Chief’s Brief - Creighton Edition | The Boneyard

Chief’s Brief - Creighton Edition

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While others including our coaches worried about some fan or empty seat before the game, I worried about our team and ref James Breeding. We loss by 7 and they were 27-32 FT compared to us at 11-18 or 14 more FT attempts (78% greater) and 16 more conversions. True a couple intentional fouls at the end but the damage was done.

When they drove and receive even minor contact, they went to the line. Nothing short of an NFL tackle contact sent us to the line with Breeding’s crew. Mullins took 22 shots including many drives /mid range and went to the line once (1) after he was grabbed and pushed throughout nearly every possession.

On Creighton, Green was 0-7 FG but 8-10 FT, Zuric 4-7 FG & 6-8 FT, Harper 3-3 FG & 4-4,FT. Not one UConn player had more FT attempts than FGA.

In fact, we had had 18 FTA to 71 FGA or 25% compared to Creighton 32 FTA to 55 FGA or 58%. That was the hill too big to climb. I do think our fans instead of doing stupid stuff with banana customs need to react to bad calls much more. And our players need to slap their opponent’s hands or arms when being grabbed continuously with no calls.

What do we need to do to be better:

1) Only 5 turnovers tonight and we need that improvement to continue. We made 13 points off TO’s compared to 4. Demary had 9 assists to 1 turnover.

2) We can’t stop drivers. We don’t seem to have enough athleticism to do that. Solution, we need more rim protection by playing Reibe and Reed together and trash the high hedge that makes our players look loss being caught in between. Creighton beat our shooting % anyways (49% to 44% FG) and (48% to 37% 3PT). It is clear coaching staffs like Creighton’s now have scouting reports that destroy our high hedge.

3) We no longer dominate in rebounding and the solution to #2, playing Reed/Reibe together 10-15 minutes a games should help. We got out rebounded by Creighton 41-35, a team with no real center. This would also give us weakside rebounding. And we need to flip the page big time on the high hedge disaster.

4) Yes!!!!! Practice foul shooting more. At lunch, at midnight or whenever. We don’t get a lot of attempts but shooting 61% FT doesn’t work when Creighton shot 84%.

5) Alex was 1-2 from 2pt and 0-4 from 3pt. We are a paradox, an assist driven offense with patience yet Alex, Ball and Mullins all take some very quick, very deep threes. If you have the hot hand and are feeling it ok - but let’s not start the game that way.
 
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It's mid February, this is our Tournament team.

Can't expect significant improvements, just playing harder and playing with purpose.

Just saying it's now about effort and UConn pride. Too late to fix anything major.

We're still good but our A game is now required to win games.
 
This team can be much better with some tweaks. The high hedge is awful. Keep Tarris down low protecting the rim. Same with Reibe. As Chief said, try them together occasionally, if only briefly to the change the flow of the game when needed. Play off your man on the perimeter an extra foot to limit blow byes.

On offense, keep feeding Reed. We are way better when he’s involved. I think part of Tarris’ problem is he gets a few buckets, we look like we know what we’re doing and then the chucking starts and he gets lost. Keep running offense through the post to keep the defense honest.

Lastly, Chief is right on the fouls. We may very well look like a different team in the tourney, as we did in 23’ and 24’, because we get a fair whistle. I felt Solo, Silas and Braylon all got fouled many times last night.

Hurley may want to start talking about it and setting the tone now. “I’m looking forward to the NCAA’s whether it’s as a 2 seed or a 4 seed. We tend to get more balanced games than we do in our league as far as free throws are concerned. Maybe our motion offense is a little bit more appreciated nationally than it is in the grab and hold Big East. The results speak for themselves.”
 
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Chief - The reason we got out rebounded tonight was we missed way more shots than they did.
Playing Reibe and Reed together would not help Rim protection because one of them would be out on the perimeter trying to play defense which would make our perimeter defense even worse. If you want to improve rim protection we can’t have bad defenders trying to pick up their guy tight way above the 3pt line
 
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karaban disappears too much. He can be fantastic, clutch and the glue guy every program loves to have. But- He cannot be relied on as a consistent go to guy. .. Too often he just isnt anything at all. Six shots and four rebounds… he just didnt participate on offense or defense. Is he too deferential at times? The dude can so most anything. Just do more of it
 
karaban disappears too much. He can be fantastic, clutch and the glue guy every program loves to have. But- He cannot be relied on as a consistent go to guy. .. Too often he just isnt anything at all. Six shots and four rebounds… he just didnt participate on offense or defense. Is he too deferential at times? The dude can so most anything. Just do more of it
He’s not healthy. Hurley questioned whether he should have played in his presser. Stat line gives the answer
 
It's mid February, this is our Tournament team.

Can't expect significant improvements, just playing harder and playing with purpose.

Just saying it's now about effort and UConn pride. Too late to fix anything major.

We're still good but our A game is now required to win games.
That’s what we have been trying to do - play harder. Granted, it may be too late, but we need to change some things to get different outcomes. I think our players look worned out - so this play harder stuff won’t work.
 
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Chief - The reason we got out rebounded tonight was we missed way more shots than they did.
Playing Reibe and Reed together would not help Rim protection because one of them would be out on the perimeter trying to play defense which would make our perimeter defense even worse. If you want to improve rim protection we can’t have bad defenders trying to pick up their guy tight way above the 3pt line
Not if we deep six the high hedge, and now is the time to do that. We have too many guys in no man’s land now. We are not beating by athleticism - so maybe protecting the paint and the end of drives - is the way to go.
 
The D is a funny thing - had wondered for much of the early season how we were registering so high given we had generally had the same group of players. It's kind of rearing it's head now as a Creighton team of all teams drove past us all night.
 
I love Hurley and think his half court offense is genius. We run better sets than anyone in the country. That said I feel like he has fallen in love with the half court offense too much. It puts too much pressure on our team to be perfect every time down. We have good athletes and yet we walk the ball up the court. This team has to get out on the fast break which will lead to easy baskets. We have to work too hard. It reminds me of a football team that tries to control the clock and the running game gaining 3 to 4 yards a play. While this will generate alot of first downs it also means you have to be perfect for 20 play drives to score which just seems to difficult. I agree with trying to play 2 bigs to at least see if we can rebound better and maybe get out on the break a little more.
 
Creighton had the plan to attack our defenders and the refs rewarded them. We do not get the same whistle on our drives. Same thing in the St Johns game. I too think the team looks tired right now. Silas and Braylon are the only 2 players that seem to have the energy. Hurley has not made adjustments to teams attacking our defense. We got shredded.
 
I think the problem is every player on the team has gotten progressively worse as the season progressed versus better, especially Stewart. I have no idea why Silas, Ross and Smith are not shooting the three-pointer more when they have a very high percentage, versus having Ball throwing the ball up every single possession he gets because he gets the green light when the other players don't, even when he's having a off night.

REMEBER THOUGH: they won the title after dropping all those losses in January. So we can complain all we want, but Hurley will find a way.
 
My basic solutions...

AK needs to sit a game. Start Ross and go small. Nova starts Brennan with a 6-8, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. It's basically a wash. AK hopefully gets healthier for when we need his size more against SJU.

Stop high hedge and forcing rotations and switches. Teams know that we auto-switch most of the time and then expose the mismatches, and our rotations were putrid last night.

Tell our defenders to just take one step back on the perimeter. Hopefully, it gives them the space they need to not get beaten off the dribble every freaking time.

Make a concerted effort to go inside to Tarris over and over. Let him draw doubles and move the ball. I feel like we go for long stretches where Tarris' role is to set high screens and initiate hand-offs.

We were straight awful last night. But we're not an awful team, and I truly believe we can beat anyone in the country. One of DHs best moments was making some major changes going into the 23 tourney. Moving Ajax to the baseline and changing some defensive principles. He has to make some changes as our issues are being exposed. But I really think some of the issues can be tweaked to be less fatal.
 
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The D is a funny thing - had wondered for much of the early season how we were registering so high given we had generally had the same group of players. It's kind of rearing it's head now as a Creighton team of all teams drove past us all night.
We always need to remember within a league the opposing coaches have built their scouting reports over things like the high hedge over a few years. That look no longer works against their countersteps. We now need to adjust to continue to be successful. Reibe is the guy to go with in a double big role. Our opponents would have to go back to the drawing board.
Telling players to play harder after you been doing that with this group since early summer is useless. Many are nursing injuries from playing harder as it is.
 
My basic solutions...

AK needs to sit a game. Start Ross and go small. Nova starts Brennan with a 6-8, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. It's basically a wash. AK hopefully gets healthier for when we need his size more against SJU.

Stop high hedge and forcing rotations and switches. Teams know that we auto-switch most of the time and then expose the mismatches, and our rotations were putrid last night.

Tell our defenders to just take one step back on the perimeter. Hopefully, it gives them the space they need to not get beaten off the dribble every freaking time.

Make a concerted effort to go inside to Tarris over and over. Let him draw doubles and move the ball. I feel like we go for long stretches where Tarris' role is to set high screens and initiate hand-offs.

We were straight awful last night. But we're not an awful team, and I truly believe we can beat anyone in the country. One of DHs best moments was making some major changes going into the 23 tourney. Moving Ajax to the baseline and changing some defensive principles. He has to make some changes as our issues are being exposed. But I really think some of the issues can be tweaked to be less fatal.
Some good suggestions.
 
I love Hurley and think his half court offense is genius. We run better sets than anyone in the country. That said I feel like he has fallen in love with the half court offense too much. It puts too much pressure on our team to be perfect every time down. We have good athletes and yet we walk the ball up the court. This team has to get out on the fast break which will lead to easy baskets. We have to work too hard. It reminds me of a football team that tries to control the clock and the running game gaining 3 to 4 yards a play. While this will generate alot of first downs it also means you have to be perfect for 20 play drives to score which just seems to difficult. I agree with trying to play 2 bigs to at least see if we can rebound better and maybe get out on the break a little more.
Running the break off a rebound or turnover should always be the first option until it’s stopped. Too often we don’t do that, but instead go to the Euro ball half court sets.
 
Creighton is one of the worst teams in creating turnovers
I'm sure that's true but many of our turnovers have been unforced and due to sloppy passes and ball-handling, so I'll take the 5 TO's as one of the few positives from this game and hope it's the start of a trend.
 
We always need to remember within a league the opposing coaches have built their scouting reports over things like the high hedge over a few years. That look no longer works against their countersteps. We now need to adjust to continue to be successful. Reibe is the guy to go with in a double big role. Our opponents would have to go back to the drawing board.
Telling players to play harder after you been doing that with this group since early summer is useless. Many are nursing injuries from playing harder as it is.

The double big thing makes little sense to me. Most teams run a stretch four and neither Reibe nor Reed move well enough to guard on the perimeter without fouling. And despite the belief he can shoot, Reibe is 4/13 from 3 and is shooting 49% from the line. So not sure how having another big out there with our stretch 4 sets will help at all.

If I’m an opposing coach, I love the idea of Reibe bein out there on the perimeter. It clogs things up
 
The double big thing makes little sense to me. Most teams run a stretch four and neither Reibe nor Reed move well enough to guard on the perimeter without fouling. And despite the belief he can shoot, Reibe is 4/13 from 3 and is shooting 49% from the line. So not sure how having another big out there with our stretch 4 sets will help at all.

If I’m an opposing coach, I love the idea of Reibe bein out there on the perimeter. It clogs things up
If you go 2 bigs, one has to be mobile. This seems to be May's secret sauce. Goldin and Wolf (mobile) last year, Mara and Johnson (mobile), this year. I'd expect May to continue with that template, as it's working. If he had better guard play last year, they could have been dangerous.

We've been sitting on 4 years of AK here, so not sure what Hurley's plan is next. He seems subscribed to the EuroBall spacing concept with a stretch at the 4, which the game seems to have caught up to. The fact he was going after Pierce tells me he's still thinking along these lines - which is boring as heck. Reibe/Pierce FC would have been dreadfully unexciting. I'd personally rather see some size/strength there next go. We need an athlete with some size next to Reibe.
 
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If you go 2 bigs, one has to be mobile. This seems to be May's secret sauce. Goldin and Wolf (mobile) last year, Mara and Johnson (mobile), this year. I'd expect May to continue with that template, as it's working. If he had better guard play last year, they could have been dangerous.
Exactly. The double big with Samson as your other guy would’ve worked. But Reibe and Reed would be an issue on both sides of the ball, imo.
 

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