Why isn’t Diggins playing?

[husky429]

Not sure how Hurley was supposed to play Sanogo more in Dec. and Jan. when he was a complete fouling machine in those games.

Because he benched him even when he wasn't in foul trouble.

Remember when Hurley single-handedly lost the SJU game for us last year.

Like he said... Hurley does a lot well. His player retention and recruiting are well above average. Theu're superb. The players seem to all improve their skills more than most teams in the off season. Our defense is solid. He is, however, very below par at in-game management compared to other high major coaches.

 

[Hungryhusky99]

Gaffney has been inconsistent, but the way people are talking about him lately is kind of crazy. He is a solid player off of the bench. Look how a he stacks up against his teammates in a couple popular metrics. It would be nice to have another ball handler ready for big minutes, but Hurley doesn’t think Diggins is yet. View attachment 71506 View attachment 71507

If he can start finishing at the rim that would be huge. 6-21 from 2 this year is unsustainably bad and should start moving closer to the 45% he was at last year.

 

[87Xfer]

I think for the last game, it was just too close throughout (mainly due to UMES playing out of their minds) and Hurley's main objective was not suffering an awful loss rather than player development. You could argue that the more seasoned guys he was playing were just off, and the young guys could have played better, but who knows.

 

[superjohn]

Not sure how Hurley was supposed to play Sanogo more in Dec. and Jan. when he was a complete fouling machine in those games.

Sanogo averaged 2.36 fouls per game through January, Carlton averaged 2.64 fouls per game through January, Whaley averaged 2.91 fouls per game through January.

 

[UConnStats]

If he can start finishing at the rim that would be huge. 6-21 from 2 this year is unsustainably bad and should start moving closer to the 45% he was at last year.

Agreed. Ultimately the personnel is what it is though and this group of players is collectively just bad at layups. It’s pretty unbelievable how we lose about 4-6 points a game at the rim the way we do. Nothing but dunks feel safe

 

[gtcam]

Maybe DH asked Sool to do the sage thing and Sool say how ridiculous he would look and declined? Or maybe Sool bit DH on the neck during practice?

There is absolutely zero reasons why Sool has received no run in the Bahamas or vs MES. There are very few in D1 who gets as much time as Gaff as plays D as poorly as he does. It boils down to a coach who lacks faith in some yet allows others to do the same bad things over and over. Hopefully that will change

 

[DieHardConn]

Yeaaaaaaaa, but we also now have a 3 year set of work to evaluate with Hurley, and there are actually a surprising amount of obvious roster management questions. I'm hesitant to call them blanket mistakes, but its a track record of not evaluating his own team ideally from the start of the season. The more generous way to view this is that Hurley starts with his veterans and makes his freshman earn their minutes, and has the humility and ability to re-evaluate and change during the season. The less generous view is that he does a poor job evaluating his team during the pre-season and over-evaluates/values his veterans compared to developing more talented young players.

2017-18. Isaiah Whaley doesn't play basically all year - Hurley admits this was dumb.

2019-20. Bouknight is clearly the best player on the team right after his suspension, Hurley limits his minutes and keeps rolling with Vital/Alterique generating offense and taking(missing) the big shots until injuries force Bouk into a bigger role and into the starting lineup. Team takes off immediate.

2020-21. Sanogo is pretty obviously a beast right away, scoring in double digits first two games. Hurley basically forgets about him for December & January, to the point where he was actually asked about it by the media and admitted that he screwed up and Sanogo needed more minutes.

So, sure, casual fans may just say have faith in Hurley. But there is a fair bit of evidence that Hurley does sometimes have a blind spot for ignoring to develop and building trust with his young players early in the season where the minutes are cheap - to the possible detriment of the team later in the year.

The guy is a great builder and recruiter. Needs to grow as an in-game coach and roster manager.

100% agree. We straight up lost the St. John’s game at Gampel last year solely because he didn’t put Sanogo back in the game at the end.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Sanogo averaged 2.36 fouls per game through January, Carlton averaged 2.64 fouls per game through January, Whaley averaged 2.91 fouls per game through January.

How many mpg for each guy?

 

[NCNutmeg]

Yeaaaaaaaa, but we also now have a 3 year set of work to evaluate with Hurley, and there are actually a surprising amount of obvious roster management questions. I'm hesitant to call them blanket mistakes, but its a track record of not evaluating his own team ideally from the start of the season. The more generous way to view this is that Hurley starts with his veterans and makes his freshman earn their minutes, and has the humility and ability to re-evaluate and change during the season. The less generous view is that he does a poor job evaluating his team during the pre-season and over-evaluates/values his veterans compared to developing more talented young players.

2017-18. Isaiah Whaley doesn't play basically all year - Hurley admits this was dumb.

2019-20. Bouknight is clearly the best player on the team right after his suspension, Hurley limits his minutes and keeps rolling with Vital/Alterique generating offense and taking(missing) the big shots until injuries force Bouk into a bigger role and into the starting lineup. Team takes off immediate.

2020-21. Sanogo is pretty obviously a beast right away, scoring in double digits first two games. Hurley basically forgets about him for December & January, to the point where he was actually asked about it by the media and admitted that he screwed up and Sanogo needed more minutes.

So, sure, casual fans may just say have faith in Hurley. But there is a fair bit of evidence that Hurley does sometimes have a blind spot for ignoring to develop and building trust with his young players early in the season where the minutes are cheap - to the possible detriment of the team later in the year.

The guy is a great builder and recruiter. Needs to grow as an in-game coach and roster manager.

I agree with you for the most part here. However, the reason for that suspension is worth mentioning. Bouknight crashed someone else's car and "smelled of alcohol" after evading the scene of the accident. Pretty sure he stole the car too but the girl who owned the car decided to not press theft charges because "she couldn't remember giving him permission or not". More so that she would never hear the end of it from diehard uconn fans if she got a uconn mens bball player incarcerated. This was before even playing a game. We're not Duke, where you can do whatever you want and there's no consequences (i.e. Banchero). Hurley is big on promoting a culture of accountability and responsibility.

I think Diggins lack of playing time boils down to defense, like a bunch of other people on this thread stated. One on one defending is only part of being a good defender. We play team defense with a lot of deep hedging by our bigs, which causes switch outs and I have to believe that Diggins is one of our least versatile defenders on the team at this point. He's small and he can only guard point guards and potentially smaller 2's. Regardless, I would like to see him get more run though because our ball handling is simply that bad.

 

[navery12]

How many mpg for each guy?

29 minutes for Whaley, 14 minutes for Carlton, 13.5 for Sanogo. So Sanogo was slightly better than Carlton but both were significantly worse than Whaley in terms of foul rate

 

[7774]

Sanogo averaged 2.36 fouls per game through January, Carlton averaged 2.64 fouls per game through January, Whaley averaged 2.91 fouls per game through January.

Sanogo averaged 2.36 fouls per game playing 13 minutes a game. Whaley averaged 2.91 fouls per game playing 29 minutes a game. Do you see how those are different?

And lol Carlton stats. "And to further my argument I'd like to point out that a guy who just generally wasn't very good also fouled a lot" bahahaha.

 

[7774]

Because he benched him even when he wasn't in foul trouble.

Remember when Hurley single-handedly lost the SJU game for us last year.

Like he said... Hurley does a lot well. His player retention and recruiting are well above average. Theu're superb. The players seem to all improve their skills more than most teams in the off season. Our defense is solid. He is, however, very below par at in-game management compared to other high major coaches.

When was he not in foul trouble?

Yes the St John's game was one of a couple games during that time period where he legitimately should have played more. The 'Hurley forgot about him in Dec. and Jan." is nonsense.


USC - 3 fouls in 10 minutes
Creighton - 2 fouls in 12 minutes
Marquette - 4 fouls in 15 minutes
Butler - 3 fouls in 9 minutes
Depaul - 3 fouls in 10 minutes
Creigton - 5 fouls in 20 minutes
Butler - 3 fouls in 20 minutes.

 

[superjohn]

Sanogo averaged 2.36 fouls per game playing 13 minutes a game. Whaley averaged 2.91 fouls per game playing 29 minutes a game. Do you see how those are different?

And lol Carlton stats. "And to further my argument I'd like to point out that a guy who just generally wasn't very good also fouled a lot" bahahaha.

Do you see how Sanogo should've played more through January?

 

[dennismenace]

After closely watching Gaffney trying to play man defense last game, even if he might know the "team defense principles" better, he is too slow to defend quick penetrating guards as we all witnessed. IMO Hurley needs to give Diggins a shot, even if it's only limited court time over the next two games.

This is good insight. We are lacking speed. How fast is Diggins in man to man/ lateral coverage? Does Diggins leave Gaff in the dust in practice? Only the staff knows that answer.

 

[superjohn]

This is good insight. We are lacking speed. How fast is Diggins in man to man/ lateral coverage? Does Diggins leave Gaff in the dust in practice? Only the staff knows that answer.

Diggins isn't a great run jump athlete but he definitely has a better handle and more shake to his game than Gaff and he's definitely a point guard, Gaff isn't.

 

[bendm]

If Diggins isn't playing, I think we have to trust that he isn't good enough.

bouk and sanogo are the only two of hurley's highschool recruits that have outperformed their rankings. i think hawk will too by the end of the season but everyone else has either underperformed (akok, gaff, aj) or not played (springs, digg, samson). since we aren't a 5* factory it's imperative we get 4* guys that are underrated not overrated. hopefully karaban and clingan are both very underrated...

 

[Conndog]

even if he might know the "team defense principles" better, he is too slow to defend quick penetrating guards as we all witnessed.

Which Gaffney compounds by setting defense too close to his man, who goes by him easily. Better to give a little space. If his man is hot from 3 as a result, switch defenders or go to a zone.

 

[navery12]

He will be now

 

[ctkaiser]

Kind of reminiscent of Hurley relentlessly sticking with B Adams getting a ton of minutes...until he didn't any more. Granted injuries necessitated that for a bit

And as a result Gaffney missed playing time.

 

[ctkaiser]

Which Gaffney compounds by setting defense too close to his man, who goes by him easily. Better to give a little space. If his man is hot from 3 as a result, switch defenders or go to a zone.

I think the men's coaches think it's some kind of emasculation to play a zone. If you're consistently getting beat off the dribble and you're not going to put in a rim protector like Akok go to a zone.

 

[ctkaiser]

29 minutes for Whaley, 14 minutes for Carlton, 13.5 for Sanogo. So Sanogo was slightly better than Carlton but both were significantly worse than Whaley in terms of foul rate

But you knew what you had in Carlton. You were trying to develop Sanogo.

 

[businesslawyer]

Sanogo averaged 2.36 fouls per game through January, Carlton averaged 2.64 fouls per game through January, Whaley averaged 2.91 fouls per game through January.

Uh, wouldn't you have to adjust those starts for minutes played for them to be meaningful? Not to mention that Carlton was in foul trouble too often as well.

 

[imno1]

I think the men's coaches think it's some kind of emasculation to play a zone. If you're consistently getting beat off the dribble and you're not going to put in a rim protector like Akok go to a zone.

I think he doesn't play zone because he doesn't want to hear it from his dad

 

[superjohn]

Uh, wouldn't you have to adjust those starts for minutes played for them to be meaningful? Not to mention that Carlton was in foul trouble too often as well.

The point is he was never really in danger of fouling out though he did foul out his final game in January. He should've played more early, as should Bouknight, as should Whaley....everything @bmayuc said in his post.

 

[7774]

The point is he was never really in danger of fouling out though he did foul out his final game in January. He should've played more early, as should Bouknight, as should Whaley....everything @bmayuc said in his post.

It’s weird that you think a guy consistently committing 3-4 fouls in a 10-15 minute period is not detrimental to winning, and that he should play more.

The only reason he wasn’t in danger of fouling out was they limited his minutes. He was averaging a foul every 4-5 minutes. What was going to happen if they put him back in, just by magic he would stop fouling?