Brief thoughts

[champs99and04]

• As much as I'd like to believe the officiating cost us the game, I left Gampel tonight thinking the better team won. Louisville outplayed us by a very wide margin in the front court, and Harrell ate us alive. When you're a -15 on the boards, you aren't going to live to tell about it very often. This was a winnable game, and despite the officiating aiding the Louisville cause, I'm disappointed we didn't execute better on both ends.
• That officiating did suck though. Giffey obviously got fouled, and while I can sort of justify the first technical on Ollie (he was begging for it), the second technical was just brutal. As an official, you need to have the smallest ego on the floor, not the biggest. If you can't handle coaches letting you have it after a missed call, you need to go into another field. Thick skin is a prerequisite to officiating, and it's a shame that an official decided to take a great game between two teams and make himself the story.
• Didn't love the substitution patterns. My dislike for the two foul rule has been well documented, and I really do not think yanking Daniels from the game after he picked up his second foul did anybody any good. He's been somewhat of an emotionally fragile player during his time here, and I didn't think he played with near the same aggression in the second half after his prolonged benching. Additionally, he was sorely missed in our attack of the zone in the first half, because we didn't have a pick and pop threat or anybody to lob it to in the middle. For whatever reason, Ollie played much more two big lineups than he has at any point all season. I didn't like it. One more thing: why in the world are you taking Shabazz out of the game, down ten, with 4:34 to play? I know he picked up his fourth foul. Who cares? You're in survival mode at that point, and you don't get to carry the fouls over to the next game. If he fouls out, so be it, we desperately needed him on offense and we blew a couple chances to cut into the lead with him on the bench.
• Despite my minor beefs with the coaching, you're not going to beat good teams when you have one player that plays well. Shabazz was great. Kromah, Boat, and Giff were ok. Tyler did about all we can expect of him at this point, and Amida is obviously not somebody you can count on at this point. Daniels was the guy that needed to play well tonight and it just didn't happen. It's tough to be too disappointed after his great Memphis game Thursday, but we need to get to the point where DeAndre's "bad game" is 12 points and 7 rebounds instead of 3 and 4 on 1-9 from the field. He's simply too talented to still be having these sort of games at this point in his career.
• At some point, you just have to concede that Louisville has our number. They've won seven of their last eight against us and a mind-blowing four straight in Connecticut (with three of them coming in Gampel). them, and I can't wait for another crack at them later in the season.
• Last thing: as much as tonight sucked, most of us probably would have signed up for 1-1 at the beginning of the week. Louisville is a very good team and they wouldn't have lost to many teams with the way they played tonight. Gotta give them credit. The next six games see us play Temple, @ Rutgers, Houston, @ Cincy, @ UCF, and USF. 5-1 needs to be the expectation here. I think we're safely in the tournament, but there isn't so much breathing room that we can be fooling around with the likes of Rutgers and South Florida. Can't let the Louisville loss linger, now is the point in the season that the focus needs to be intensified. Tuesday is gonna be here before long. Go Huskies.

 

[DreamSeason]

Your spot on. We just cannot beat top tier teams with DD playing like that. If we had the Daniels from the Memphis game this could have looked a whole lot different.

 

[djct1999]

that call absolutely changed everything about the game. it was potentially a 7 point swing. that made a uconn run go from unlikely to impossible. that call ended the game. if giffey hit the three foul shots, we have no idea what would happen next. at that point, i still felt uconn had a run in them. after that call, i went to bed.

 

[BoatShow]

Yeah I couldn't believe Bazz got taken out and how long it took him to come back in. Let's not forget that was Miller and not KO though. Gotta trust your All American senior in that situation.

The no call and T's were bad but the overall inconsistency was astounding. They'd let maulings at the rim go but called every hand check and any sort of contact on rebounds. I think Bazz's 4th foul may have been the worst call. Had his guy completely boxed out who then climbed over his back and when Bazz touched his arm going for the ball. Boom foul on the best player in the conference.

Watching the OSU KU game earlier in the day the refs did an outstanding job of calling an extremely physical and chippy game. AAC refs are the worst.

 

[Calhoun's Court]

Yeah I couldn't believe Bazz got taken out and how long it took him to come back in. Let's not forget that was Miller and not KO though. Gotta trust your All American senior in that situation.

The no call and T's were bad but the overall inconsistency was astounding. They'd let maulings at the rim go but called every hand check and any sort of contact on rebounds. I think Bazz's 4th foul may have been the worst call. Had his guy completely boxed out who then climbed over his back and when Bazz touched his arm going for the ball. Boom foul on the best player in the conference.

Watching the OSU KU game earlier in the day the refs did an outstanding job of calling an extremely physical and chippy game. AAC refs are the worst.

Totally agree about Bazz.

If we are going down I want him on the court to the end. We had no shot to make a serious run with him sitting on the bench.

 

[upstater]

It puzzles me that some of you are emphasizing how much we are outplayed in the frontcourt. I wasn't expecting anything else. This has gone on for 2 years now. It's our 3 guards that carry this team. I don't expect a much improved performance against UL in the last game of the regular season, but I think they can win that game even without much improvement. The big factor, IMO, will be improved defensive play from Daniels and even foul calling for the refs. That alone would even up the game.

 

[champs99and04]

that call absolutely changed everything about the game. it was potentially a 7 point swing. that made a uconn run go from unlikely to impossible. that call ended the game. if giffey hit the three foul shots, we have no idea what would happen next. at that point, i still felt uconn had a run in them. after that call, i went to bed.

That was huge, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But to me, the game turned earlier in the half. UConn went on a quick 6-0 to begin the half, the crowd was going nuts, and we had all the momentum. Then, Pitino called a timeout, and Louisville responded with an 11-0 run to go up 45-34, which saw UConn commit an abundance of errors on both ends.

Now, it is a game of runs...and the officiating debacle took the game from what likely would have been a seven point Louisville lead to a 13 point Louisville lead. That's an enormous difference at that point in the game. But I'm more disappointed that we ever got down double digits to begin with.

 

[champs99and04]

It puzzles me that some of you are emphasizing how much we are outplayed in the frontcourt. I wasn't expecting anything else. This has gone on for 2 years now. It's our 3 guards that carry this team. I don't expect a much improved performance against UL in the last game of the regular season, but I think they can win that game even without much improvement. The big factor, IMO, will be improved defensive play from Daniels and even foul calling for the refs. That alone would even up the game.

When I say frontcourt, I'm including Daniels in that discussion, as well as Giffey (as he plays the four a lot). Did you expect Daniels to play that poorly? Did you expect Harrell to put 18 and 13 on us? The frontcourt isn't the strength of the team by any means, but I certainly don't expect them to get trampled like that.

 

[Horatio]

Watching the game it seemed liked Kromah should've had more of OC's
minutes. That game may have been OC's low point of the year. He dribbled and that's it. Clearly something's wrong and I hope he gets past it.

 

[Danzz]

When I say frontcourt, I'm including Daniels in that discussion, as well as Giffey (as he plays the four a lot). Did you expect Daniels to play that poorly? Did you expect Harrell to put 18 and 13 on us? The frontcourt isn't the strength of the team by any means, but I certainly don't expect them to get trampled like that.

We will never be an outstanding rebounding team with this group but if we can close the rebound margin some, we'll be fine. Louisville just kicked our butts on the boards. We weren't even getting rebounds when we were in good position and boxing out.

 

[upstater]

When I say frontcourt, I'm including Daniels in that discussion, as well as Giffey (as he plays the four a lot). Did you expect Daniels to play that poorly? Did you expect Harrell to put 18 and 13 on us? The frontcourt isn't the strength of the team by any means, but I certainly don't expect them to get trampled like that.

Harrell, yeah. He's their best player

 

[David 76]

Our front court was over the top at UCF and came back a bit with Memphis. I never expected Brimah to go 20 and 8, but I did/do think he is improving (Nolan too). Last night was back to square 1. But I think progress doesn't go in a straight line. But our 5 and 4 cost us the game. The possibly 5 point (not 7, we know the result of those 4 free throws) abomination aside, we couldn't rebound or score inside
But I see them (Brimah & Nolan) as an improving work in progress.

I think DD is a different story. He is someone who often plays w/o intensity and his potential is mostly meaningless. Play eratic for 2.5 years, then I think that is who he is. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see him being a star. Just a guy with potential who occassionaly shows what he "could" do,

Unless he goes to Europe, he will be back next year. Thank God we will have Daniels to check in when DD checks out.

 

[caw]

A few things:

- Daniels shot poorly, but 4 boards in the second half wasn't bad.

- UL is about the same level as UConn. As good as they are on the glass, UConn is shooting.

- Harrell hit two jumpers (something he has done rarely), he also got some lucky rolls on some tough shots.

- Reffing maybe didn't cost UConn the game but it moved a game from difficult to impossible. UConn would have had it to a one or two possession game at the end, at the worst (IMO).

 

[Gurleyman]

The two techs also moved them into the bonus, so the immediate soft hand check on Bazz 10 seconds later gave them two foul shots when it would have only been sideline our of bounds for our sixth foul. At that point, the lead is 13, whereas if Giff makes all 3, it would have been 6.