The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Hurley: Huskies must cut down on turnovers
HARTFORD — It sounded a bit like a threat. It was certainly a message Dan Hurley wanted to get across.
“If we keep turning the ball over like this, we will not be a running team,” the UConn coach told reporters after practice at the XL Center on Monday. “We will be a rock-fight team where I’ll control every possession, and we’ll run a set every time down the court if we don’t get more responsible with the ball.”
UConn, which hosts Cornell on Tuesday in its first game of the season at the XL Center (7 p.m., SNY), has had its ups and downs over its first four games this season. The Huskies (3-1) were impressive on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden in a win over rival Syracuse, only to come crashing back to Earth the following night in a bad loss to Iowa.
One of the few things consistent between both games in the Big Apple was UConn’s carelessness with the ball. There were 20 turnovers in the win over Syracuse, and though that number was cut to 15 against Iowa, 13 of them came in the first half as the Hawkeyes roared out to a big lead they would never relinquish.
With a bevy or quick, talented and largely experienced guards, and a distinct lack of strength in the frontcourt, it behooves the Huskies to run the ball. And, for the most part, they have. But it’s also led to too many turnovers, at least in the past two games.
“We over-dribble,” Hurley pointed out. “Particularly in the Iowa game. The Syracuse game, we had some guys in some weird spots with the ball. But just in general, the ball stuck a lot vs. Iowa. We over-dribbled. There were some high-risk, low-reward passes that were turnovers. You can’t go certain places with the ball as a guard. We talked a lot about just respecting the possession a lot more.”
And if that doesn’t happen, Hurley will institute a slowerpaced, halfcourt offense and make each game a “rock fight.” Is that a style the Huskies can succeed at?
“It’s a hard style,” the coach said. “They’ll give me no choice if we’re gonna turn the ball over, because we’re not prolific enough
to get away with that. So ... yeah, we could. I guess we could. It’s not our best style of play. But, if we don’t learn to respect the ball more, you give your guards less freedom and you try to control the game more. I didn’t have to do that the last couple of years at Rhode Island, because we had more mature guys and we were a high-assist, lowturnover team. We’ve been a fairly high-assist team, but there’s been some mindless turnovers that can’t go on.”
Hurley has addressed the issue during a couple of tough practices that have run a bit longer than normal the past two days.
“That’s something he emphasized (Sunday) in practice,” said sophomore point guard Alterique Gilbert. “We’ll do a better job as guards, and as players. We’ll do a better job.”
The other end of the floor will hardly be an afterthought against Cornell (3-2). Senior guard Matt Morgan is averaging 25.4 points per game and is hitting 49 percent of his 3-pointers. Morgan is coming off a 34-point explosion in a win over NJIT on Saturday. Still, it’s more about figuring out his own team right now for Hurley than any opponent. As terrific as the Huskies looked against the Orange, they looked that bad against Iowa, leaving Hurley still wondering exactly what he’s got with this bunch.
“This is my first time coaching this team,” he noted, “coaching these players, seeing how they respond to failure — bad stretches in games, does a guy need a foot up his butt, does he need a pat on the back? Trying to understand their psyche, how this team needs to play — especially at the offensive end. That’s a work in progress, in terms of where we get stuck in the halfcourt. What types of actions does Jalen (Adams) like? Does he like wing clear-outs, does he like step-up screens. Still trying to figure out that execution part, learning the players.”
A lot of that can be cured if UConn comes out of the gates with the intensity it had against Syracuse — and not against Iowa.
“I just want to see a fiery team (Tuesday). We’re gonna make mistakes, we’re gonna struggle in certain points with different things that we’re just not real good at right now. We were flat on Friday. You could attribute it to whatever you want to. You spend two days away, you play the rivalry game on Thursday night — the highest of highs — and then on Friday night, I wasn’t able to get that edge back. I wasn’t able to frame the game to get them excited again. I want to see that fire we played the first three games with.”