We need to face reality | The Boneyard

We need to face reality

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Some thoughts that I need to get off my chest after watching these kids play and reviewing the yard. We need to be realistic with what is happening here and who this team is, because our bias and unrealistic expectations are just letting us down.

1- Free throw disparity: A ton of us are complaining about the free throw disparity between us and our opponents. While the officials have been in fact terrible, we have to be smarter than to think we are being treated unfairly, like the refs have some plot against us. Teams shoot way more free throws than us for two main reasons, in addition to poorly officiated games. One, we are always losing so we purposely foul at the end which jacks up the number of free throws the opponent takes. Two, we shoot an insane amount of three pointers. When we live and die by the three, this is what happens. We hardly ever take it strong to the rim, so how would we expect to get a call? Those are the two main reasons for the lack of consistency in free throw attempts, not the conspiracy theory that refs hate UConn (although I understand the officiating has been poor.)

2- Conference: Yes we so badly need to be in a better conference, as that directly affects the types of recruits we get. However, if we were in a power five right now...we would be 6-12. We HAVE to show that we can be better in the American, as we are currently in second to last place in the standings. Just wouldn't have imagined we'd be here a couple years ago.

3- Long game: After a few cupcake blowouts the first few games of the season many of us hyped up and erroneously increased expectations for this team. Fact of the matter is, we just aren't that good. We have two really skilled players in Jalen and AG, although Jalen pisses me off all the time. Everyone else is, to simply put it, not that good. When you're not as talented, you have to outwork your opponent and play harder. I saw everyone playing hard in the beginning of the year, but now that's like a mirage, very frustrating. Hoping Hurley can really change that and recruit more talent and "build culture." Let's see how he does with his own guys and go from there in a year or two.

So fellas, even though this is incredibly frustrating to watch, lets take a deep breath, look at the big picture, and see what Hurley can do in a year or two. Rome wasn't built in a day.
 
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Some thoughts that I need to get off my chest after watching these kids play and reviewing the yard. We need to be realistic with what is happening here and who this team is, because our bias and unrealistic expectations are just letting us down.

1- Free throw disparity: A ton of us are complaining about the free throw disparity between us and our opponents. While the officials have been in fact terrible, we have to be smarter than to think we are being treated unfairly, like the refs have some plot against us. Teams shoot way more free throws than us for two main reasons, in addition to poorly officiated games. One, we are always losing so we purposely foul at the end which jacks up the number of free throws the opponent takes. Two, we shoot an insane amount of three pointers. When we live and die by the three, this is what happens. We hardly ever take it strong to the rim, so how would we expect to get a call? Those are the two main reasons for the lack of consistency in free throw attempts, not the conspiracy theory that refs hate UConn (although I understand the officiating has been poor.)

2- Conference: Yes we so badly need to be in a better conference, as that directly affects the types of recruits we get. However, if we were in a power five right now...we would be 6-12. We HAVE to show that we can be better in the American, as we are currently in second to last place in the standings. Just wouldn't have imagined we'd be here a couple years ago.

3- Long game: After a few cupcake blowouts the first few games of the season many of us hyped up and erroneously increased expectations for this team. Fact of the matter is, we just aren't that good. We have two really skilled players in Jalen and AG, although Jalen pisses me off all the time. Everyone else is, to simply put it, not that good. When you're not as talented, you have to outwork your opponent and play harder. I saw everyone playing hard in the beginning of the year, but now that's like a mirage, very frustrating. Hoping Hurley can really change that and recruit more talent and "build culture." Let's see how he does with his own guys and go from there in a year or two.

So fellas, even though this is incredibly frustrating to watch, lets take a deep breath, look at the big picture, and see what Hurley can do in a year or two. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Pretty well summarized......hard to get blood from a stone. However, if you remember Hurley's introductory press conference, he said we would play harder and with more intensity than any team in the country. This team has clearly not embraced that philosophy yet. No question that's a hangover from the prior regime.
 
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I think Vital is a pretty good player but yeah outside of those 3, i dont think we have much else.
Vital is good for us because he flat out works harder than everyone else, and that's why I like him. But from a straight up basketball IQ stand point and skill level...he's lacking a bit. He has a good set three point shot, but doesn't really have that other element to his game yet.
 

Marat

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3- Long game: After a few cupcake blowouts the first few games of the season many of us hyped up and erroneously increased expectations for this team. Fact of the matter is, we just aren't that good. We have two really skilled players in Jalen and AG, although Jalen pisses me off all the time. Everyone else is, to simply put it, not that good. When you're not as talented, you have to outwork your opponent and play harder. I saw everyone playing hard in the beginning of the year, but now that's like a mirage, very frustrating. Hoping Hurley can really change that and recruit more talent and "build culture." Let's see how he does with his own guys and go from there in a year or two.

This is what Hurley said in the preseason - they need to give 100% effort for the whole game to compete. When they gave the required effort there were some positive results but not necessarily translated into wins. If more of the team played with Vital's effort they would have more W's....
 

RayIsTheGOAT

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I think you missed the most important reason we get called for more fouls than the opponent- because we don't know how to play defense with our chest and feet.
These players are just not conditioned enough at this point in the season to play defense the way Hurley wants. Falling for pumpfakes, reaching, not defending vertically under the basket. The refs are bad and Jalen is afraid to drive to the basket, but this is the main reason for foul disparity.
 
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2- Conference: Yes we so badly need to be in a better conference, as that directly affects the types of recruits we get.

UConn can win a national title in the AAC, just like it did in 2014.
This isn't football my bro. Recruiting is going fine. Hurley is recruiting blues effectively in the AAC.
UConn currently has the 17th ranked recruiting class (currently #2 in the American) and recruiting for 2019 is far from done.
Connecticut 2019 Basketball Commits

Success just takes time. While Hurley is working to improve the program, other AAC programs have rapidly made gains too. It's a tough league.
 
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Here are the rankings for each player in their respective class:

Jalen - 23
Alterique - 32
Sid - 89
Vital - 166
Polley - 168
Carlton - 178
B Adams - 180
T Smith - 278
Cobb - NR
Whaley - NR

There is a serious lack of talent on this roster. How can any of us be surprised that we are struggling? The 3 recruits we got coming in are ranked:

Akok - 31
Bouknight - 80
Gaffney - 154(well known to be highly underrated due to lack of exposure on loaded AAU team)

We all know rankings are not the end all to say a player is going to be successful but its a good start to understand just from a talent/potential stand point what you can expect from the player. Even with Gaffney ranked at 154 these 3 recruits would be rated higher than almost our entire team. This is a full rebuild and Hurley is well on his way to getting talent back in Storrs.
 
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UConn can win a national title in the AAC, just like it did in 2014.
This isn't football my bro. Recruiting is going fine. Hurley is recruiting blues effectively in the AAC.
UConn currently has the 17th ranked recruiting class (currently #2 in the American) and recruiting for 2019 is far from done.
Connecticut 2019 Basketball Commits

Success just takes time. While Hurley is working to improve the program, other AAC programs have rapidly made gains too. It's a tough league.
I agree and disagree. Yes I really like our 2019 class so far, but Kofi did choose Illinois, I repeat...Illinois, over us just because of the conference. And while I recognize the AAC has gotten more competitive in the sense that the games are closer and anyone can beat anybody, I believe that is mostly due to the fact that the top few teams (Cincy, Wichita, SMU) aren't as dominant this year as they were in the past. Naturally this allows for more competitive play...as we are seeing now.
 
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Here are the rankings for each player in their respective class:

Jalen - 23
Alterique - 32
Sid - 89
Vital - 166
Polley - 168
Carlton - 178
B Adams - 180
T Smith - 278
Cobb - NR
Whaley - NR

There is a serious lack of talent on this roster. How can any of us be surprised that we are struggling? The 3 recruits we got coming in are ranked:

Akok - 31
Bouknight - 80
Gaffney - 154(well known to be highly underrated due to lack of exposure on loaded AAU team)

We all know rankings are not the end all to say a player is going to be successful but its a good start to understand just from a talent/potential stand point what you can expect from the player. Even with Gaffney ranked at 154 these 3 recruits would be rated higher than almost our entire team. This is a full rebuild and Hurley is well on his way to getting talent back in Storrs.
Sid at 89 baffles me. He’s athletic fine but doesn’t a player at his position have to be able to shoot the ball?
 
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I agree and disagree. Yes I really like our 2019 class so far, but Kofi did choose Illinois, I repeat...Illinois, over us just because of the conference. And while I recognize the AAC has gotten more competitive in the sense that the games are closer and anyone can beat anybody, I believe that is mostly due to the fact that the top few teams (Cincy, Wichita, SMU) aren't as dominant this year as they were in the past. Naturally this allows for more competitive play...as we are seeing now.

the conference being more competitive may give us more exposure in the NCAA tournament. But we are still playing on ESPN news with some C level announcers on a routine basis.
 
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That's it basically.

Just lack talent especially in the front court.

Anyone who sees year one of a rebuild as anything more than a wash from W-L standpoint doesn't really get how rebuilds work.
 
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the conference being more competitive may give us more exposure in the NCAA tournament. But we are still playing on ESPN news with some C level announcers on a routine basis.

Well, everyone wants football. So....
 
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He's a first year player.

Just focus on the 3 players actually rated inside top 100 on the roster. Jalen clearly has not improved like a 4 year player should. I put that on poor player development and poor culture in the program. The other 2 players are basically playing their first year of college basketball.
 
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I agree on defense. It is certainly not a strong point for us. Here are some stats and our rankings within the conference
As of now we rank in the following categories within the conference as follows(out of 12 teams):

Field Goal Pct 10
Field Goal Pct Defense 9
Blocked Shots 8
Assists 12
Steals 9
Assist/TO ratio 11
Defensive Rebounds 10
Attendance 10

I was surprised by assists. We are dead last in the conference. I guess Jalen or Alterique can make a perfect pass only to have one of our bigs miss the shot or turn the ball over. I was also a little surprised and disappointed by attendance. I guess the fans have not bought into the team yet.
 
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Just focus on the 3 players actually rated inside top 100 on the roster. Jalen clearly has not improved like a 4 year player should. I put that on poor player development and poor culture in the program. The other 2 players are basically playing their first year of college basketball.

Pretty much. Jalen really isn't and shouldn't be a priority for the coaching staff at this point. This isn't an NCAA team, might not be an NIT team either and he can't put on a uniform next year. Oh well.
 

Wordbomar

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Here are the rankings for each player in their respective class:

Jalen - 23
Alterique - 32
Sid - 89
Vital - 166
Polley - 168
Carlton - 178
B Adams - 180
T Smith - 278
Cobb - NR
Whaley - NR

The 3 recruits we got coming in are ranked:

Akok - 31
Bouknight - 80
Gaffney - 154

This right here says it all. We don’t have good enough players on our roster currently. But Hurley is revamping our talent level currently through recruiting.

Also important to recognize that even Corey Evans has said Gaffney is criminally underrated right now and will get a significant bump in the rankings.
 

storrsroars

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Living in Pittsburgh, it's a bit more difficult to swallow how poorly this year's UConn squad has performed compared to the local U, which was nothing but God-awful last year and lost most of the few decent players it had. Go ahead and dump on Capels if you will, but he's got his kids believing, even if having 5 xfers is not the way you want to build a program out of the box. Pitt is 2-3 vs Top 50 with two close losses vs 1-6 for our boys., with some blowouts. Only bad loss for them is Niagara.
 
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I find it kind of dumbfounding why nobody can shoot consistently. Even guys that were supposed to be able to shoot coming in haven’t deliveeed the last few years. It’s like a curse. Gaffney and Bouk will likely fix that but we need some big men or they will get smothered on the perimeter with no one down low to make the defense pay.
 
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Here are the rankings for each player in their respective class:

Jalen - 23
Alterique - 32
Sid - 89
Vital - 166
Polley - 168
Carlton - 178
B Adams - 180
T Smith - 278
Cobb - NR
Whaley - NR

There is a serious lack of talent on this roster. How can any of us be surprised that we are struggling? The 3 recruits we got coming in are ranked:

Akok - 31
Bouknight - 80
Gaffney - 154(well known to be highly underrated due to lack of exposure on loaded AAU team)

We all know rankings are not the end all to say a player is going to be successful but its a good start to understand just from a talent/potential stand point what you can expect from the player. Even with Gaffney ranked at 154 these 3 recruits would be rated higher than almost our entire team. This is a full rebuild and Hurley is well on his way to getting talent back in Storrs.
This pretty much sums it up when the talent argument comes up. Vital has played much better than his 168 ranking, Polley has shown flashes as well, but it seems like outside of Jalen and Alterique, this team is made up of bench players who would see no more than 20 minutes a game on a vintage UConn team with the talent we are used to having.
 
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So fellas, even though this is incredibly frustrating to watch, lets take a deep breath, look at the big picture, and see what Hurley can do in a year or two. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Rome also didn't die in a day either, it was a slow, grinding death that eventually led to complete collapse. We may be emulating that part of Rome's history rather than the beginning. If we're being realistic, that is.
 

Dream Jobbed 2.0

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Jalen and Al are just so frustrating when they show those flashes where it’s obvious they are the two best players on the court 90% of the time. Everyone else is frustrating because they are the worst players on the court.

Jalen needs to get to the damn FT line. He takes less than 3 a game and hits 85%. He should be drawing 4 fouls per game and taking at least 8 FTs. That’s 7 per ppg. Is it not “400” or “huncho” to take FTs?
 

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