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Even the most conservative among us expected better this season. This season has been an unadulterated disaster from mid-January on; it feels like decades ago that I wrote a lengthy post forecasting a 15-3 conference record. That was an ambitious prediction at the time that looks stupid in hindsight. Things tumbled off the rails quickly, and now most of us sit here resigned to a fate in the NIT, an especially depressing proposition given the status of our senior captain, Ryan Boatright. I’m not going to tell you that you should be happy about any of this because of some blurry vision of the future that may or may not ever materialize.
But you can always scour the past for symbols and events that were predictive of future success, and as somebody who has posted here since the onset of the 2010-11 season, the posting patterns of our fellow fans are often the most telling signs of all. I cannot analyze fan behavior like Fleud can and I will not attempt to do so; however, what I have learned from watching UConn basketball is that the growing pains of young players are often misinterpreted as character deficiencies, and that the correctable weaknesses that permeate their games are extrapolated to career-limiting flaws.
I disagree wholeheartedly with the premise that this team is talent-deficient. If you want to compare this team to past UConn teams and make the case that Player X would have only played Y minutes on team Z, knock yourself out. To the extent that many of our current players appear microscopic in the shadow of their predecessors can be attributed in large part to the devolving nature of college basketball as a whole. Yes, the 2015 Huskies would be trampled by the 2002 Huskies and maybe even lesser UConn teams like the 2007 squad. I also think the 2004 championship team would slaughter this current Kentucky team; at the end of the day, it’s all an indictment on the state of the sport and not the current group of players.
UConn played Duke all but two months ago and outplayed them for the majority of the game. They outplayed Texas for all but the final five minutes. They beat a talented, albeit under-achieving Florida team on their home floor. This team has and can compete with the best rosters in the nation; no, we’re not as talented as Duke or Kentucky, and during years like this, we don’t have the experience to make up for it. But we’re talented enough that we can beat Duke or Kentucky next year and the year after they lose half their roster to the pros. Sometimes I think people on this board are under the impression that Okafor will be at Duke until he’s a senior.
As stated, there is no excuse for losing to Houston, there is no excuse for losing to Yale, and we really had no business losing that game yesterday, either. But holistically, what I see is a team whose struggles are consistent with other young teams – they can’t win on the road, they turn it over like the plague, and they are constantly undone by mental lapses on defense.
“But champs, some of these guys have played over 60 college games, and they still don’t get it.” Everybody does not develop at the same rate. I will admit that Purvis threatens me to explore hard drugs sometimes, but you know what? The kid competes defensively, he’s not afraid to put his body on the line when he drives it to the rim, and his shooting stroke isn’t completely irredeemable. Maybe he’ll never fulfill the McDonald’s all-American hype, but to think a kid with his athleticism can’t be, say, the fourth best player on a championship team? Short sighted, IMO.
No, Brimah is never going to be Kevin McHale. But sometimes, improving at the things you are never going to be good at is important as improving at the things you can be great at. Somebody like Brimah or Facey making the leap from “utterly abysmal passer” to “functional reading the floor and hitting the open man” could have a transformative impact on the overall efficiency of the offense, and it’s happened before. Jeff Adrien went from having 15 assists as a freshman to 60 as a senior. As of now, teams are trapping Boatright on high ball screens. But what if to negate that, Boatright could loft it to Facey, who puts it on the floor and fires it to the weak side before the defense can recover? He can’t do that now, but if he could, our offense could improve dramatically.
It isn’t that our players are bad, it’s that their skill sets have not evolved to fit the team. Doing such is a process that takes time, and it can be accelerated by the addition of a graduate transfer who not so much impresses individually but enables those around him to flourish. Daniel Hamilton is an offseason away from becoming the best player in the AAC; if you want a comparison, look at the season DeAndre Bembry is having for St. Joes. Brimah is the sort of player who can anchor a defense when his basketball acumen catches up to his physical gifts; given his passion for the game, I see no reason that does not happen soon. Those two – Hamilton and Brimah – are legitimate cornerstones.
The rest of this season will play out in one of two ways: we’ll either win the AAC Tournament and bow out shortly thereafter in the NCAA Tournament, or we’ll lose in the AAC Tournament and make a run in the NIT. If you think the former is a pipe dream, consider: for all our flaws, we’ve only lost one conference game at home (and that was sans Boat in the second half). Think we’ve gotten a bad whistle this season? It’s hard not to envision that changing behind a Husky crowd trying to will their team to the tournament and a league that wouldn’t mind sending another team to the tournament. The NIT would be a valuable experience for the players; a potential additional few games for kids like Brimah and Hamilton would only serve to provide them a head start on their offseason transformation.
Boatright’s exit is sure to temper the expectations of fans heading into next season, and that is fine. But Jalen Adams is among the best guard prospects in his class, and even though he will not be nearly the player Boatright is as a freshman, he figures to at the very least serve as a useful piece who can space the floor and initiate the offense.
The bottom line is that we are seeing a healthier circulation of talent than we grew used to during the era of recruiting restrictions (the Calhoun retirement didn’t help). Every player in the starting lineup will be either an NBA prospect or a highly coveted recruit. And while it’s true that most of these players can only be classified as prospects at the current juncture, this program has always excelled in making those players closer to a finished product by the time they leave campus. Last night was another frustrating step in that process, yet one that yielded hope – Brimah produced 19 and 12 against a legitimate front line, Hamilton dominated, and we were one shot from playing an overtime despite Memphis shooting at an abnormal clip and our best player being off.
Final note: many on this board have insisted that this team does not play as hard as they could. Those claims are not unfounded. However, as many great players will tell you, most young teams don’t fully understand how hard they have to play to be great. I get the sense that, minus Boatright, that holds true for this team. They don’t display any toxic habits; they’re generally pretty committed to on-ball defense, they usually crash the glass hard, and they seem to be invested in the process of winning. What they will learn, though, is that whereas you can get away with taking a play off here and there at the high school level, you can’t here. They’re going to get there.
But you can always scour the past for symbols and events that were predictive of future success, and as somebody who has posted here since the onset of the 2010-11 season, the posting patterns of our fellow fans are often the most telling signs of all. I cannot analyze fan behavior like Fleud can and I will not attempt to do so; however, what I have learned from watching UConn basketball is that the growing pains of young players are often misinterpreted as character deficiencies, and that the correctable weaknesses that permeate their games are extrapolated to career-limiting flaws.
I disagree wholeheartedly with the premise that this team is talent-deficient. If you want to compare this team to past UConn teams and make the case that Player X would have only played Y minutes on team Z, knock yourself out. To the extent that many of our current players appear microscopic in the shadow of their predecessors can be attributed in large part to the devolving nature of college basketball as a whole. Yes, the 2015 Huskies would be trampled by the 2002 Huskies and maybe even lesser UConn teams like the 2007 squad. I also think the 2004 championship team would slaughter this current Kentucky team; at the end of the day, it’s all an indictment on the state of the sport and not the current group of players.
UConn played Duke all but two months ago and outplayed them for the majority of the game. They outplayed Texas for all but the final five minutes. They beat a talented, albeit under-achieving Florida team on their home floor. This team has and can compete with the best rosters in the nation; no, we’re not as talented as Duke or Kentucky, and during years like this, we don’t have the experience to make up for it. But we’re talented enough that we can beat Duke or Kentucky next year and the year after they lose half their roster to the pros. Sometimes I think people on this board are under the impression that Okafor will be at Duke until he’s a senior.
As stated, there is no excuse for losing to Houston, there is no excuse for losing to Yale, and we really had no business losing that game yesterday, either. But holistically, what I see is a team whose struggles are consistent with other young teams – they can’t win on the road, they turn it over like the plague, and they are constantly undone by mental lapses on defense.
“But champs, some of these guys have played over 60 college games, and they still don’t get it.” Everybody does not develop at the same rate. I will admit that Purvis threatens me to explore hard drugs sometimes, but you know what? The kid competes defensively, he’s not afraid to put his body on the line when he drives it to the rim, and his shooting stroke isn’t completely irredeemable. Maybe he’ll never fulfill the McDonald’s all-American hype, but to think a kid with his athleticism can’t be, say, the fourth best player on a championship team? Short sighted, IMO.
No, Brimah is never going to be Kevin McHale. But sometimes, improving at the things you are never going to be good at is important as improving at the things you can be great at. Somebody like Brimah or Facey making the leap from “utterly abysmal passer” to “functional reading the floor and hitting the open man” could have a transformative impact on the overall efficiency of the offense, and it’s happened before. Jeff Adrien went from having 15 assists as a freshman to 60 as a senior. As of now, teams are trapping Boatright on high ball screens. But what if to negate that, Boatright could loft it to Facey, who puts it on the floor and fires it to the weak side before the defense can recover? He can’t do that now, but if he could, our offense could improve dramatically.
It isn’t that our players are bad, it’s that their skill sets have not evolved to fit the team. Doing such is a process that takes time, and it can be accelerated by the addition of a graduate transfer who not so much impresses individually but enables those around him to flourish. Daniel Hamilton is an offseason away from becoming the best player in the AAC; if you want a comparison, look at the season DeAndre Bembry is having for St. Joes. Brimah is the sort of player who can anchor a defense when his basketball acumen catches up to his physical gifts; given his passion for the game, I see no reason that does not happen soon. Those two – Hamilton and Brimah – are legitimate cornerstones.
The rest of this season will play out in one of two ways: we’ll either win the AAC Tournament and bow out shortly thereafter in the NCAA Tournament, or we’ll lose in the AAC Tournament and make a run in the NIT. If you think the former is a pipe dream, consider: for all our flaws, we’ve only lost one conference game at home (and that was sans Boat in the second half). Think we’ve gotten a bad whistle this season? It’s hard not to envision that changing behind a Husky crowd trying to will their team to the tournament and a league that wouldn’t mind sending another team to the tournament. The NIT would be a valuable experience for the players; a potential additional few games for kids like Brimah and Hamilton would only serve to provide them a head start on their offseason transformation.
Boatright’s exit is sure to temper the expectations of fans heading into next season, and that is fine. But Jalen Adams is among the best guard prospects in his class, and even though he will not be nearly the player Boatright is as a freshman, he figures to at the very least serve as a useful piece who can space the floor and initiate the offense.
The bottom line is that we are seeing a healthier circulation of talent than we grew used to during the era of recruiting restrictions (the Calhoun retirement didn’t help). Every player in the starting lineup will be either an NBA prospect or a highly coveted recruit. And while it’s true that most of these players can only be classified as prospects at the current juncture, this program has always excelled in making those players closer to a finished product by the time they leave campus. Last night was another frustrating step in that process, yet one that yielded hope – Brimah produced 19 and 12 against a legitimate front line, Hamilton dominated, and we were one shot from playing an overtime despite Memphis shooting at an abnormal clip and our best player being off.
Final note: many on this board have insisted that this team does not play as hard as they could. Those claims are not unfounded. However, as many great players will tell you, most young teams don’t fully understand how hard they have to play to be great. I get the sense that, minus Boatright, that holds true for this team. They don’t display any toxic habits; they’re generally pretty committed to on-ball defense, they usually crash the glass hard, and they seem to be invested in the process of winning. What they will learn, though, is that whereas you can get away with taking a play off here and there at the high school level, you can’t here. They’re going to get there.
