We have A Lot of Talented Players

[WeAreUCONN]

What are we, eleven deep with talented players, when everyone is healthy?

Ollie deserves a lot of credit for whatever success that this team winds up having.

We all agree that Ollie needed to go.
However it looks as if his recruiting was better than it seemed at the time.

These guys can Ball when Healthy, Motivated and Coached Well!

 

[Marat]

Yes, Hurley is allowed to win with Ollie's recruits. Ollie won with Calhoun's before he ran into some bad luck (divorce, injuries, transfers, ...)..

 

[jojipoji]

Team is playing well and are somewhat talented but honestly how many 1st round draft picks are on this roster. Give Hurley a team with 2nd and 3rd picks in the draft (Gordon okafor) How about a team with 4 or 5 1st rounders? This isn’t a really talented roster like youre making it out to be. We have good players but not a uconn team in its heyday. Ollie deserves no credit. Sorry.

 

[WeAreUCONN]

Team is playing well and are somewhat talented but honestly how many 1st round draft picks are on this roster. Give Hurley a team with 2nd and 3rd picks in the draft (Gordon okafor) How about a team with 4 or 5 1st rounders? This isn’t a really talented roster like youre making it out to be. We have good players but not a uconn team in its heyday. Ollie deserves no credit. Sorry.

I disagree. Adams is a borderline nba player. Gilbert is definitely a first round talent if healthy. Carlton, Cobb and Diarra are all capable bigs.
People are comparing Polley to Daniels and Giffey.
Vital is no slouch. I’m not saying that I liked Ollie or anything else but whatever success we have this year. Ollie should get some of the credit. Ollie built most of this team.

 

[WeAreUCONN]

Team is playing well and are somewhat talented but honestly how many 1st round draft picks are on this roster. Give Hurley a team with 2nd and 3rd picks in the draft (Gordon okafor) How about a team with 4 or 5 1st rounders? This isn’t a really talented roster like youre making it out to be. We have good players but not a uconn team in its heyday. Ollie deserves no credit. Sorry.

This current team is actually built very similar to our last title team if you look at the players but this team is deeper.

 

[Palatine]

Hate to say this. But Ollie might have given Brendan Adams 20 minutes last night because that was the rotation he had in mind. One of KOs faults was not responding to the game at hand. Last night Hurley nailed Carlton to the bench to stay with Cobb. Ollie would often pull the hot hand out of the game. Hurley has a much better feel for the game and makes adjustments on the fly. Big difference.

 

[jojipoji]

lol let’s not be delusional. Polley = Daniels and giffey. Do you not remember the 20 and 10 Daniels put up against Florida? Polley ain’t doing that against a top 10 team

 

[#1 PA Husky Fan]

Ollie recruited players with potential. Hurley gets players to play to their potential. I would question whether KO would have developed them or coached them to be successful. I agree that there is a roster full of players with potential to be good players.

 

[jojipoji]

This team is deeper than the 14 team?!?!

 

[Lefty2one]

The cupboard was not bare, we knew that. Our starting backcourt features two Top 30 guards. There aren't a ton of teams around the country who can say that, certainly no one else in the AAC. Guard play takes you a long way in college hoops and when you throw in solid additions like Smith and Vitale you'll have a shot at dancing. We still haven't seen Sid. Obviously our frontcourt and wings need to get much, much better.

If Adams keeps his head on straight he'll have a long NBA career. He may not be a first rounder but he'll surprise people once he gets to the league.

 

[UConnJim]

This team has some talent, but that is not why the team won last night. They were better prepared and they worked harder than Syracuse. Plus, Syracuse was a good match up for UConn given that Syracuse does not have guard depth and their bigs are thin.

For UConn to make it into the NCAA tournament, they need to play with intensity for the whole season and intensity is not easy to sustain.

 

[superjohn]

What are we, eleven deep with talented players, when everyone is healthy?

Ollie deserves a lot of credit for whatever success that this team winds up having.

We all agree that Ollie needed to go.
However it looks as if his recruiting was better than it seemed at the time.

These guys can Ball when Healthy, Motivated and Coached Well!

Pump the brakes. We have some talent but aren't overly talented. The way we look is an enormous indictment on Ollie's coaching.

 

[jojipoji]

The 14 team had bazz, boatright, Daniels, brimah, giffey, Nolan, facey, kromah etc. they were way more talented than this iteration. Again I’m not putting this team down and I believe in Hurley and I think this team can do some damage this year. But this team isn’t more talented than the teams prior to Ollie.

 

[upstater]

lol let’s not be delusional. Polley = Daniels and giffey. Do you not remember the 20 and 10 Daniels put up against Florida? Polley ain’t doing that against a top 10 team

Polley is a sophomore though. Are you saying he'll never do anything like that?

 

[mauconnfan]

Hate to say this. But Ollie might have given Brendan Adams 20 minutes last night because that was the rotation he had in mind. One of KOs faults was not responding to the game at hand. Last night Hurley nailed Carlton to the bench to stay with Cobb. Ollie would often pull the hot hand out of the game. Hurley has a much better feel for the game and makes adjustments on the fly. Big difference.

Agree with this. He did a wonderful job of playing those who were impacting the lead. Saw less of Carlton, Whaley, Yakwe and BAdams due to how good the others were playing. Cobb especially and Polley demanded the most minutes last night. May be a whole new look tonight he will figure it out accordingly and I love that.

 

[JB75]

Just because we have no first or second round NBA talent does not mean the team is not talented- were literally 11/12?deep and like I said on other posts we played last night with no Diarra , no Wilson , Gilbert still getting his feet wet and and Whalley And yawke not 100%

 

[jojipoji]

Ok fine you guys win. This team is better than the 14 team, deeper and has more 1st round talent. Polley is the next coming of Daniels and they will win the national championship. You convinced me. Ollie deserves a lot of credit for building this team.

 

[pj]

No need to go to extremes. We have the easily the most talent in the American Athletic Conference - a McD's AA, another top 40 player, several more top 100 players, a 6th man of the year in the A10, a Big East all-freshman team member, the rest of the players mostly rated 101-200. Nationally we're a top 40 team based on talent.

How does top 40 talent translate to rankings in the NCAA? With Hurley's better than average coaching, we should be a top 20 team. With Ollie's worse than average coaching, we would be a top 100 team. With Ollie coaching and injuries to Alterique and others killing depth, as we had the last two years, we would be a 101-200 team. And that's what we were. Everything is playing out as expected.

 

[Scottzer]

Ok fine you guys win. This team is better than the 14 team, deeper and has more 1st round talent. Polley is the next coming of Daniels and they will win the national championship. You convinced me. Ollie deserves a lot of credit for building this team.

I thought the '14 team wasn't that talented, but was the most overachieving team team I had ever seen. They still might be more talented than this team - it's just too early to say.
Now, I'll give Ollie all the credit in the world for getting that team to play beyond its potential that year. But, you can't have it both ways. That also means this team is Hurley's, not his.

 

[WeAreUCONN]

The 14 team had bazz, boatright, Daniels, brimah, giffey, Nolan, facey, kromah etc. they were way more talented than this iteration. Again I’m not putting this team down and I believe in Hurley and I think this team can do some damage this year. But this team isn’t more talented than the teams prior to Ollie.

Brimah and Nolan were awful. I appreciate their helping us win a title but their play was hard to watch most nights. I think this group of Bigs can be collectively better than our Bigs from 2014. That’s just my opinion.

 

[jojipoji]

Don’t forget Daniels and giffey were terrible too (pf/sf).

 

[WeAreUCONN]

Don’t forget Daniels and giffey were terrible too (pf/sf).

Daniels and giffey were incredible for us. I’m just talking about the center position. I’m not trying to argue with anyone. I just see a lot of talented players on this team that play extremely hard. I did not expect to see this, this year.

 

[WeAreUCONN]

I’m going to go back into message board retirement. Too many people always looking for a fight. No one can agree or disagree anymore. I guess there is only one right and one wrong.

Go UConn!!!!!

 

[CL82]

Yes, Hurley is allowed to win with Ollie's recruits. Ollie won with Calhoun's before he ran into some bad luck (divorce, injuries, transfers, ...)..

After the game a 'cuse fan was singing Gilbert's praises, called him unguardable. He said "If that kid played the last two years, Ollie would still be your coach." Probably right.

 

[upstater]

Don’t forget Daniels and giffey were terrible too (pf/sf).

You joined in January 15 of that year. If you had been here just one week before, you have found a 10 page thread killing Deandre as a bust and disappointment. Deandre really broke out in the AAC of his junior year, because before that, people killed him on this board.