. There is no way UConn would have paid Hurley as much as it did and there is no way Hurley would have come to UConn over Pitt unless he knew we were joining the Big East.

When the Big East move was announced, I was wondering If there was an off the record conversation with Hurley, or that information was relayed to him in some way when UConn was approaching him for the job. Who knows? Maybe another one of the reasons Ollie is so bitter about the situation is because he feels like he could have turned the ship around if he was able to coach in the Big East, and he knew our return to the conference was imminent.

 

[jibsey]

The investigation wasn't announced until after the SMU game 1/26/2018. By that point of the season the following had already happened:

• Lost to Michigan State by 20
• Lost to Arkansas by 40
• Need overtime to beat Columbia
• Need overtime to beat Monmouth
• Laughed off the floor v. Cuse @ MSG
• Lost to Auburn by 25
• Lost to Tulsa in 2OT
• Lost to Memphis by 25
• Lost to Villanova by 20

They were a KenPom 179 team from start to finish and the investigation had nothing to do with it. It's as impressive he won a championship as it is letting a program of this caliber sink to a such a low point.

Even the teams this year of historical significance that miss the tournament still remain top 50-75 KenPom. Never sub-100. That is his responsibility and he owns the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.

Hurley says it was a trainwreck when we got here because it was a trainwreck when he got here.

Train wreck fine. Program downhill. He won a national championship. Most schools never get there EVER which means we must always be grateful to KO for that. At this point KO is ahead of Dan Hurley even if he brings the program back to be competitive enough to JUST make the tourney. The goal never changes and until Hurley gets a ring he can be a good coach, a successful coach without the grail.

 

[Ts5034]

As for another conversation in this thread. UConn was absolutely expected to be an east coast version of Gonzaga, or Memphis in Conference USA under Calipari. That was at least the expectation of the majority of the fan base. Coming off a National Championship in 2011, then again in 2014, we were by far the class of the conference and on such a different level than anybody else in the AAC. Keep in mind the AAC of 2013-2014, the year we won the NC, was not the "real" AAC. That year we still had a really good Louisville team, and Rutgers was still there. Tulane, ECU, and Tulsa were not members until the following season. Kind of crazy to think that a program coming off two National Championships in four year's went on to struggle over the next few years against the likes of Tulsa, ECU, and UCF.

 

[J187Money]

Bottom line - we should be a perennial tournament team. I believe we will be under Hurley. It was a terrible game Saturday night, but I actually watched games this year. I've had tickets for years and couldn't be bothered to even use them, because I was going to spend a bunch of time to watch a bad product. I'm looking forward to 2022.

 

[Kolumbo]

I disagree with the Gonzaga comparison. UConn was a great program in a great conference. The conference took a big hit but UConn ideally shouldn't have missed a beat. The women's program didn't flinch but of course that is an entirely different situation. In hindsight, remaining in our conference of 30 plus years, which really was the only option at the time, was a hit not many programs in our situation could have survived. Getting back to the dance was certainly a success. A stepping stone. Credit Hurley. Credit the return to the Big East. But for this program, success is measure by banners.

Now Rutgers, you can call this season a huge success even though it didn't make the sweet 16.
“I thought we played our hearts out. This team made history,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said after the heartbreaking Midwest Region second-round game. “They got through a two-year journey, COVID, never missing a day, never having a pause, all the obstacles they had to fight through. They now become the standard for what we want to be at Rutgers.”

 

[Kolumbo]

Steve starts out mentioning Joe Boylan, former assistant coach at Rutgers. I think there is a lot of upside to his situation, trying to build a program as a newcomer to the B1G.

 

[Waquoit]

A career NBA backup and a bunch of guys that never played a second in the League beat Wright, Hoiberg, Izzo, Donovan and Calipari and Ollie had nothing to do with it. Got it.

He did have the best player in the country. You left that off.

 

[Waquoit]

Not a good sign. How about “we made great progress on reaching our first goal. But, we are disappointed we didn’t perform at the level we expect of ourselves in the tournament. We are going to redouble our efforts to get to the next level.” Instead, unnecessary hyperbole.

No serious person says "we are going to redouble our efforts". It's a laugh line.

 

[AntG168]

No serious person says "we are going to redouble our efforts". It's a laugh line.

Some people just want something to complain about. There was ZERO wrong with Hurley's comments

 

[freescooter]

There is one Gonzaga. Not one in each league, just one. UConn was never going to be the "Gonzaga of the AAC".

You are blaming Ollie for a terrible decision the University made about conference alignment. This decision probably had 70% support among a fanbase which was holding out fantasies of a Big 10 invite, that was actually made less likely by being in the AAC.

The only point I am making here is that we need to stop trashing Ollie because he did win a National Championship, and more importantly, we have to stop using him as an excuse for Hurley's "meh" performance so far.

There is in many non-P5 leagues really. Maybe not Gonzagas exactly but nationally relevant programs. Wichita St was before joining the American. Always in the conversation despite being in the MVC. Loyola seems to be there now, at least as long as Porter stays. After that we will see if they can sustain it. Butler was in the Horizon. I would say Villanova in the new Big East. (I know you think the NBE is some great P6. I disagree). What tends to happen is these programs get picked up by bigger conferences and lose what was distinctive. Often they are still very good in the new league. Gonzaga is in somewhat of a unique position without football and on the west coast there really isn’t a place to go. There really isn’t a Big West or a even high mid-major conference like the A10. It is too far away to make sense for the BE or even the AAC. If it were in say Detroit it would be the 12th Big East member and might not be quite as relevant.

UConn did have the opportunity to be a major power in tha AAC. They simply failed dismally after 2014. It wasn’t the league. It was the coach. There were 100 theories about why Ollie’s failed. But he did.

 

[Waquoit]

The entire thread is saying this. Every post is some version of the program was in shambles when Hurley got here therefore none of the bad things that have happened since are his fault while any achievement that is not a 20 point loss to Central shows his genius.

This is classic bad-faith muntz. The fact is getting this program back to the dance in three years is not a mediocre coaching job, it's ahead of schedule. Calhoun took four years and he inherited better players.

 

[metsfan2323]

This is classic bad-faith muntz. The fact is getting this program back to the dance in three years is not a mediocre coaching job, it's ahead of schedule. Calhoun

Correct, and what happens in 1990 if Henefeld blows out his achilles and smith injures his elbow and has surgery. Many seem to not want to cut Hurley any slack for injuries to his two best recruits.

# Lunatic fanbase