I'm afraid to read all of these. Here's my take on the game and team:
Although it was a win it felt like a loss. If it wasn't for Butler shooting poorly from the charity stripe it would have been a loss.
Why can't they run more stuff for Ball. He should be running around screens till his feet blister and taking twice the number of 3s he's jacking up,at least till McNeeley returns. He's been an offensive bright spot for this team all season. As for the other end of the floor...that's noted later in this post.
This team doesn't have the blood in the water killer instincts to take a moderate lead and blow the game wide open. They always seem to let teams right back into the game where it's a nail biter to the finish line. And why do they always seem to close the first half so poorly?
Alex had a nice bounce back game. He stuffed the box score with a lot of points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals. He was relentless tonight. Didn't get to the line much, though nor did his teammates which brings me to my next point.
I'm not sure if it's a lack of driving it hard to the basket hunting contact or just not getting calls. I thinks it's a lot of the first part of that statement and a little bit of the second part. Although they don't seem to have many players who are good at it, I still think they could be much better attacking the basket.
Lately they seem to be missing a lot of makable layups and shots near the basket. They need to be better and should be.
Rebounding consistently continues to be a problem. Yet another area they should be better at.
Hass is playing too many minutes and either will wear down or already is starting to. He really struggled with his shot tonight. And he should not be the player taking the shot with the shot clock running down. I'm fine a couple times a game but not nearly the amount we're witnessing. As noted above, why they're not running Ball relentlessly around screens and getting him the ball more often for a catch and shoot 3 or curl into the paint midrange shot is a frickin mystery to me.
Reed Jr played better than he has recently, but it felt like a quiet 14 points. Coming out of the Xavier game he looked automatic in the paint and a force to be reckoned with who was just going to get better and better, but since then his game had been on the decline. Again, maybe McNeeley's absence has had its impact on Reed as it has on the others.
Lastly, though should probably been listed much higher, this might be the worst UConn team I've ever seen at trying to stop dribble penetration and unable to stop fouling. The amount of points they give up off dribble penetration and the foul shot differential is staggeringly alarming.
We all know that McNeeley returning makes this team a lot better, and can't come soon enough, but a lot needs to be cleaned up and improvement realized for this team to have any shot at 3-peating or even making it to the Final-4. In fact, adresssing a lot of the above is needed if they want to make it beyond the first week of the tournament. They're playing themselves into a more difficult seeding where they're likely facing a really tough round of 32 team. I hope they finish strong and secure at least a number 4 seed. If that's the case then much improvement will have been realized.
This team is a head scratcher. At times they look great while many stretches they look horrible. I'm hopeful they'll figure it out.
