I noticed a thread on the pay board, which I don't belong to anymore, asking how his recruiting is going. Does anyone here know what he's up to and is he been able to do as well at UConn as Capel is doing here? He did spurn Pitt for his dream job. So ,again, does anyone know if the dream has turned or is turning into a nightmare?
Danny Hurley
- Thread starter zucca
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I think he only has one commit so far for the 2018 class, a 3 star PG from Baltimore.
He recruited a top 200 PG who had previously committed to him at Rhode Island and two transfers, Tarin Smith from Duquesne and Kassoum Yakwe from St. John's. That should be the final class for 2018. It seems as if he's prioritizing 2019, which is the obvious choice if you're unable to get high end talent to reclassify a la Capel.
I hope Danny Hurley does as well at UCONN as every Duquesne coach has done since the 1970s.
Nixon was great, but his teams weren't. The Dukes haven't been good since Red Manning retired. None of the former eastern Catholic powers who didn't end up in the BE have really done a lot since then, other than sporadic success. The BE was founded about 6 years too late for them. No way the Dukes would have been left out if the league had been formed around 1972 or 73. Timing is everything. Good thing the ACC option didn't happen when Stallings was here. We might be in the American.
It seems he did us a favor.
Capel looks to be a super choice.
Capel looks to be a super choice.
We got the better end of that deal when we got Capel. I don't see how anyone can argue that at this point. Now we have to see how they coach a team.
That certainly seems true as regards these early recruiting results. However, we don't yet know how Capel's ability to "coach-em-up" will be compared to Hurley. Common basketball fan perception seems to be that Hurley has been--based on past history--better at the coaching aspect and Capel better at recruiting. We will have to see how things eventually play out over several years to have a better idea.
awww lets leave "common basketball perception " out of it an look at the facts. Capel has better record, winning percentage, gone further in the tournament (hurley has never gone past second round in either of NCAA or NIT) and produced a first round (first overall) NBA (lottery) draft pick. I don't understand that perception.
It is the doing more than expected with lesser talent vs the doing less than expected with greater talent comparison that many fans make. It is also an argument very difficult to provide evidence for except in extremely obvious situations where a guy takes over a loaded roster and doe scrap with it. This is not one of those.
Also, I am of a mind that recruiting superior talent has gotten a lot more important vs "coaching them up" since the NCAA changed the officiating emphasis to allow greater freedom of movement for the offense and created a no charge circle under the hoop. The changes make it far more difficult to play a suffocating defense to overcome or offset a talent disadvantage than was formerly the case.
Facts are open to interpretation. Your interpretation seems to be that those facts make Capel the better coach. My interpretation is that you're comparing apples to oranges and your argument isn't nearly as sound as you think it is.
The reason that Hurley is so highly thought of is because he took over two programs that were in disarray and made them competitive very quickly. Wagner was 5-26 before Hurley was hired. They were 13-17 in his first season and 25-6 in his second season. He flipped his team's win loss record in two seasons then left for Rhode Island. They were 7-24 the season before Hurley was hired. They won 23 games in his third season and made the NIT. The last two years, they've reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Coaching at Wagner and Rhode Island isn't really comparable to coaching at VCU and Oklahoma. That isn't to say that I think Hurley is a better coach, but you're missing the point if you're just trying to look at their win-loss records side by side. You don't understand the perception because it's based on a lot more than raw stats. Hurley took over troubled programs and elevated them. I believe that Capel demonstrated the ability to elevate a program at VCU, but they weren't in poor shape like Hurley's schools were. The bottom line is that I love who we got, but there's really no reason to downplay Hurley.
Good post! A coach at Oklahoma is expected to land some 5 star players, and make deep runs in March. Not so much at Rhody. Rhody and VCU are comparable though. Rhody was a decent program under Jim Baron, that hit the wall his last year there. It's not like they were the dregs of the A10. Likewise, VCU was respectable before Capel, but he really got the program trending upwards before Grant, and then Smart, took it to another level.
Except VCU had a better record and finish in conference the year before Capel became HC than his last season as HC.
He did take them to the NCAA tourney for the first time in 8 years or so.
He was also the assistant coach the year before he took over as head coach.
Here’s the thing , no one expected anyone who Pitt COULD hire to be able to recruit as effectively as JC has done . Hiring Hurly sounded like a great idea , he was successful at schools like Pitt that it would be hard to attract top talent to presumably !
As things stand now Pitt got far and away the best man for the job that they could . Hopefully he stays a long long time .
As things stand now Pitt got far and away the best man for the job that they could . Hopefully he stays a long long time .
I don't disagree, got to see how it plays out. But let's also remember that Capel was a super young coach. He is younger than Hurley and was coaching at VCU and Oklahoma while Hurley was still coaching high school. I'm hoping and expecting that Capel has grown a lot since then.
I'm with you Captain (I miss Captain Reilly)I hope Capel is the Messiah that takes Pitt to the Promised Land.It seems like the people on here won't take off their Blue and Gold glasses and look at the whole picture.They do this because they're fans and hope for greatness again.We outsiders look at Capel's last two years at Ok and wonder,what the hell happened!
Believe it or not--Capel didn't recruit well enough. He had lesser talent on the roster than previously.
I am not going to make any definitive statements other than I am over the moon happy with Capel as our coach.
He is exactly what Pitt needed and looking back it is clear as day that Hurley used Pitt simply to get more money from UConn. Hurley would have been a bad fit here because he didn't truly want to be here and would have come for money alone. Hurley doesn't want to recruit against the ACC.
So in the end, only time will tell who is the better coach, who wins more at their respective programs, etc...
But one thing I am very comfortable saying is Capel is a better fit for Pitt than Hurely would have been. Capel knows the ACC landscape and is not intimidated to recruit against those caliber of schools.
He is exactly what Pitt needed and looking back it is clear as day that Hurley used Pitt simply to get more money from UConn. Hurley would have been a bad fit here because he didn't truly want to be here and would have come for money alone. Hurley doesn't want to recruit against the ACC.
So in the end, only time will tell who is the better coach, who wins more at their respective programs, etc...
But one thing I am very comfortable saying is Capel is a better fit for Pitt than Hurely would have been. Capel knows the ACC landscape and is not intimidated to recruit against those caliber of schools.
Pitt will never be able to compete in the ACC without talent and so far it’s not even a contest between JC and Hurly in that regard . I don’t care how good a coach you are you won’t be successful in the ACC without top talent . Only time will tell who really turns out to be the better hire , but at UConn you don’t have to buck heads with the ACC powerhouses and I believe UConn is an easier sell to recruits than Pitt . That was at least true before JC . I’ll stick with what I said Pitt got the best man for the job they could .
Anyone predicting great things next season is getting a little ahead of themselves it will take two or three seasons , but there will be improvement next yr .
Who has him at the Top already? I haven't seen one person state that.
What's difficult to figure out? His assist got caught cheating, players used to fear the NCAA back then so 5 underclassmen transferred out without restrictions.
There's not much an opportunity for success when half your roster bails, you are vacating wins and a NCAA cloud is over your program.
There's not much an opportunity for success when half your roster bails, you are vacating wins and a NCAA cloud is over your program.
You’re nonsensical ramblings are just about as unreadable as Captain’s were.
This is a Pitt board. Seriously, why are you here? We don’t need your podium speeches about setting our expectations, you goober.
Not really sure what difference it makes if we "have him at the top already"? He's either successful or he's not but that's pretty much on him. I'm okay if a bunch of people on this board (including myself) want to get all hyped up about him.
Rhody was coming off of a 7 win season when Hurley was hired, but they had won 20 or more games the previous 4 seasons, including 26 two years before Baron got fired, which was quite a bit better than what VCU did right before Capel took over. I don't follow RI, so I'm not sure what happened to make them basically collapse overnight. Some are trying to make it seem like Capel took over some sort of powerhouse at VCU. The were 267-239 between the time of JD Barnett's departure, and Capel's hiring, with 4 20 win seasons out of 17. To put that in perspective, in the 16 seasons since Capel's hiring, VCU has won 20 or more games 12 times, 19 games twice, and 18 in the other two seasons. No losing seasons. I don't know how you can't give him some of the credit for that.
So, again, Hurley took over a 7 win URI team and they were a 26 win team when he left. Capel took over a 21 win VCU team and they were a 19 win team (only one year with more wins) when he left. Hurley faced a similar situation with Wagner and Capel faced a similar situation in Oklahoma, but he had more success in between and things fell apart worse (and it feel apart before the team was decimated by transfers his last season) at the end. That doesn't mean Capel wasn't a good choice for Pitt or can't be the better coach for Pitt, but in terms of taking over programs and building them Hurley has proven much, much more than Capel, when comparing their HC experience. It isn't even debatable. Anyone who would debate it is delusionally biased.
In theory I agree with you, however Hurley has never been in a real league, Capel has...
Capel was a homerun hire.
He’s way better than I expected for Pitt.
That’s all I care about.
He’s way better than I expected for Pitt.
That’s all I care about.
This post should end this thread...
Then call me delusionally biased, I suppose. Capel took a VCU team that hadn't been to the NCAA Tournament in 19 years and got them to the dance and recruited all of the players that Anthony Grant beat Duke with in his first season there after Capel left for Oklahoma. He literally built the program at VCU (which they then smartly followed up with 4 good hires which got them out of the Colonial and to the top of the A-10, it's really a hell of a rise). In my mind that's a good bit better than what Hurley did at Wagner, which while impressive, was at a much lower level of basketball and he didn't leave the cupboard nearly as full when he left for Rhode Island.
At Rhode Island Hurley did amazing work, getting Matthews, Terrell, Martin, Garrett and Dowtin to play in the A-10 is really impressive, but it really isn't quite in the same league as landing four McDonald's All-Americans and getting to the Elite 8 with a legitimate national title contending team. Yeah, things definitely fell apart at the end at Oklahoma, and that's a real concern, but that was mostly because Capel was far too young and inexperienced to deal with an asshole quite the caliber of Willie Warren and because of the whole Tiny Gallon fiasco of which Capel was absolved of any wrongdoing.
So yeah, we don't really want a repeat of the end of his tenure at Oklahoma but if you gave me a blind resume comparison I personally would take Capel over Hurley myself.
I personally don't like the Hurleys.The media acts like both are God's gift to basketball.But I give credit where credit is due,they're both pretty good coaches.We'll never know what Hurley could of done at Pitt but we'll soon know what Capel's Capability is.I love message boards where everyone has their opinion and those opinions are correct because they're opinions.
I don't think anyone questions Capel's ability to recruit, but as a coach and program builder he has not progressed programs under his handle to a next level. Hurley has.
Hurley took Wagner from 5 wins to 25 wins in 2 years and they won 19 games the 2 years after he left and you are detracting anything from that? Wow. He left Mason his two best players and 3 of the top 4 from his 25 win team. 5 of the 6 best players on Mason's team were guys Hurley recruited to Wagner. What else was Hurley supposed to do in 2 years?
I'm not sure how the out for Capel is him being "far too young and inexperienced to deal with an asshole quite the caliber of Willie Warren" when he recruited him and Warren certainly helped him to his one impressive season, as OU's 2nd best player. You can't credit Capel for "landing four McDonald's All-Americans" and then completely blame 2/4 of them for his downfall. Also, if Gallon was delivered because of the violation and Capel had no part in it, was it a big land by Capel?
Hurley took over programs with single digit win seasons and tripled their win totals. Capel took over 20+ win programs and left them winning fewer games when he left/was fired. Capel may be the better fit for Pitt, but in terms of HC resume Hurley has undoubtedly shown more ability to elevate a program. It isn't really even close.
And he led that program to 1 great season and left the program in worse shape than when he took over.
Capel may work out great and I certainly think he has that potential for Pitt, but his resume as a HC is shaky. We are banking on recruiting and him learning A LOT from Coach K.
