18 Hours Later...Random Thoughts

[Brad Palmer]

*** Great gutty win. How many of us thought we'd eventually lose the lead? Raise your hands (me included).

*** Great to see an actual half-court offense being run. While still giving them their freedom, KO will slowly get Boat and Bazz to move more without the ball. Jay Bilas commented on our dribble to pass ratio.

*** Anyone think we'll show any zone, either as pressure, or in half-court?

*** As much as I love KO, his comments about players staying around and sticking it out missed one HUGE point. All of the transfers decided to leave when JC was still the coach. Methinks if KO had already been named head coach, he would have kept AO and RS around.

*** Time to pack the house Tuesday and show our team some love!

 

[CAHUSKY]

*** As much as I love KO, his comments about players staying around and sticking it out missed one HUGE point. All of the transfers decided to leave when JC was still the coach. Methinks if KO had already been named head coach, he would have kept AO and RS around.

If that were the case, and KO had such wonderful relationships with them, I don't think he would be publicly throwing them under the bus.

 

[mauconnfan]

Like everything you say but I think you are missing a point too.......I don't think KO was an Alex fan. He mentioned guys last year who didn't work hard, box out and go get the ball and now he mentions the "loyalty".......he wouldn't want an AO on his team, maybe a Roscoe but not the guy who backstabbed his 2nd dad,, that wasn't going to happen!!!

 

[Calhoun's Court]

One of the best regular season/pre season tourneys wins ever for UCONN that was unexpected.

1. G'Town-Cuse I put them together. Blowin the roof off the HCC
2,Stanford (NO Rip Game) in 1999
3. Hammering UK in Maui Finals 2010-2011
4. Last Night (KO first game replacing JC and KO already being listed on the HOT SEAT of coaches)11/9/12


This is off the top of my head. I'm there are many many more. But these 4 really stand out to me.

 

[huskyniner]

Think XRM is second-guessing his decision now?

 

[DogMania]

Like everything you say but I think you are missing a point too.......I don't think KO was an Alex fan. He mentioned guys last year who didn't work hard, box out and go get the ball and now he mentions the "loyalty".......he wouldn't want an AO on his team, maybe a Roscoe but not the guy who backstabbed his 2nd dad,, that wasn't going to happen!!!

Hard to draw conclusions, but you have some interesting thoughts. Alex's lack of boxing out after 3 years drove me nuts. I can see how KO would be happy to turn that page but I bet he would be thinking, "I can get through to him." I don't think the players knew what JC was planning on doing. KO would have welcomed any of them back. Alex wanted another shot at post season play and he and JC were at odds. I think KO would have liked to have Scoe back. The more you think about it, the players likely believed JC was coming back for another season.

I'm good with AO moving on but wished that Scoe and Bradley had returned. I think KO thought the same and would love to have more big bodies than what he has now.

 

[huskyniner]

I would take sophomore AO all day on this team, but junior AO? No thanks.

 

[ctchamps]

I would take sophomore AO all day on this team, but junior AO? No thanks.

Only if we could get junior Kemba with him. Otherwise pass.

 

[huskyniner]

Only if we could get junior Kemba with him. Otherwise pass.

Even just the fact that sophomore AO worked extremely hard and didn't have a sense of entitlement like junior AO.

 

[Brochacho]

Our PG was our leading scorer. A 3 man lead in rebounding (Yes he plays the 4 but whatever). Our center lead us in assists.

Que?

 

[ctchamps]

Even just the fact that sophomore AO worked extremely hard and didn't have a sense of entitlement like junior AO.

He did appear to work harder his sophomore year. And he did help the team win an NC. But he had so many flaws in his game his sophomore season (muaconnfan and I wrote frequently about it) that I wasn't sure he could ever develop into more than just an adequate 4 or 5. My feeling is that without the junior KW, the sophomore AO would have been the same as the junior AO and more people would have noticed the flaws. The weird thing is that Chuck did more things fundamentally correct on the defensive end than AO. Chucks failings were his lack of strength and that he started to play the game too late to develop the reflexive part of the game.

 

[huskyniner]

He did appear to work harder his sophomore year. And he did help the team win an NC. But he had so many flaws in his game his sophomore season (muaconnfan and I wrote frequently about it) that I wasn't sure he could ever develop into more than just an adequate 4 or 5. My feeling is that without the junior KW, the sophomore AO would have been the same as the junior AO and more people would have noticed the flaws.

Fair assessment. It's certainly hard to argue against that.

 

[sledog]

Bradley??

 

[mauconnfan]

I agree fleudy.........I would take the AO from the Maui tourney and the post season.........truth is beside those he was very ordinary and real close to the 6/5 guy we saw last year.......but he did bring it and react in a positive manner to a scorching Kemba during those 2 important runs his soph season........I'm happy with the guys we have although it would've been nice to have Michael bradley's 5 fouls too!!

 

[RuffRuff]

It's going to be fascinating to see how the cultural transition looks going from JC to KO. While KO is a JC alumni and prodigy, his demeanor is night and day. Where JC was a volatile figure who clearly coached via fear, KO is a calming presence and what appears to be a true player's coach. The fact that JC is clearly a big believer is interesting in itself given stylistically, they are so different. To some extent, if KO gets his contract and gets out on the recruiting trail, my sense is that he will actually have an easier time drawing big time talent than JC did given kids will be able to relate and likely look at Ollie as a bit of a father figure type coach. My expectations are that he'll be able to recruit, he has a cache' that is very marketable to the target audience.

That being said, I think it's really time to start thinking about positioning the long term contract. Whereas I wasn't a huge believer in committing early in wanting to test the market, I'm just not sure you can do better. With a big win in the pocket, getting a feel for KO and how kids react to him and just his general presence, it's hard not to feel like the guy if due a long term shot. He has the "it" factor and when you see the Huskies of Uconn past littering the crowd, it's hard not to love it. I'm a buyer. If you look outside, I'm not sure a Shaka Smart benchmark really offers that much more and only so many potential candidates out there are really going to be true fits.

 

[caw]

My favorite play was when Ollie showed Napier how far in the corner he needed to be to give the proper spacing by grabbing him and moving him there.

 

[nomar]

My favorite play was when Ollie showed Napier how far in the corner he needed to be to give the proper spacing by grabbing him and moving him there.

Ha, I saw that too. That and the time when he told Napier to stop b*tching to the ref and get back on D were two highlights.

Nobody knew how KO would do on the sidelines but last night was impressive -- and would have been impressive even had MSU pulled it out. He definitely wasn't just sitting there. He's coaching all game long.

 

[Chief00]

I don't know all the details why Alex's attitude went south last year. He was big in encouraging Andre Drummond to come - thought that meant he would move to a 4........then things blew up.......and he was mostly a back up 5.......because he couldn't play perimeter defense .........and his attitude went south when there was a fools gold thing with Olander taking Alex's minutes against the cup cake teams. When we needed Alex against the Big East team he had attitude himself out of being part of the team. His relationship with JC and Bazz went south and his relationship with Drummond became curious.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I would take sophomore AO all day on this team, but junior AO? No thanks.

If there was a way to send his father to Missouri (and ban him from social networking) but keep AO here I would have been all for it.

 

[ctchamps]

I agree fleudy.........I would take the AO from the Maui tourney and the post season.........truth is beside those he was very ordinary and real close to the 6/5 guy we saw last year.......but he did bring it and react in a positive manner to a scorching Kemba during those 2 important runs his soph season........I'm happy with the guys we have although it would've been nice to have Michael bradley's 5 fouls too!!

You and I were the most exacerbated of the Boneyarders with AO's repeated mistakes when he was forced to go out on the perimeter on the defensive end. I was always much more upset about his defensive lapses than his lack of production on the offensive end.

On the offensive end he lacked the ability to carve space out for entry passes, and when he did, he frequently couldn't handle the passes. He had a nice baby hook but it wasn't consistent enough to be reliable. My feeling is he used this because his hands were either weak or small which resulted in his losing the ball when he tried dunking. And his hops were questionable which allowed him to be blocked. In those games you pointed out he would get some of his early shots to go in. When that happened his confidence would go up. But more importantly so would his effort. He would play much stronger when that happened.

AO was at his best when he was the lunch pail guy and played like KFree and Jeff Adrian. Unfortunately where those guys could generate that strength and determination to will their way to score at a much more consistent rate, it seemed AO often lacked this drive. This is why he would disappear in many games or after a decent start. And if there was any tension between AO and JC, it probably was derived by JC's constant insistence that AO generate that drive throughout the game, every game, like KFree and JA. Unfortunately this was not something that was in AO's demeanor.

AO and his dad had ample opportunity to know that JC was about giving 100%, staying focused, not making repeated mistakes, and that JC had very little tolerance for players who couldn't provide this. I would say AO's dad was the person who steered his son to UConn and rather than owning up he misjudged that his son did not have the heart and drive JC liked in his players he blamed the coach for not developing his kid better.

 

[mauconnfan]

It's simple I think the more you think about it, he was at his best (and you can remember these moments) when he played with Kemba because he was continuously double-triple teamed. When he dropped it off to Alex Ao could bobble and still lay it in because his guy had left to stop Kemba, quite often. His hands weren't awful, they sucked. His defense wasn't bad, it was awful. He was caught back jogging many times with his guy beating him up court for a lay up, his lack of urgency noticeable often. And this was during the NC regular season, I won't even get into last season!! LOL

 

[huskypantz]

One of the best regular season/pre season tourneys wins ever for UCONN that was unexpected.

1. G'Town-Cuse I put them together. Blowin the roof off the HCC
2,Stanford (NO Rip Game) in 1999
3. Hammering UK in Maui Finals 2010-2011
4. Last Night (KO first game replacing JC and KO already being listed on the HOT SEAT of coaches)11/9/12


This is off the top of my head. I'm there are many many more. But these 4 really stand out to me.

We demolished UVA something like 70-36 on the road, they were top 20, I think that was 93-94.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

We demolished UVA something like 70-36 on the road, they were top 20, I think that was 93-94.

That's still UVA's worst home loss ever. Final was 77-36. Ray Allen had 20 points in his first game as a Husky, including two dunks that made the ESPN highlight reel that night.

 

[dapriest]

You and I were the most exacerbated of the Boneyarders with AO's repeated mistakes when he was forced to go out on the perimeter on the defensive end.

 

[ctchamps]

Thanks prof! Aggravated!!