Best player on this team is Donovan clingan

[HuskyHawk]

Based on what?

Footspeed mostly, he's probably the slowest UConn center since Mark Suhr, maybe Carlton. Just watch the substitution patterns. He plays limited minutes against any mobile big with an outside shot, unless Adama has to come out. The moment that guy goes to the bench they sub DC in. Then he comes back out when the other team subs their guy back, and the guys in the chat scream "why are they taking him out". I'm not arguing whether it should be that way, just that it is what the staff has been doing.

 

[Exodus]

It's Sanogo, and he's a lot better than Clingan. Hawkins could be, but he seems to lack something. Sanogo was the best player vs Seton Hall and there wasn't a close 2nd really. Doesn't mean he was anywhere near as good as he should be, but that's where we are. Newton and Hawk were the next best players last night. Beyond that, it was pretty bad. Clingan was not good on either end. Karaban was good on one end and horribly bad on the other (rebounding especially). Diarra wasn't good. Alleyne was invisible.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a player more overrated by our fans than Clingan. I think he has a nice future, but people ignore his limitations. Maybe because he's a local kid with an intriguing story.

Last night, Sanogo's +/- was -12 in 29 minutes, by far the worst on the team. Clingan's was +11, by far the BEST on the team and only played 11 minutes. I know he was in foul trouble, but the 11 minute part is still coaching malpractice.

 

[temery]

Footspeed mostly, he's probably the slowest UConn center since Mark Suhr, maybe Carlton. Just watch the substitution patterns. He plays limited minutes against any mobile big with an outside shot, unless Adama has to come out. The moment that guy goes to the bench they sub DC in. Then he comes back out when the other team subs their guy back, and the guys in the chat scream "why are they taking him out". I'm not arguing whether it should be that way, just that it is what the staff has been doing.

When was involved in tennis I was a USTA verifier. The job was to rate a player from 1 to 7 (usually 2.5 to 5+).

When training to be a verifier we watched dozens of marchers over several hours. The players on the court had years playing in adult leagues, and had a consistently solid rating.

After a few hours we all met and compared our ratings. On most courts most verifiers had person "A" as higher than person "B," mentioning footwork, serve, winners vs errors, etc.

A fair amount of the time I was asked why I disagreed, and how I came up with my rating.

"I kept track of the score, and recorded who won and who lost."

My ratings were damn close to a perfect match to each player's rating based on a computer analysis of the several dozen matched they had played.

Ultimately the bottom line is the bottom line. I don't think Clingan has been given enough minutes to draw the same conclusions you state above.

 

[CL82]

We KNOW JC would play both guys together

Do we “KNOW” that though?

Personally, I would love to see what Calhoun would do with our guards. He had an innate ability to bring out the best in people by putting them in situations where they had the skills to succeed. I don’t know what the answer is to our guard issues, with our current personnel, but I suspect Calhoun would.

 

[CL82]

"Hey Bill" defense

?

 

[CL82]

1-3-1 works when you have

Diarra
Jackson. Hawkins. Karaban
Clingan

Aren’t both of the ones typically guards in a 1-3-1?

I’ve never been a huge fan of it, except situationally, because the two “ones” burn a ton of energy in it.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Aren’t both of the ones typically guards in a 1-3-1?

I’ve never been a huge fan of it, except situationally, because the two “ones” burn a ton of energy in it.

In a press you want a big protecting the basket

 

[HuskyHawk]

?

I think it was Tommy Heinsolm who called it that. With an elite defensive center and shot blocker (Bill Russell), the perimeter guys guard tighter on the perimeter, when their man goes by them, they'd say "hey Bill" and he cleans it up and protects the rim. Works with Bill Russell. Worked with Emeka, Boone and others. Calhoun, huge Celtics fan that he was, used that to great effect at UConn, which is how we lead the country in blocks for like 7-8 years in a row.

The challenge today is that your center is probably going to have to go out to guard an opposing center than can shoot 3s. Rusell didn't have that problem. Emeka didn't have that problem. They could probably recover fast enough to still make it work most of the time. Embiid can, not many others. Few teams play that way today, and shot blocking is way down.

Suffice to say, UConn does not run that D. We do not expect the center to protect the rim against penetrating wings and guards. Instead, UConn's D has tried to cut off that penetration before it starts. So we have Donovan, well suited for that Hey Bill D, not well suited for what UConn has been running. My sense is that the team has to choose to change or not.

 

[Cobra 1]

This is not another lets start two bigs post.

I honestly dont care who starts--weve been getting off in games just fine.

But to win games you have to play your best players and donovan is our best.

He cannot be left on an island to set screens 20 feet from the post--this has caused him to get cheap quick fouls

But what he does best is defend the rim and put high force at the basket on offense.
Other teams who scout us are ready to pounce on adama(of course not his fault) and adama still makes a ton of great plays.

But adama doesnt defend the rim on defense anywhere close to DC and we are in defensive crisis mode.

To ensure DC gets 27-32 min--we DO have to play 2 big at points. Were not good enough not to play our best player as much as he can go. We CAN be another level team again if we CAN get those minutes from DC--they guy makes the team that much better.

Spot on and I will add go to
3-2 zone with both bigs in game.
Dribble drives will big men challenging
with offensive player in front of our defender rather than already finishing his cut this cutting down on fouls.

Hawkins is the best player on this team right now. Sanogo is the next best player. It's a big drop off after that. Clingan is tremendous in certain situations, but doesn't fit Hurley's defense at all and can't guard any of the mobile bigs in this league. The attempt to adapt to Clingan is part of why I think it has fallen apart. Hurley just isn't great at adapting his scheme to his players.

Agree with most of your post especially comment about Hurley not being able to adapt away from his scheme.
He already has pieces in place to rectify this current situation; but he must be flexible to change his scheme to make it work with the current players skill sets.
There have been many recommendations already posted that make plain common sense as to possible solutions to fix current problems.
Is Hurley capable to adapt?

 

[Deleted at users request]

I think one encouraging thing that came out of yesterday was seeing Newton attack more.

If this season has any chance of turning around we have to base our offense less on Sanogo and more around Newton and Hawkins. Sanogo needs to be a complementary piece who gets his baskets off screen and rolls, offensive rebounds, and the occasional post up. Having the offense center around him helps no one including himself at this point.

Newton has to take over and be the player he was at ECU. It’d be best for everyone.

Also when Joey and DC is in the game the offense needs to be about Joey. No force feeding Clingan.

 

[JT-55]

I am not on the start Clingan over Adama bandwagon but they should be much closer to splitting time 50/50 at this point

Season Stats:

Sanogo
Min 522
FTA 62
REB 135
Blks 13

Clingan:
Min: 276
FTA 53
REB 126
Blks 42

 

[2PointGuards]

100%

Amen!

 

[Matt1010]

Last night, Sanogo's +/- was -12 in 29 minutes, by far the worst on the team. Clingan's was +11, by far the BEST on the team and only played 11 minutes. I know he was in foul trouble, but the 11 minute part is still coaching malpractice.

DC needs to figure out his fouling issue quick. He had two absolutely horrible ones last night and it completely took him out of the game. He's committed 8 fouls in the last 21 minutes of game time and in conference play he's averaging 7.6 fouls/40 minutes.

 

[Scrappy3]

I should change the title of thread to most important player. That’s what I really meant. I don’t care who is better than who. But I do think it’s important to have Donovan on the floor as many minutes as he can go. I’m a believer that Adama can defend more mobile 4s or big 3s.

 

[HuskyHawk]

When was involved in tennis I was a USTA verifier. The job was to rate a player from 1 to 7 (usually 2.5 to 5+).

When training to be a verifier we watched dozens of marchers over several hours. The players on the court had years playing in adult leagues, and had a consistently solid rating.

After a few hours we all met and compared our ratings. On most courts most verifiers had person "A" as higher than person "B," mentioning footwork, serve, winners vs errors, etc.

A fair amount of the time I was asked why I disagreed, and how I came up with my rating.

"I kept track of the score, and recorded who won and who lost."

My ratings were damn close to a perfect match to each player's rating based on a computer analysis of the several dozen matched they had played.

Ultimately the bottom line is the bottom line. I don't think Clingan has been given enough minutes to draw the same conclusions you state above.

It's a Cart - Horse thing. I'm only suggesting why he hasn't been given minutes by his coaches. I believe (and as I said the substitutions back it up) that they are very concerned about his defense against centers that aren't primarily post players. Might they be wrong? I suppose, but they see him in practice. Could they alter the defense to mitigate that risk? I think they tried to and the result has been confusion among all the guys. Could we say the positives outweigh that risk and just go with it? Absolutely. So far the coaches have not done that.

It's going to be interesting, because some kind of change has to come soon.

 

[Kolumbo]

One play they passed it to Clingan at the basket and without hesitation he passed it out to the 3 point line. 7'2" with the ball at the rim.

 

[tentoes4rings]

One play they passed it to Clingan at the basket and without hesitation he passed it out to the 3 point line. 7'2" with the ball at the rim.

The way he was bricking layups last night I can see why. He had at least 3 missed bunnies, uncharacteristic.

 

[tentoes4rings]

DC needs to figure out his fouling issue quick. He had two absolutely horrible ones last night and it completely took him out of the game. He's committed 8 fouls in the last 21 minutes of game time and in conference play he's averaging 7.6 fouls/40 minutes.

Yeah. I rewatched the game today. He had that awful foul at the 3 point line and 2 other bad fouls. The team clearly plays better with him in the game, he just needs to stay on the court.