3 Whys

[HailUConn]

3 conundrums for coaches. Before anyone reacts strongly, I firmly believe that Dan is one of best coaches if not the best, and also was in the camp understanding and supporting his choice of Samson out of loyalty.

1. Why keep starting Samson? Samson did nothing to keep the spot. He is a liability in defense and is one trick pony on the offense. Tonight Samson inexplicably played 35 minutes and Reed played 9 minutes, yielding same stats in rbs and pts. But the fouls Samson committed are momentum killers by either turnover or giving them FTs. As a senior, the foul on Wusu (6'?) tonight and foul on Ashworth with 95% FT shooter at 35 feet away are at this point just sad.
2. Why keep Mahaney experiment? Just swallow the pride and eat the crow. Every time AM on the court offense become stagnant and defense fouls piled up.
3. Why yank JStew so quickly? He actually can give us something in offense, and defense is work in progress. but should be way ahead of Ross, Mahaney. It's sickening that he gets pulled game after game even when he is red hot before a small mistake. it killed the young man's confidence. Still not sure what he did to get such treatment.

 

[jibsey]

3 conundrums for coaches. Before anyone reacts strongly, I firmly believe that Dan is one of best coaches if not the best, and also was in the camp understanding and supporting his choice of Samson out of loyalty.

1. Why keep starting Samson? Samson did nothing to keep the spot. He is a liability in defense and is one trick pony on the offense. Tonight Samson inexplicably played 35 minutes and Reed played 9 minutes, yielding same stats in rbs and pts. But the fouls Samson committed are momentum killers by either turnover or giving them FTs. As a senior, the foul on Wusu (6'?) tonight and foul on Ashworth with 95% FT shooter at 35 feet away are at this point just sad.
2. Why keep Mahaney experiment? Just swallow the pride and eat the crow. Every time AM on the court offense become stagnant and defense fouls piled up.
3. Why yank JStew so quickly? He actually can give us something in offense, and defense is work in progress. but should be way ahead of Ross, Mahaney. It's sickening that he gets pulled game after game even when he is red hot before a small mistake. it killed the young man's confidence. Still not sure what he did to get such treatment.

I think Hurley is pledged to Samson and will go down with the ship with him. He does some good things now and then but our rotation at this late stage in the season is still not set or I should say effective.
What to do? I have no idea. And I don’t get 5 million dollars to have that answer.

 

[Brochacho]

Couple of notes on Reed:

1. Samson is a better passer and understands our offense significantly better than Reed.
2. Reed is terrible in pick in roll defense.
3. Reed commits just as many dumb fouls.
4. Reed has had 0 defensive rebounds in 3 of the last 4 games. Samson isn’t the only one with rebounding issues. Reed is an elite offensive rebounder.
5. Reed is incredibly inconsistent. For better or worse, Samson is who he is. Hurley knows what to expect. You don’t with Reed.

 

[HuskyFich]

3 conundrums for coaches. Before anyone reacts strongly, I firmly believe that Dan is one of best coaches if not the best, and also was in the camp understanding and supporting his choice of Samson out of loyalty.

1. Why keep starting Samson? Samson did nothing to keep the spot. He is a liability in defense and is one trick pony on the offense. Tonight Samson inexplicably played 35 minutes and Reed played 9 minutes, yielding same stats in rbs and pts. But the fouls Samson committed are momentum killers by either turnover or giving them FTs. As a senior, the foul on Wusu (6'?) tonight and foul on Ashworth with 95% FT shooter at 35 feet away are at this point just sad.
2. Why keep Mahaney experiment? Just swallow the pride and eat the crow. Every time AM on the court offense become stagnant and defense fouls piled up.
3. Why yank JStew so quickly? He actually can give us something in offense, and defense is work in progress. but should be way ahead of Ross, Mahaney. It's sickening that he gets pulled game after game even when he is red hot before a small mistake. it killed the young man's confidence. Still not sure what he did to get such treatment.

1) Both Samson and Reed are pretty poor at being in the proper position on defense off dribble drives. Samson recovers much quicker and forces passes. If our other defenders were collapsing into the paint properly, those passes wouldn’t lead to easy layups.

2) I agree with this, but the time to experiment with freshman isn’t when we’re down 10…and unfortunately, we haven’t played well enough to give the frosh some leniency with any meaningful minutes.

3) The JStew situation aggravates me a lot too…my only reasoning for this is McNeeley and Karaban need to be on the floor as much as possible. That leaves the 2 guard the only spot JStew can plan and with Hass on the floor, you’re not putting in JStew over Ball. Unless we go small ball with Karaban at the 5 (didn’t work great last year), JStew is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but the fact that he started at the 2 yesterday when he’s theoretically out of position means Danny knows he needs to be on the floor. If we play decent enough to keep Hass on the bench yesterday…JStew was getting 25-30 minutes for sure.

 

[Spaceman213J]

Reed is foul prone at times himself. And his defense is below average. Reed is caught in no-man's land far too often.

I think going forward, we will see more of Stewart and McNeeley bringing up the ball. Also, we don't really know how healthy Nowell is. Diarra is hurting and he cannot go 40 minutes a game. Hurley would like to give him a few weeks off but the roster and schedule won't allow this right now.

Finally, who is coming out for Stewart. Is it McNeeley, Karaban or Ball. He may get a few more minutes in a big lineup when McNeeley can bring up the ball. Karaban is playing a lot of minutes, and asking him to play the C on the other team for large amounts of minutes is going to wear him down sooner.

In the end, Hurley is not giving up on the chance of a 3-peat. I think he knows that he needs Solo, Liam and AK to all be clicking and shooting well. He needs Samson Johnson and Reed Jr. to just be solid and he's trying to piece it together at PG right now. They ended up with a loss, but Hass had to be out on the floor. They didn't have any energy without him.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Reed is foul prone at times himself. And his defense is below average. Reed is caught in no-man's land far too often.

I think going forward, we will see more of Stewart and McNeeley bringing up the ball. Also, we don't really know how healthy Nowell is. Diarra is hurting and he cannot go 40 minutes a game. Hurley would like to give him a few weeks off but the roster and schedule won't allow this right now.

Finally, who is coming out for Stewart. Is it McNeeley, Karaban or Ball. He may get a few more minutes in a big lineup when McNeeley can bring up the ball. Karaban is playing a lot of minutes, and asking him to play the C on the other team for large amounts of minutes is going to wear him down sooner.

In the end, Hurley is not giving up on the chance of a 3-peat. I think he knows that he needs Solo, Liam and AK to all be clicking and shooting well. He needs Samson Johnson and Reed Jr. to just be solid and he's trying to piece it together at PG right now. They ended up with a loss, but Hass had to be out on the floor. They didn't have any energy without him.

I think you nailed it, upside highest if all hit.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

While Reed does do some things better than Johnson, anyone who doesn't understand the minutes disparity yesterday is being intellectually dishonest.

At the moment the staff has been giving quite a bit of attention to Reed as they believe he's been regressing (they may know better than any of us) with the goal being to get him as close to where they believe he can be by tournament time.

 

[InKembaITrust]

Samson and Tarris bring completely opposite production to the table. If this was science fiction, it would be ideal to just meld them into a single, fully competent player.

Samson is fantastic in pick-n-roll on def and off. Tarris is below-average in both.

Samson can't rebound to save his life. Tarris is elite.

Tarris has a post-game offensively. Samson does not.

Samson appears to be more trustworthy with his experience. Tarris is incredibly inconsistent with his trustworthiness.

The one thing they both do comparably is foul non-stop.

I'm afraid Dan Hurley is going to have to split minutes with these guys the rest of the way, cause at the end of the day, you're only putting out half of a complete player with each of them. If he can somehow teach them to bring the fouling down, there's hope. But this far into the season, it is what it is. We're going to have to find a way to live with it.

 

[auror]

3 conundrums for coaches. Before anyone reacts strongly, I firmly believe that Dan is one of best coaches if not the best, and also was in the camp understanding and supporting his choice of Samson out of loyalty.

1. Why keep starting Samson? Samson did nothing to keep the spot. He is a liability in defense and is one trick pony on the offense. Tonight Samson inexplicably played 35 minutes and Reed played 9 minutes, yielding same stats in rbs and pts. But the fouls Samson committed are momentum killers by either turnover or giving them FTs. As a senior, the foul on Wusu (6'?) tonight and foul on Ashworth with 95% FT shooter at 35 feet away are at this point just sad.

Here are the stats. These are with Diarra, Karaban, and Ball on the court + either Samson or Reed against top 80 teams in conference (Creighton x2, St. John's, Nova, Xavier x2, Butler x2). Similar sample sizes.

The defense has been similar (in different ways). But the offense is waaay, waay better with Samson in the game. And remember, this is controlled to have our 3 most frequent starters together with the center. With Samson they've shot the 3 a lot better, which is part of it (and some variance), but it is very likely they get much more open with Samson. The playbook is deeper and he sets better screens. We get more efficient shots in the paint with Samson in the game with the starters, too.

 

[boog204]

3. Why yank JStew so quickly? He actually can give us something in offense, and defense is work in progress. but should be way ahead of Ross, Mahaney. It's sickening that he gets pulled game after game even when he is red hot before a small mistake. it killed the young man's confidence. Still not sure what he did to get such treatment.

Because he is largely ineffective? He has shot the ball at an extremely high rate the last 5-6 games. But he has a habit of scoring early and that completely disappearing. And I implore you to watch him defend. He is worse than Solo at this point and his complete inability to rotate exasperates the high hedge madness. Lastly, he is the odd man out if Diarra is on the court.

Stew has some offensive talent for sure. But he disappears for the majority of the game and is a total liability defensively.

 

[lonsharkin51]

Stew has some offensive talent for sure. But he disappears for the majority of the game and is a total liability defensively.

This. He's also a turnover waiting to happen most times he touches the ball. I like Stew a lot and believe he could be really good next year. Right now, however, he's not.

 

[RuffRuff]

This. He's also a turnover waiting to happen most times he touches the ball. I like Stew a lot and believe he could be really good next year. Right now, however, he's not.

Yeah IDK. I remember a few games ago when he put it around his back 30 feet from the rim and got the ball stolen from him for a break. I believe he had 6 turnovers that game. Thats Stew in a nutshell. Whimsical, fun, has moments but then focus leafs off into the cosmos. If a baseball player he would be a full on daisy-picker. He and Tarris would be captains on the All-Wanderlust team. Both look like the real deals, just not tight upstairs.

 

[giddyup]

I’d let the $10 Million man figure it out. So far, the product is inconsistent and can down right stink at times and at other times be brilliant. Maybe that’s the best it can be. Who knows any more.

 

[alphasigko]

Samson and Tarris bring completely opposite production to the table. If this was science fiction, it would be ideal to just meld them into a single, fully competent player.

Samson is fantastic in pick-n-roll on def and off. Tarris is below-average in both.

Samson can't rebound to save his life. Tarris is elite.

Tarris has a post-game offensively. Samson does not.

Samson appears to be more trustworthy with his experience. Tarris is incredibly inconsistent with his trustworthiness.

The one thing they both do comparably is foul non-stop.

I'm afraid Dan Hurley is going to have to split minutes with these guys the rest of the way, cause at the end of the day, you're only putting out half of a complete player with each of them. If he can somehow teach them to bring the fouling down, there's hope. But this far into the season, it is what it is. We're going to have to find a way to live with it.

Or, perhaps play them on the floor together?

 

[HailUConn]

Because he is largely ineffective? He has shot the ball at an extremely high rate the last 5-6 games. But he has a habit of scoring early and that completely disappearing. And I implore you to watch him defend. He is worse than Solo at this point and his complete inability to rotate exasperates the high hedge madness. Lastly, he is the odd man out if Diarra is on the court.

Stew has some offensive talent for sure. But he disappears for the majority of the game and is a total liability defensively.

legit point. After Diarra, who do you have to put in for relieving the other starters? Stew vs AM or Ross? AM and Ross should not see the court unless Stew has foul trouble.

 

[HailUConn]

Couple of notes on Reed:

1. Samson is a better passer and understands our offense significantly better than Reed.
2. Reed is terrible in pick in roll defense.
3. Reed commits just as many dumb fouls.
4. Reed has had 0 defensive rebounds in 3 of the last 4 games. Samson isn’t the only one with rebounding issues. Reed is an elite offensive rebounder.
5. Reed is incredibly inconsistent. For better or worse, Samson is who he is. Hurley knows what to expect. You don’t with Reed.

You cannot say all these things when the minutes distribution is in huge disparity and Reed did not play with all the starters to begin with.

One thing for sure, with Samson, you know the ceiling, and time to look beyond this year if you plan to stick with Reed next year.

 

[InKembaITrust]

Or, perhaps play them on the floor together?

Completely opponent dependent. Feels like the vast majority of the time it would kill our offensive flow/spacing.

 

[UCONNFAN179]

We would be probably be a contender with that center from Yale. Where did he end up?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Here are the stats. These are with Diarra, Karaban, and Ball on the court + either Samson or Reed against top 80 teams in conference (Creighton x2, St. John's, Nova, Xavier x2, Butler x2). Similar sample sizes.

The defense has been similar (in different ways). But the offense is waaay, waay better with Samson in the game. And remember, this is controlled to have our 3 most frequent starters together with the center. With Samson they've shot the 3 a lot better, which is part of it (and some variance), but it is very likely they get much more open with Samson. The playbook is deeper and he sets better screens. We get more efficient shots in the paint with Samson in the game with the starters, too.

I think it is physically possible for Reed and Johnson to be on the court at the same time.

 

[RuffRuff]

I think it is physically possible for Reed and Johnson to be on the court at the same time.

Not happening - not sure why it comes up. Maybe if we play Michigan.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

The wat SH was clogging the middle and our inability at stretches to get someone open from three, I wanted to see a stretch or two in the second half like what we did against Creighton; AK, LM, JS up front and two of SB, HS & AM in the backcourt.

Oh well

 

[alphasigko]

We would be probably be a contender with that center from Yale. Where did he end up?

Wolfe? Michigan