I have been reading this thread shaking my head the entire time. I trust Hurley and love that Mahaney is on the team. But from a guy who watched Brea all season, trust me, this guy would absolutely kill it in Hurley’s system. So the takes are crazy about him. Again, I trust Hurley and trust he got his guy. But I still would love Brea.
To make sure I was not mis remembering, and because although I watched many SMC games, I simply don’t remember Mahaney, I went back and watched both SMC and Dayton’s opening round games of the NCAA. Interesting the games were very similar and both Brea and Mahaney had bad first halves. Both teams were down big in the second half but Brea hit four 3’s to get Dayton back in it and eventually win. Where SMC just faded and Mahaney missed tons of wide open 3’s. He also just had a really really bad game.
Look, I get this is just one game. And you can’t judge on only one game. But watch a whole game before knocking Brea. Don’t just watch highlights (highlights make everyone look like Larry Bird) or look at stats. When you see the whole game, you see so much more. Even the announcers in the Dayton game said “It is so weird, Dayton runs NOTHING for Brea. I don’t understand.” Dayton’s entire offense is trying to feed Holmes and if that doesn’t work - take your guy 1 on 1 or chuck a contested 3. Brea was kinda wasted all year. All his shots came at the end of shot clocks or at end of games when they needed 3’s.
And side note of concern, Mahaney really struggled with GCU’s athletes and could not stay with his guy defensively. He had several of his shots blocked. Again, just one game. Could be an anomaly. I will watch a few more if I can.
Also note they both started. Mahaney played the entire game. Brea sat for 2 minutes in the first half but played the entire 2nd half (38 minutes total).