Props to Nova

[auror]

They are a good team. No real weaknesses. They made more plays than we did. 2nd half execution down the stretch was the difference. These were the huge plays.

• We play great D for a full shot clock, Gillespie finds Samuel on a roll with only a second or two and he has both the presence of mind to do a scoop/finger roll layup to get it out quick, but also the skill to make it.
• Sanogo falls down on a shot/rebound attempt. They get a transition opportunity. Nobody finds Samuels (I believe was Sanogo's man at that time) and he gets one of the few dunks in the game.
• We play great D for a full shot clock. Freshman Longino backs down Cole and hits a turnaround fadeaway from 10 feet out.
• Polley loses the ball, there's a scramble, Jackson ends up with it. INSTANTLY (seriously unbelievable vision and insanely fast processing) finds Martin for a wide open dunk. Slater reacts and blocks it off the backboard.
• We get a stop and a rebound. Adama gets fouled. Misses the front end of the 1 and 1.
• We get a rare steal from Gillespie down 5. Whaley misses a jumper. Sanogo rebound, misses a layup. Sanogo gets a rebound, misses a layup, jump ball... their ball.
• The Adama rebound. We all saw it. We all think it was a foul. There were 2 other guys there, somebody has to come up with the ball.

We had to play a really good game to win. We played a good game. Not enough.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

• The Adama rebound. We all saw it. We all think it was a foul. There were 2 other guys there, somebody has to come up with the ball.

Agree with your whole post. On this point I think there could have easily been a whistle but given how iffy the Gillespie tie-up was in Hartford I can’t get worked up about it.

 

[USNavyDog]

They are a good team. No real weaknesses. They made more plays than we did. 2nd half execution down the stretch was the difference. These were the huge plays.

• We play great D for a full shot clock, Gillespie finds Samuel on a roll with only a second or two and he has both the presence of mind to do a scoop/finger roll layup to get it out quick, but also the skill to make it.
• Sanogo falls down on a shot/rebound attempt. They get a transition opportunity. Nobody finds Samuels (I believe was Sanogo's man at that time) and he gets one of the few dunks in the game.
• We play great D for a full shot clock. Freshman Longino backs down Cole and hits a turnaround fadeaway from 10 feet out.
• Polley loses the ball, there's a scramble, Jackson ends up with it. INSTANTLY (seriously unbelievable vision and insanely fast processing) finds Martin for a wide open dunk. Slater reacts and blocks it off the backboard.
• We get a stop and a rebound. Adama gets fouled. Misses the front end of the 1 and 1.
• We get a rare steal from Gillespie down 5. Whaley misses a jumper. Sanogo rebound, misses a layup. Sanogo gets a rebound, misses a layup, jump ball... their ball.
• The Adama rebound. We all saw it. We all think it was a foul. There were 2 other guys there, somebody has to come up with the ball.

We had to play a really good game to win. We played a good game. I

 

[USNavyDog]

Thats why in my opinion, Villanova gets the edge as the better team. I love and will always support my Huskies, and they are a VERY good team in every area (mostly) like villanova.

But here's what make those dang Wildcats better...the little things which is what you summarized above. I would say Uconn is very good with the small things and has good basketball IQ...but Villanova is the best of the best in that cetagory.

Villanova might possibly be the most mentally mature team in the country by a very long shot over any other elite team in the country.....and that is why they may just win another NCAA title this year.

 

[willie99]

Free throws

You win championships by making free throws

 

[puppygenius]

5 guys between 6'3" - 6'8" with girth that can all handle the ball enough to not turn it over, back you down, make threes and free throws and play defense like a mother. They REBOUND like 5 power forwards are out there and rarely make mistakes. This has been their identity for at least 6-7 years or more now. Tough team and they are good, probably Final Four good. You have to hope they have an off shooting night to have a chance and your chances go up if you can score 70 points on them.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

5 guys between 6'3" - 6'8" with girth that can all handle the ball enough to not turn it over, back you down, make threes and free throws and play defense like a mother. They REBOUND like 5 power forwards are out there and rarely make mistakes. This has been their identity for at least 6-7 years or more now. Tough team and they are good, probably Final Four good. You have to hope they have an off shooting night to have a chance and your chances go up if you can score 70 points on them.

Sanogo should be absolutely feasting on them and didn’t. I guess some people said he was sick, that may be the case and I would retract my comments. But if he isn’t, ifs not nearly good enough from him. That was absolutely the most empty 15-13 line i’ve ever seen.

 

[UncleSpliff]

There doesn’t need to be a 2000 word essay on why Villanova is better than us. They can shoot at all 5 positions and we can’t…

 

[Bobol]

UConn has better talent.

Villanova has a better/ great coach.

Villanova wins.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

Agree with your whole post. On this point I think there could have easily been a whistle but given how iffy the Gillespie tie-up was in Hartford I can’t get worked up about it.

Also hard to get worked up over any one play when the team missed so many FTs and <2 foot shots. They had their chances.

 

[Giddyup5]

UConn has better talent.

Villanova has a better/ great coach.

Villanova wins.

Nova has better mature talent. Our “better” talent are still freshmen and sophomores.

 

[MTBingNinja]

Just incredible how Villanova was shooting, it was coming from everybody and everywhere

There doesn’t need to be a 2000 word essay on why Villanova is better than us. They can shoot at all 5 positions and we can’t…

 

[Seamus84]

They are a good team. No real weaknesses. They made more plays than we did. 2nd half execution down the stretch was the difference. These were the huge plays.

• We play great D for a full shot clock, Gillespie finds Samuel on a roll with only a second or two and he has both the presence of mind to do a scoop/finger roll layup to get it out quick, but also the skill to make it.
• Sanogo falls down on a shot/rebound attempt. They get a transition opportunity. Nobody finds Samuels (I believe was Sanogo's man at that time) and he gets one of the few dunks in the game.
• We play great D for a full shot clock. Freshman Longino backs down Cole and hits a turnaround fadeaway from 10 feet out.
• Polley loses the ball, there's a scramble, Jackson ends up with it. INSTANTLY (seriously unbelievable vision and insanely fast processing) finds Martin for a wide open dunk. Slater reacts and blocks it off the backboard.
• We get a stop and a rebound. Adama gets fouled. Misses the front end of the 1 and 1.
• We get a rare steal from Gillespie down 5. Whaley misses a jumper. Sanogo rebound, misses a layup. Sanogo gets a rebound, misses a layup, jump ball... their ball.
• The Adama rebound. We all saw it. We all think it was a foul. There were 2 other guys there, somebody has to come up with the ball.

We had to play a really good game to win. We played a good game. Not enough.

Plus, the bs charge call on Cole at the end of the 1st half and Polley stepping on the sideline just before he swishes a 3.

 

[jibsey]

Just incredible how Villanova was shooting, it was coming from everybody and everywhere

Look at the numbers. We shot 38%they shot 42%. They made 10 3’s shooting 33%. We made 8. 3’s shooting 36%. Not a huge difference. We outrebounded them 40 to 30. They had 14 assists we had 12. Blocks and turnovers similar.
So what they made was a few more layups than us, a couple more 3’s and they beat us by 3 points.
‘They shut down RJ who had only 11 points and went 1-6 from 3. He played great D on Gillespie but we needed more offense from him and I’venever seen him guarded that close.
It’s not like they are hugely better than us and on a given night we can beat them.

 

[Conndog]

We have better talent? Not sure about that. One thing Nova did well is defend- they switched instantly on defense, we had just a few open looks all night long. That’s why Polley and RJ had limited scoring, they just couldn’t get open.

I still like our chances in tourney, but there are lots of teams that have really good shooters, yet we have some too (hope Hawkins will be ready), and we do play great defense, which will carry us far.

 

[jibsey]

We have better talent? Not sure about that. One thing Nova did well is defend- they switched instantly on defense, we had just a few open looks all night long. That’s why Polley and RJ had limited scoring, they just couldn’t get open.

I still like our chances in tourney, but there are lots of teams that have really good shooters, yet we have some too (hope Hawkins will be ready), and we do play great defense, which will carry us far.

Yup. Hawkins giving us 6-8 points a game changes everything for us. They slack off of Jackson because they are daring the 3 and that creates double teaming for Sanogo. It’s a fine balance when you’re lacking a shooter.

 

[Huskybass]

You can't have a starter play 32 minutes and not score a single point and hope to beat a very good team like Villanova. Add in the missed front end of a 1 and 1 by Sanogo, and the sideline out of bounds by Polley while hitting a big 3 and that's too much to overcome.

If Whaley scores even a couple of buckets and we make our free throws, UConn wins that game. Nova plays well enough that there's little margin for error. Credit to them, they made winning plays.

 

[Tenspro2002]

You can't have a starter play 32 minutes and not score a single point and hope to beat a very good team like Villanova. Add in the missed front end of a 1 and 1 by Sanogo, and the sideline out of bounds by Polley while hitting a big 3 and that's too much to overcome.

If Whaley scores even a couple of buckets and we make our free throws, UConn wins that game. Nova plays well enough that there's little margin for error. Credit to them, they made winning plays.

Yeah, this is an underrated problem.

If we had 4 other guys who were elite offensively at creating their own shot or for someone else, you could afford to play a no-offense "glue guy" 30 minutes. But we don't.

It's honestly a little mystifying -- Whaley's offense was much better 2-3 years ago. Now he gives us basically nothing at that end.

 

[mauconnfan]

Hate to say it Whaleys offense is always better when he’s the 5. He’s picking and rolling rather than just picking and staying in the perimeter. And he’s around the basket more for putbacks. By no means am I saying keep Sanogo out, just stating the truth. He as well as others sometimes concentrate too much on getting Adama the ball.

But getting zero last night hurt big time. Need 7/7/3 out of him. His defense was real good but he has to score.

 

[auror]

Hate to say it Whaleys offense is always better when he’s the 5. He’s picking and rolling rather than just picking and staying in the perimeter. And he’s around the basket more for putbacks. By no means am I saying keep Sanogo out, just stating the truth. He as well as others sometimes concentrate too much on getting Adama the ball.

But getting zero last night hurt big time. Need 7/7/3 out of him. His defense was real good but he has to score.

Yeah it's just a function of how our offense works best with this personnel. Like a misshaped puzzle, sometimes the pieces don't fit perfectly, so 1 guy gets marginalized a bit. But his best attribute is defense anyways and Sanogo is just a better low post player, so we can still excel as a team despite it not being a perfect fit.

Lineups next year of Diggins, Hawkins, Jackson, Johnson, Sanogo will fit better since Johnson (or Akok if he's healthier) is a more natural and consistent shooter.

 

[BGesus4]

Nova probably beats us 6 times if we play them 10, but we are also very different teams with very different identities. Novas players are very battle tested, which is a huge benefit but I think there will probably be just as many teams in the tourney that don’t match up well against us as don’t match up against nova - and very different teams.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a good number of people predicting us to go further than nova, if our matchups look favorable, even though nova would definitely be the favorite head to head.

 

[MTBingNinja]

Look at the numbers. We shot 38%they shot 42%. They made 10 3’s shooting 33%. We made 8. 3’s shooting 36%. Not a huge difference. We outrebounded them 40 to 30. They had 14 assists we had 12. Blocks and turnovers similar.
So what they made was a few more layups than us, a couple more 3’s and they beat us by 3 points.
‘They shut down RJ who had only 11 points and went 1-6 from 3. He played great D on Gillespie but we needed more offense from him and I’venever seen him guarded that close.
It’s not like they are hugely better than us and on a given night we can beat them.

Great data jibsey! Rather see the raw data than the blind eye test. Just frustrating nonetheless. I was telling someone the other day, I find myself to be more passionate with UConn basketball than I am with my favorite baseball team. Hopefully we keep our chin up and make a good run in the tournament.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

UConn has better talent.

Villanova has a better/ great coach.

Villanova wins.

UConn has more athleticism. I'm not sure (at this point in each players' development) that we have more talent. There is a very good chance that at the skill level they reach five years from now Jackson and Sanogo will be miles ahead of anyone on Nova's team but right now, shy of our playing stupid for a stretch (we still unfortunately are capable of this) we will give Nova a dogfight light last night's game and more often than not, they will end up a basket ahead. If we could somehow play a perfect game (I'd love to know how to pull that off), we could beat them by a few scores.

 

[CL82]

We are good team, but our tough defense and tenacious rebounding hides some warts. Villanova is a very well coached team, with great discipline. Those are the kinds of teams that take advantage of your weaknesses. I give them all the credit in the world.

I remember when Jay Wright was a young coach. It seemed like Calhoun could always get the better of him. Experience matters.

 

[Hi-Low]

Cole & Martin are the only starters that can shoot and the bench has limitations....Gaffney didn't progress as hoped & Polley while a good shooter can't get the mins / volume because his D isn't close to Whaley's or Jax.

So our Defense is elite but against equal or better teams we need more points from the bench....if Hawkins is good to go next week we can make some noise if not we'll probaby struggle by 2nd game.