UConn's Season a 'Huge Success' - Dan Hurley | The Boneyard

UConn's Season a 'Huge Success' - Dan Hurley

Joined
Sep 13, 2019
Messages
172
Reaction Score
1,074


I love Hurley. I love what he's done with the program, the players he's recruited, the energy he brings night in and night out. But anyone else get irked by statements like this? Any season that ends with a first round exit from the NCAA tournament is not a success. There will be posters here that say just making the tournament was enough to warrant calling the season a success, but since when have we ever done that?

I get its early in the rebuild, that he needs a bit more time, but sometimes I feel like Hurley still operates with that small time URI, Wagner mentality. I also understand he's looking for silver linings and at the larger picture, but to call this season a success just feels wrong, but maybe I'm crazy.

Anyways, love the guy and hope that next year goes a little better than this year did.
 
Joined
Mar 27, 2017
Messages
790
Reaction Score
2,863


I love Hurley. I love what he's done with the program, the players he's recruited, the energy he brings night in and night out. But anyone else get irked by statements like this? Any season that ends with a first round exit from the NCAA tournament is not a success. There will be posters here that say just making the tournament was enough to warrant calling the season a success, but since when have we ever done that?

I get its early in the rebuild, that he needs a bit more time, but sometimes I feel like Hurley still operates with that small time URI, Wagner mentality. I also understand he's looking for silver linings and at the larger picture, but to call this season a success just feels wrong, but maybe I'm crazy.

Anyways, love the guy and hope that next year goes a little better than this year did.

This season was a success because we made the NCAA tournament after a drought, and even made the top 25 in the polls for a brief period. A huge success it most definitely was not. He is a salesman and PR guy. That is what he is doing. Hurley needs to worry about getting a 5 star point guard.

These kind of statements create a loser's mentality in kids and thinking they did something. Participation trophy culture.

PS: If getting smacked by Maryland in opening round is a huge success. What do we call North Texas, Oral Roberts and the Ohio Bobcats seasons?

PS: Last year's team at the end of the year was better than this team.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
1,538
Reaction Score
9,278
When you can reconcile the fact that this season was about more than how far we went in the NCAA tourney, then you can understand his comment. We are not reestablished yet as national power where we can only be measured by the end result. We are still climbing that mountain. This year was another step. Some of our fanbase wants it yesterday but it doesn't happen that way in reality. It needs to be built and there may be bumps in the road along the way. Some just aren't prepared for that. The program was in pretty bad shape. It's trending up. Some will understand this. Others will pitch a fit and be impatient, sometimes unreasonably so.
 

8893

Curiouser
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
29,851
Reaction Score
96,490
This season was progress. We all hoped for more, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful in terms of making steady progress towards our goal.

I don’t think I would call it a “huge” success, but that’s quibbling and he wouldn’t be the first coach to engage in puffery when defending his record.
 

Chin Diesel

Power of Love
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
32,402
Reaction Score
97,205
Gotta love hearing Hurley saying he was worried about a 6'5" SG and UConn having no one to guard him.

Remind me again, what are the sizes of Bouk, AJ and Martin? Staff had no confidence any of them could guard Ayala???
 

Doctor Hoop

Prescribing Hardwood Excellence
Joined
Jan 29, 2016
Messages
2,488
Reaction Score
12,495
"Huge success" dramatically overstates things. Not a disaster by any stretch, as making the tournament and finishing 3rd in the BE show the progress made. But I'm not buying a used car here. An honest assessment would say we did some of the things we wanted, but obviously fell short on others. The win vs. USC was really the only unexpected victory against a high-quality foe. And a tournament flop like yesterday leaves a sour taste.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2011
Messages
1,486
Reaction Score
6,680
Gotta love hearing Hurley saying he was worried about a 6'5" SG and UConn having no one to guard him.

Remind me again, what are the sizes of Bouk, AJ and Martin? Staff had no confidence any of them could guard Ayala???

Well, Martin got toasted by Ayala twice in the crucial early moments of the second half, Andre had 4 fouls in 8 minutes, and Bouk is not known as a defensive juggernaut (even assuming you'd want to wear out your best offensive player by giving him that defensive assignment).

Turns out it was a valid concern.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
1,538
Reaction Score
9,278
Gotta love hearing Hurley saying he was worried about a 6'5" SG and UConn having no one to guard him.

Remind me again, what are the sizes of Bouk, AJ and Martin? Staff had no confidence any of them could guard Ayala???
Being the same size of someone doesn't necessarily mean you could guard them. All evidence indicates the staff was somewhat correct in their assumption. Martin struggled to keep Ayala in front of him. AJax was a foul machine and got abused on a play when he tried, and Bouk has work to do defensively according to Hurley. Bouk also played the whole game, was exhausted, and already had to spend so much energy trying to shoulder the load for our anemic offense. A lot to ask.
 
Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
1,064
Reaction Score
4,266
The problem was he was saying this and taking bows before the game was even played, that the season's goal was to make the tournament. From the look at his preparation last night, it certainly looked like he was already satisfied and the players took his que.

Maryland of course had bigger and better things on their mind

The shame of it all is these brackets are really opening up and it seems everyone can be beat. We could have made a run.
 

CL82

2023 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Champions
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
56,511
Reaction Score
206,267
The season was a huge success based on the last five years and how far we had fallen.
And our come back was during a pandemic in which we had to shut down the program multiple times and kept us from developing the younger players to the extent we would in a normal season. On top of that we had injuries to the three most athletic guys in the program, one of whom never came back in a meaningful fashion, one of whom came back but wasn’t quite the same and one of whom was a freshman and needed all the time he lost to adjust to the college game.

We are a program that has had such significant success that anything which doesn’t result in us cutting down the nets is a bit of a letdown. But this year was definitely progress, and progress under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. It’s tough to say that it wasn’t a success, even though our goals weren’t reached.
 
Joined
Mar 4, 2014
Messages
16,560
Reaction Score
19,299
Getting to the dance was great and it should be an annual event, so thank you Dan Hurley for getting us back to our rightful place.
Postseason: 1-2
Beat DePaul and then crapped the bed twice with 56 and 54 points.
It's a botched season due to covid and all of the stoppages and unbalanced schedules so it isn't really much of a barometer of how the team did compared to other teams. The post season performance sucked. I can't call it a huge success.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2011
Messages
2,268
Reaction Score
6,031
Thank you Coach Hurley. It was a huge success. In the midst of the pandemic, injuries and returning to the Big East, UConn basketball is back where it belongs.

The rebuild was done in a classy way and didn't kick anyone of the kids out of the program when he took over and took the kids from the last regime to the tournament (should have been twice).

To put things into perspective:

Dom Perno's last year: 12-16
Jim Calhoun: 9-19, 20-14, 18-13, 31-6

Kevin Ollie's last year: 14-18
Dan Hurley: 16-17, 19-12 (should have made it last year), 15-8 (Tournament)

Onto 2022!
 
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
16,029
Reaction Score
23,088
Happy we made the tourney but getting bounced in the first game by a lower seed= not a huge success. No way Calhoun would say that even though he considered postseason play to be an accomplishment.
 
Joined
Nov 19, 2011
Messages
5,687
Reaction Score
15,154
The season was a huge success based on the last five years and how far we had fallen.

Well hopefully the standards will continue rise because I think people will get tired of first round exits, lackluster efforts, and inability to break 60 points in the tournament.

Some of our players seem to have been brought in with the mindset that Hurley thinks what he did at URI will be enough here.
 

Chin Diesel

Power of Love
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
32,402
Reaction Score
97,205
Well, Martin got toasted by Ayala twice in the crucial early moments of the second half, Andre had 4 fouls in 8 minutes, and Bouk is not known as a defensive juggernaut (even assuming you'd want to wear out your best offensive player by giving him that defensive assignment).

Turns out it was a valid concern.
Being the same size of someone doesn't necessarily mean you could guard them. All evidence indicates the staff was somewhat correct in their assumption. Martin struggled to keep Ayala in front of him. AJax was a foul machine and got abused on a play when he tried, and Bouk has work to do defensively according to Hurley. Bouk also played the whole game, was exhausted, and already had to spend so much energy trying to shoulder the load for our anemic offense. A lot to ask.

Well, I sure hope DH has a plan to find someone on the roster capable of guarding a 6'5" shooting guard or small forward. Turns out plenty of D1 teams have a player of that size and skillset.

Asking any of those players listed- Martin, Bouk or Jackson shouldn't be a stretch. You could also try Gaff, who while shorter, seems to be a more physical defensive presence than Bouk.
 

Online statistics

Members online
562
Guests online
3,458
Total visitors
4,020

Forum statistics

Threads
155,765
Messages
4,030,837
Members
9,863
Latest member
leepaul


Top Bottom