Hurley got murked by Turgeon

[superjohn]

Not sure I've ever seen a team miss more layups but that wasn't the game, neither were missed free throws. Going into it I told my buddies I was watching the game with that we should win but the only thing that worries me is we'll let Maryland dictate play and we won't run. I forget what early part in the first half it was but I said to them we aren't playing our game and this isn't good. UConn is the team with the star player, UConn is the team with more athletes, UConn is the team with more depth and yet we played at a snails pace.

I'm one of Hurley's biggest fans. He's the right guy at the right moment to rebuild this thing. Making the tournament was a nice goal in the second true chance to go dancing but it feels a bit hollow because of that performance. We play halfway decent and we win that game pretty comfortably. Maryland is about as weak as it gets as a tournament team and we showed them nothing. Let them dictate the terms of play from the start and we never adjusted. Love the way Hurley runs the program but it seems like a bad early trait in his coaching. You should never let the inferior talent dictate how your team plays and I've seen it several times this season.

 

[KembaStepback]

I'm sorry I have to respectfully disagree. They shot 28% from the field. They couldn't make a shot. They dominated the glass. The knock on Hurley here is that he couldn't figure out how to defend Ayala

 

[LBird33]

Remember the Florida UConn game wayyyy back when Donyel Marshall played? It was a disappointment. UConn was favored and Florida outplayed them end to end. A few years later uconn roared back. Sometimes teams struggle.

 

[kemba]

There's always lots of reasons and it makes sense to talk about all of them, but if we're picking one of them as "the game," it's absolutely the inability to convert our second chance opportunities. There's a big gap before you talk about the #2 reason.

 

[Kitaman]

I'm no coach, but I would think they should have found a way to iso Bouk, even if you move the whole team to the other side of the floor. Same with Sanogo, iso him and we are a different offensive team. Tell our players to feed them both continually. The other strategy I was yearning for was for them to attack the basket, and not rely on jumpers especially 3 pointers which weren't falling. We would at least had generate fouls on their players.

Maryland negated both of our future NBA players effectively.

No adjustments were made which confounded me the whole night.

 

[CTBasketball]

Hurley’s gameplan was to dominate the glass and get junk points. He didn’t gameplan shooting <25% from within 4 feet.

 

[Hoophound]

Our best player can’t handle the basketball well enough to take over the game. That’s a huge issue because we don’t have anyone else with near the skills needed to go get a hoop when needed. Against good teams, we just aren’t talented enough yet.

 

[8893]

“Listen, James is a young player,” Hurley said. “James is a sophomore player, which is still a young player in college basketball. This was a big spot. Morsell, an excellent defender. Those guys he's playing against at Maryland, for the most part, guarding him today were physical juniors and seniors. I think he was a little bit indecisive.”

“I think he was a little bit indecisive at times tonight,” Hurley said of Bouknight. “And I think overall, as a group, we showed our lack of experience in a moment like this.”


Indeed, Maryland’s positionless, five-out style was a “bad fit” for UConn, per Hurley.


“We really struggle against teams that switch a lot,” Hurley added. “There’s not a ton that you can script when teams switch. It becomes kind of matchup ball, and we just didn’t have a lot of guys that could win one-on-one matchups. We weren’t very decisive trying to go by people.”

***

“I was scared to death of that matchup today,” Hurley said of Ayala, a 6-5 junior guard. “We just didn’t have anyone that could guard him. Those guys are a really seasoned, well-coached team.”

UConn men fall to Maryland in first-round NCAA tournament game

The shots simply didn’t fall, and UConn’s first trip to the NCAA tournament in five...

www.nhregister.com

Sounds like Ayala is the lottery pick by Hurley's description, not Bouk.

I mean, I realize that Bouk is a lottery pick talent, but it sounds strange to make excuses that he's playing against juniors and seniors when he is going to be playing against pros next year; and his own college coach says he can't win iso matchups, which is the essence of the NBA.

 

[tdrink]

Terps got a bunch of easy buckets at the beginning of the game by clearing out and posting on a guard. DH eventually adjusted but had no offensive counterpunch. He was outschemed and it somewhat accounted for the final point difference as the game was back and forth after that.

That said, there were tons of opportunities for the team to play their way out of the deficit and they weren’t up to the task. Lots of disappointing performances but programs aren’t rebuilt in a year.

 

[Sonova]

Our best player can’t handle the basketball well enough to take over the game. That’s a huge issue because we don’t have anyone else with near the skills needed to go get a hoop when needed. Against good teams, we just aren’t talented enough yet.

I completely agree. I’d also add that we don’t execute well In the half court. We haven’t all year. There’s lots of possible reasons for that (including possibly what and how we practice) but it’s why we don’t win the last 5 minutes of games. Or games that are 50/50 with under 8 to play. Things get tight, defenses lock in, possessions get fewer and more important. Teams that execute well, win those types of games (see Creighton). We don’t. We haven’t. “Give the ball to James and clear out” is not a sound (or successful) offensive strategy. we Actually run good stuff to open the game and out of timeouts. I don’t understand why we don’t do that when we need it most.

 

[businesslawyer]

I'm no coach, but I would think they should have found a way to iso Bouk, even if you move the whole team to the other side of the floor. Same with Sanogo, iso him and we are a different offensive team. Tell our players to feed them both continually. The other strategy I was yearning for was for them to attack the basket, and not rely on jumpers especially 3 pointers which weren't falling. We would at least had generate fouls on their players.

Maryland negated both of our future NBA players effectively.

No adjustments were made which confounded me the whole night.

Isolating Sanogo is of little use when he can’t pass out of a double team, and even if he could the player left open on the perimeter can’t hit an open jumper.

 

[husky429]

Hurley’s gameplan was to dominate the glass and get junk points. He didn’t gameplan shooting <25% from within 4 feet.

That isn't a gameplan. That's a PIECE of a game plan. "Miss shots and then shoot again" is not a game plan. You can be a strong defensive team and still run good offense. If you miss you miss, but you HAVE to have structure to the offense and take good shots.

We don't and we aren't in tough games. We revert to running no sets and adjusting nothing against any team worth playing.

I thought we made a nice defensive adjustment by letting Gaffney absorb the guard post ups instead of Cole (who would've that would work???). I also thought we did a decent job on Ayala eventually. But what did we even TRY to change on offense?

 

[Kenny11]

UConn men fall to Maryland in first-round NCAA tournament game

The shots simply didn’t fall, and UConn’s first trip to the NCAA tournament in five...

www.nhregister.com

Sounds like Ayala is the lottery pick by Hurley's description, not Bouk.

I mean, I realize that Bouk is a lottery pick talent, but it sounds strange to make excuses that he's playing against juniors and seniors when he is going to be playing against pros next year; and his own college coach says he can't win iso matchups, which is the essence of the NBA.

You’re not wrong but every year there are guys who look bad in a high portion of their college games who become good nba players.

 

[rollskies]

Hurley should know better than to let his guys miss 20 layups. He was out coached.

Y’all sound so ridiculous give it a break. Not how anyone wanted the season to end, but man we have taken a huge step this year from middle of the pack in the American to 3rd in the big east.

If you guys are going to criticize Hurley every time we lose a game, then you have to give him credit where credit is due, but for some reason it never works that way for some people ?

 

[Pmac923]

I'm sorry I have to respectfully disagree. They shot 28% from the field. They couldn't make a shot. They dominated the glass. The knock on Hurley here is that he couldn't figure out how to defend Ayala

Defending Ayala was not the problem. We allowed 63 points. Coaching puts your players in the best position to make high percentage shots. Tonight I saw a lot of guard dribbling on the perimeter which has been a bad habit of us. The one time we ran a nice set we got James free under the basket for an and one that he missed. Hurley will learn and adapt but we need to be better in the shooting department. Give some credit to Maryland but our offensive deficiencies are glaring.

 

[UC1995]

Hurley should know better than to let his guys miss 20 layups. He was out coached.

Y’all sound so ridiculous give it a break. Not how anyone wanted the season to end, but man we have taken a huge step this year from middle of the pack in the American to 3rd in the big east.

If you guys are going to criticize Hurley every time we lose a game, then you have to give him credit where credit is due, but for some reason it never works that way for some people ?

It is hard for many from Connecticut to do anything but b*t*h and moan. It is in their DNA. You have to ask yourself why are they taking it to this level?

 

[BPT2Storrs]

We dominated the boards in the 1st half and had a ton of looks, nothing was falling. I give a ton of credit to our guys crashing the boards it was like nothing I’ve seen before. we make a few of those around the rim and hit our FTs we win the game. Not to mention we barely got to the line in the 1st half. It was a fight under the boards but for some reason Maryland only got the calls on the other end.

the fact we were in this and almost had it to a one possession game speaks to the fight this team had. After the flagrant and Gaffney hitting both FTs I thought we had a comeback in us. The inbounds play was awful but Gaffney made up for it and we got the ball back. We just could not capitalize.

I agree there was a lot bad decision making but they played behind the whole game and I think they were trying to rush things. Maryland was just mentally and physically tougher.

between the missed attempts around the rim, the missed FTs, the turnovers late in the 2nd half, Cole stepping in the lane, Whaley fouling on the three it just showed that nothing was working for us. I can’t blame coaching for that - this easily could have been a blow out and it wasn’t.

 

[husky429]

I just put it this way in a PM and I am going to repeat it here.

Hurley is the guy. He does a lot well. Great defensive identity. Upgraded recruiting. High quality assistants. Good SOB/BOBs and after TO plays. Great team management. He even improved his TOs and subs this year.

The glaring weakness is that he hasn't taught the team to run a base motion offense when he doesn't call a play, or to run the ball off boards enough.

That is partly a personnel issue BUT there are worse coaches doing more with less talented players on the offensive end. We need to knock off the mid-range Js, prioritize spacing, stop standing around amd playing iso ball. We are WAY too slow setting up and running things. Players miss shots sometimes, but you have to put them in a position to take good shots regardless. The Xs and Os made it way too hard on our guys last. night

We're going to need to recruit like a top 10 team if we want to be a top 25 team the way Hurley is coaching offense. Stop blaming the players.

 

[UConn990411]

I’m fully on board with Hurley being the right guy for the job, and I think he’s doing a great job building this program up for sustained success. I also don’t think coaching is the reason for last night’s loss - the team just laid a complete egg.

But it is a bit frustrating that Villanova, Creighton, and now Maryland were able to run circles around UConn with very similar game plans and seemingly no adjustments. I get wanting to stay with your system and style of play, but this team went 9+ team and had the roster versatility to play different styles. I would like to see Hurley get a little more creative in-game going forward.

 

[husky429]

I’m fully on board with Hurley being the right guy for the job, and I think he’s doing a great job building this program up for sustained success. I also don’t think coaching is the reason for last night’s loss - the team just laid a complete egg.

But it is a bit frustrating that Villanova, Creighton, and now Maryland were able to run circles around UConn with very similar game plans and seemingly no adjustments. I get wanting to stay with your system and style of play, but this team went 9+ team and had the roster versatility to play different styles. I would like to see Hurley get a little more creative in-game going forward.

Teams lay complete eggs when (insert your second paragraph) happens. It IS coaching. And Hurley will be better for next season just like every player on the team.

 

[Giddyup5]

Teams lay complete eggs when (insert your second paragraph) happens. It IS coaching. And Hurley will be better for next season just like every player on the team.

I hope so. I hope he has the humility to seek help for his offensive woes.

 

[rollskies]

I just put it this way in a PM and I am going to repeat it here.

Hurley is the guy. He does a lot well. Great defensive identity. Upgraded recruiting. High quality assistants. Good SOB/BOBs and after TO plays. Great team management. He even improved his TOs and subs this year.

The glaring weakness is that he hasn't taught the team to run a base motion offense when he doesn't call a play, or to run the ball off boards enough.

That is partly a personnel issue BUT there are worse coaches doing more with less talented players on the offensive end. We need to knock off the mid-range Js, prioritize spacing, stop standing around amd playing iso ball. We are WAY too slow setting up and running things. Players miss shots sometimes, but you have to put them in a position to take good shots regardless. The Xs and Os made it way too hard on our guys last. night

We're going to need to recruit like a top 10 team if we want to be a top 25 team the way Hurley is coaching offense. Stop blaming the players.

Every player, every coach, everyone involved in the team is going to have weaknesses. There doesn’t have to be blame placed every single time. We are going to lose about 10 games a year. So for people to come on here and say Hurley isn’t a good coach EVERY SINGLE TIME is so absurd. Some people are so GD negative it’s maddening.

FWIW, nothing looked good last night. Everything was pretty bad. Just wasn’t our night. We don’t need people criticizing Bouknight and Hurley after every single loss. It’s insane.

 

[husky429]

Every player, every coach, everyone involved in the team is going to have weaknesses. There doesn’t have to be blame placed every single time. We are going to lose about 10 games a year. So for people to come on here and say Hurley isn’t a good coach EVERY SINGLE TIME is so absurd. Some people are so GD negative it’s maddening.

FWIW, nothing looked good last night. Everything was pretty bad. Just wasn’t our night. We don’t need people criticizing Bouknight and Hurley after every single loss. It’s insane.

Hurley gets paid 3 million dollars a year and can't figure out how to teach a base offense. He can handle the criticism.

The stuff against players isn't cool. They're amateurs.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I am not fully on board with Hurley being the right guy. Last night was not a surprise, because many on this board had been pointing out the same issues since last year. Hurley had a good season at Wagner, two good seasons at URI (after 4 seasons of mediocrity), and then "meh" at UConn.

This isn't the A10. UConn is a big time program, and the Big East has some of the best players and best coaches in college basketball. A coach can't be this weak on gameday and expect to be successful against this level of competition. He has to figure out a way to be smarter on gameday or he is not going to be successful.

Year 4 is the big year for most coaches, because it will be all his players and he will have had 3+ years to implement his system. The team that Hurley puts on the court next season is the program UConn can expect to have going forward.

 

[rollskies]

Hurley gets paid 3 million dollars a year and can't figure out how to teach a base offense. He can handle the criticism.

The stuff against players isn't cool. They're amateurs.

There is a way to talk about what Hurley is doing wrong without calling for him to get fired (which people do every time after we lose). If you are talking about what didn’t go correctly in his game plan, i’m not talking about you. I’m talking about the “Hurley isn’t the right guy” BS after every single loss. And the “Bouknight isn’t that good” after every loss. I think there’s ways to talk about what went wrong without pointing fingers and sounding dumb