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Well

3rdbass said:
He wasn't wrong about Diarra. He was supposed to be 6th man off the bench but unfortunately that all changed when he missed on Mahaney being a PG. I never though he was a PG and still baffled Dan thought he was.
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The "wall potential" talk of SJ from a couple years ago hasn't stood the test of time. It was ridiculous to say then and is even more of a head scratcher now. Samson is so frustrating. He's an A+ lob threat that puts great pressure on defenses in the pick and roll game but he cannot corral a rebound even if he gets both of his mitts on it.

And in four years he hasn't figured out how to defend his own man without fouling -- he is purely a weak side help defender who sells out on every shot attempt. Dayton got their first 4 points on easy putbacks because of this.
 
Dan decided to roll with his guys coming off ultimate success. It was a bad move, but I think most people make the same decisions in his shoes. Nobody was criticizing it before the season.

I hope he can make something of this season, even if we don’t win another championship.
 
3rdbass said:
He wasn't wrong about Diarra. He was supposed to be 6th man off the bench but unfortunately that all changed when he missed on Mahaney being a PG. I never thought he was a PG and still baffled Dan thought he was.
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Hell, if Mahaney could be a halfway decent 2, we could at least work with that. We’d have 4 shooters to rotate at 2-4 (plus Ross/Stewart). If we have to go with Diarra-Nowell at point, so be it. But we are riding with McNeeley on an 0-9 night because we’re short a rotation guy. Maybe we need to just get him some shots off screens and see if he can be a dude.
 
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tuvent08 said:
Mahaney looks like he could be the most important miss of Hurley’s tenure because he was so integral to our vision of success and he is simply unplayable on defense. I hope he proves me wrong but it’s hard to be optimistic right now.
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It does seem like Hurley is either hit or miss on PGs. Missed on Gaffney, Diggins, and Mahaney. Hit massively on Newton and Diarra.
 
They missed big on Mahaney, and that caused a domino effect.

They will improve, the coaching staff is too good to stay this bad. I don't recall a UConn that was this poor on defense.
 
The first two games in Maui they had a lot go against them, and then they collapsed in the second half against Dayton. They’re far from being one of the best teams in the country, but it will get better as the young guys gain experience and everyone learns how to play better defense. The lack of shot creation is very concerning though, over to Hurley to see what he can figure out.
 
Huskyforlife said:
Dan decided to roll with his guys coming off ultimate success. It was a bad move, but I think most people make the same decisions in his shoes. Nobody was criticizing it before the season.

I hope he can make something of this season, even if we don’t win another championship.
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I had high hopes for our returning guys. I really thought Ball, Stewart, Ross, and SJ would make huge jumps this season and it seems like Ball is the only one that's made any jump at all. I also thought Karaban and Diarra would improve quite a bit, but that hasn't really happened either.

Only chance we have is if we see some really big growth from these guys throughout the rest of the season and hope it won't be too late to make the tournament.
 
The alarming thing is that I don’t think Dan Hurley saw this coming. It’s one thing to have a rebuilding year after two straight championships. It’s another thing to be parading around talking about 3-peats and then present the pile of trash we’ve seen the last three days.

I trust that we’ll resolve some of these issues in the coming weeks - but man oh man, this is rough right now.
 
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This debacle is embarrassing on a national level. I mean we are about to go from #2 to completely unranked in the span of a week. The best team entering the tournament just went dead last. So much for all the three-peat talk Hurley parades.

I have no idea how this even happened but total failure from Hurley and the team. I don't know if something is off with the coaching or the players are just mediocre. I get it's November and I'm dooming but hopefully the players haven't checked out mentally. Also hoping current commits and future prospects haven't written us off

We are like the FSU of CBB
 
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MilliniumPrince said:
They missed big on Mahaney, and that caused a domino effect.

They will improve, the coaching staff is too good to stay this bad. I don't recall a UConn that was this poor on defense.
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Did you ever watch the Ollie days after the ship?
 
As others have said it’s a mix of things. No real interior presence (I do love Reed offensively), Mahaney is either a miss or being put in the wrong spot. Honestly, if he was brought here as the starting PG that’s a massive hole that can’t/won’t be fixed this season. SJ is a 10-15 min backup center at best, and that’s another hole that won’t be fixed as he was expected to be the starting C. Ball, Diarra, Nowell, McNeeley, Ross and Stewart will be fine as will AK. It’s going to take time, but I’m not entirely confident they’ll make the NCAAs as constituted. It’s too early to write them off, but they need to take 2/3 of the Baylor/Texas/Gonzaga games and finish Top 3 in the BE (if not Top 2). All of this is possible, but I’m adjusting my expectations right now to a 2nd wknd tourney team at best. Hope to be proven wrong.

As for last night, I think it was a mix of Dayton being better than expected and no prep time, Dayton being up for playing us and us being just “over it.” End of the day these are 18-21 year old kids who after two back breaking horribly officiated losses mentally just had one foot on the plane back home. That falls on Hurley, and it shouldn’t be - but end of the day on your 3rd game after those two losses it’s only natural to think “let’s just get the hell outta here”.

Let’s beat up on another cupcake Sat and get some confidence back. They’ve been humbled enough.
 
WhereistheDove? said:
The staff’s offseason evaluations of SJ, Diarra, and Mahaney seem like almost comically bad misses at this point.
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This is what I just can't understand. How could their evals of those and others be so poor? The rotations are all over the place, as are the minutes played and not just related to foul trouble. Hurley, Kimani and Murray aren't new at this. Its confounding. Hope they are planning their hard reset on the long flight home.
 
Fishy said:
Aside from the offense - which is awful - and the defense - which is worse - and the roster construction - which is abysmal - I think we’re doing pretty well.

I am kind of puzzled as to which team Danny Hurley was watching when he got offended that we were not the preseason #1. The team he’s brought to Hawaii was the eighth-best team there and currently looks like an NIT hopeful.

What a debacle. Maybe more complaints about not getting calls at the post-game presser will fix things.
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Ahhh, it’s an easy, lazy take to dump on them right now.

For me, this just makes our maniac obsessive coach stop talking about how great the last two years have been and hit the lab to figure it out harder now. Not worried in the least.
 
Fishy said:
That Castle kid worked out pretty well.
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You can do better than that. While all the pieces were needed including Castle, Castle wins zero titles without Clingan and Newton. My point is, don’t whine about this year if people want to get giddy about the parade of early departures. Castle would look pretty good on this team, but Clingan would look even better. He facilitated just about everything on D and O. From day 1 this year I thought it pretty likely our middle position could not come close to doing what Clingan did. Teams this year don’t have to worry about driving and it exposes our perimeter D. Tell me if a UConn team this year is way more bullet proof with Clingan and Castle even with Newton gone than with McNeeley added, and maybe he comes anyway. The idea of a three peat seemed like a fantasy. I would not mind eating crow.
 
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Hi-Low said:
You think Clingan, Castle, Newton & Spencer were any good....this is an absolute shell of a team, so many holes and Dan Hurley didn't come close to filling them. They'll win some games but middle of the road team at best.
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What stood out to me, refs aside, was the number of missed wide open shots taken by Karaban, McNeeley, Ball and Diarra. 26 FG’s made on 62 attempts and 8 three’s made on 29 attempts. They buried themselves.
 
Right now it looks like we have talented players that don’t maximize their talent, and don’t play offense with a purpose or defense with determination or a team concept.

We played teams with players who get the most out of their ability, don’t wilt under pressure, and understand team ball on both ends.

”Gentlemen, you don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.”


 
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I was hoping to see some adjustments in this one and a plan forming, instead Dan decided Samson was his guy again. If there is one thing I feel good about, it’s that Samson is not a starting 5 on any aspiring college hoops team. I am as confused with the staff at this point as I am discouraged by the play. This is going to be a long season.

Moving into a state of preservation rather than aspiration, concerns being:

- getting AK drafted in the first round. The quality around him is so poor I just hope it doesn’t impact his draft status.

-this not being so miserable a season that some of our talented young kids don’t bolt for the portal. Hurley is going to have to manage that. I was told multiple parents of kids not playing left the game early yesterday. When you’re winning you can validate your rotation decisions, when you suck parents will be asking why their kid isn’t getting run.

- making sure the recruits hold. I’m sure they joined to be part of the systematic machine of an offense and now it looks like a group of drunk people in a conga line. Top that with a coach that is blowing his top. Shouldn’t be a worry but who knows.

- Danny keeps some positivity in the national spotlight this season. He went out of his way to take every interview possible this offseason and with a lot of “confidence”. Now that the kryptonite has been unleashed and he kicked off the season with cartoon like demonstrations, you are seeing how much opposing fanbases detest the guy. Really needs to find his zen.

Such a sharp fall from grace can be tough to swallow and it presents different types of challenges. If this is in fact a bridge year you have to manage it differently as you’re not “bulletproof” in your decision making.

The portal strategy has been mystifying, maybe the delay in getting to it did impact given the glaring mismatch.
 
19-21 vs top 100 teams in our Big East era without Clingan on the roster. 45-11 with Clingan on roster. Hurley getting back to his roots but I have confidence he can figure it out.
 
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