Chief’s Briefs - Butler Edition

[gtcam]

It was a win and that is the most important point but after the fiasco what was Saturday, much more was expected from this UConn team last night. I am thankful for the W but not with the team effort.
The officiating continues to be suspect at best and horrible as a norm.
Butler was scoring using penetration and dishing off assists at will in the 1st half. What happened to the UConn defense?
Why has this UConn squad decided that dribble penetration to draw contact, a pocket pass or better yet a lay-up to be taboo? Is UConn now a predominately 3 point shooting team?
Read had another game of effective scoring and passing out when playing smart basketball and deciding to dribble the ball into that black hole when not. First team NBE candidates need to be a lot more consistent.
Stewart can't continue to play with zero results.
Ball should be driving the ball more with pull-up midrange shots which he can excel in doing but his scoring was a blessing last night.
Did Alex play on the floor in the 1st half?
Playing Smith, J Ross and Stewart together is an offensive disaster waiting to occur.
BM was pumped to play in front of family and friends but unfortunately for him too many of his missed 3s were in and out - he could have easily scored 30 points if those shots dropped. UConn still needs to set up plays for him. We know he can drive to the hoop but he doesn't touch the ball enough.
I enjoyed Dan Hurley's post game on court interview and his insight of Coach Matta and watching the 2 of them sharing laughs and most likely mutual ref bashing.
Again, far from pretty but a win is a win and that is what UConn needs to do to get one of the 1 seeds.

 

[Chief00]

When Solo and Braylon are cooking from beyond the arc in the same game, we'll be hard to beat.

True, but as a team we need more awareness of time and place to give ball to a teammate for non rushed shots in the flow of the game. Every player is different what the best success scenario is.

 

[Chief00]

It was a win and that is the most important point but after the fiasco what was Saturday, much more was expected from this UConn team last night. I am thankful for the W but not with the team effort.
The officiating continues to be suspect at best and horrible as a norm.
Butler was scoring using penetration and dishing off assists at will in the 1st half. What happened to the UConn defense?
Why has this UConn squad decided that dribble penetration to draw contact, a pocket pass or better yet a lay-up to be taboo? Is UConn now a predominately 3 point shooting team?
Read had another game of effective scoring and passing out when playing smart basketball and deciding to dribble the ball into that black hole when not. First team NBE candidates need to be a lot more consistent.
Stewart can't continue to play with zero results.
Ball should be driving the ball more with pull-up midrange shots which he can excel in doing but his scoring was a blessing last night.
Did Alex play on the floor in the 1st half?
Playing Smith, J Ross and Stewart together is an offensive disaster waiting to occur.
BM was pumped to play in front of family and friends but unfortunately for him too many of his missed 3s were in and out - he could have easily scored 30 points if those shots dropped. UConn still needs to set up plays for him. We know he can drive to the hoop but he doesn't touch the ball enough.
I enjoyed Dan Hurley's post game on court interview and his insight of Coach Matta and watching the 2 of them sharing laughs and most likely mutual ref bashing.
Again, far from pretty but a win is a win and that is what UConn needs to do to get one of the 1 seeds.

I agree with your observations. We have a tendency to settle for rushed 3’s even in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock. I will always have a bias towards running off a rebound or turnover - the opportunities are better.
Give Reed credit for improving on what he needed to improve on - now he must continue that trend.

 

[UConniki]

Someone in another thread mentioned Reed being a black hole (not necessarily disagreeing) but last night he was not.

Someone also mentioned Ball and Mullins not meshing well - I saw a few plays in a row where they assisted the other for an open 3 - at least last night, they broke that narrative.

Just thought I'd point those things out - I thought they were important points of the game. Our guys are looking for the open man and the best shot.

I think Reed had 7 rebounds. Either way he played an all around great game including foul shots made.

 

[Scottobot]

Ball (24 pts), Reed (16 pts) and Mullins (15 points) were our fire power. Demery (11 pts) had 10 assists with just 2 turnovers, after the sloppy 9 turnovers against St John’s.

A big improvement from recent games was Reed going 4-5 from FT. Another gain was 7 assists by Reed. Maybe the beginning of an inside/out game? Again, Reed and Reibe gave us a 70% FG result from our center position. While Reibe gave us only 2 points, he did contribute 2 rebounds/2 assist. However, the big picture is Reibe needs to assert himself more.

Ross and Stewart combined for just 3 points in 23 minutes and just 1 rebound. We need more weakside rebounding prescence but the high hedge defense often puts us out of position to do that. Karaban was quiet but did not force anything with his 3-6 FG attempts made.

We had 7 more rebounds and 1 more assist than Butler but they shot 46%, five percent less than UConn but too good for us to dominant. Butler had 78% more free throws than us (9 to 16) but some how the officiating seemed relatively fair or am I just getting used to the absurd? Last game they gave our opponent twice as many foul shots (31).

What we need to do to improve:
1) We are being grabbed and pushed throughout our offensive sets both with the ball and away from the ball. I suggest a ball handler or cutter when grabbed slap the offending hand/arm to draw attention. We may get a foul called but it is very effective drawing attention onto the fact that we are being grabbed and if the refs don’t want the game tensions to escalate, they need to call the grabbing. Larry Bird and DJ use to do it occasionally and it often achieved the desired result.
2) Regardless of how one feels about the high hedge our Big East opponents have scouted it and now have been exploiting it. This results in an offensive mismatch, less rebounding dominance by us and fouls. Our Bigs should not be beyond the 3pt line at minimum. Additionally, as much as I don’t usually like zones, it is time to switch into one for a series of possessions a couple times a game to screw up the opponents solution in their scouting report. They are now getting too many mismatches with our center covering a guard and our guards covering their center for the rest of the possession.
We may find this will help our defensive rebounding too. A good time to do it would be when Stewart is in the game.

what is UConn getting from the high hedge? It without question blows up on them sometimes. If they didn’t do it could they be better? Cardio is not Reed’s strength. Maybe also this hedging on defense is tiring him.

 

[Scottobot]

Stew has to be a starter next year, I mean who else is starting?

The spot is his if he earns it. If he can average 4-5 rebounds per game this year will get it. If he continues to get 1-2 rebounds per game, I think Hurley will go to the portal. There is absolutely no reason why Stew can’t grab some boards. The teams needs it. He should be able to do it, and if he can’t he is letting team down and won’t get that spot.

 

[RuffRuff]

what is UConn getting from the high hedge? It without question blows up on them sometimes. If they didn’t do it could they be better? Cardio is not Reed’s strength. Maybe also this hedging on defense is tiring him.

Say what you want about Tarris, but he is the 10th highest rated defender in Maya's efficiency rankings. Goes to show you how much a quality 5 is massive in having a great defense. The entire top 11 list here is big's.

 

[RuffRuff]

The spot is his if he earns it. If he can average 4-5 rebounds per game this year will get it. If he continues to get 1-2 rebounds per game, I think Hurley will go to the portal. There is absolutely no reason why Stew can’t grab some boards. The teams needs it. He should be able to do it, and if he can’t he is letting team down and won’t get that spot.

He's got 1/3 of a season off the bench left to prove it? I think the staff knows what he is at this point.

 

[Chief00]

Love all of this.
1) Yes, slap hands away and add some drama like Kemba did (throw your head back to show you're being fouled) - I used to hand check during UConn intramurals and when good players would slap it away, I'd do it way less.
2) Stay close to home when hedging and for stretches, no high hedge. Time to mix in a little zone. Zuby, Jones, that guy Duke are all exploiting our paint. Keep em away and force their weaker shooters to force a shot.

Exactly.

 

[Chin Diesel]

View attachment 117009
Say what you want about Tarris, but he is the 10th highest rated defender in Maya's efficiency rankings. Goes to show you how much a quality 5 is massive in having a great defense. The entire top 11 list here is big's.

Conversely, it shows the bias of the person creating the metrics and value of a category.

 

[ArizonaHsky]

Stew has to be a starter next year, I mean who else is starting?

If Stewart is starting, we are in trouble. We can get portal guys.

 

[ArizonaHsky]

The spot is his if he earns it. If he can average 4-5 rebounds per game this year will get it. If he continues to get 1-2 rebounds per game, I think Hurley will go to the portal. There is absolutely no reason why Stew can’t grab some boards. The teams needs it. He should be able to do it, and if he can’t he is letting team down and won’t get that spot.

I mean I will say it, Stewart is soft.

 

[Chief00]

what is UConn getting from the high hedge? It without question blows up on them sometimes. If they didn’t do it could they be better? Cardio is not Reed’s strength. Maybe also this hedging on defense is tiring him.

When we aggressively extend it towards halfcourt for no apparent upside, since a center will seldomly be successful covering a guard 25 to 45 feet from the basket, we start the chain reactions of mismatches for us closer to our defensive basket.

I'll bet you a nickel we don't play zone or stop high hedging

i doubt that we will too but think we should. I am not a zone guy but it has its place at, especially when it’s clear our Big East opponents in some cases have found high hedge vulnerabilities they are clearly exploiting.
I favor a straight fight through screens man to man base defense that results in better defensive matchups and less resulting fouls. The high hedge has not passed the eye test and leaves us in bad rebounding position with too many fouls. But how can you box out from 24 feet from the hoop?

 

[CL82]

Well, let me just throw this in here.

 

[Umami Zen]

Pitino is crushin' it with the refs this year.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Well, let me just throw this in here.

I just spent a good 30 seconds trying to figure out whose logo is the cross with light blue circle around it in the way top right. 😂 Been quite a week…

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

An obvious typo, but you clearly understood my argument. So it couldn’t have been that bad.

So long as you're working on improving your writing, no problem.

So what is your opinion of Ross and Stewart as players?

I think they have been poorly utilized in the past two games, after the team had 2 consecutive comfortable wins with the full 9-player rotation available.

Yes, it's mid-February, and the team is still not settled into itself on both offense & defense.

I attribute this to coaching more than the players at this point, because I accept that there will be no adds or changes to the roster this season.

Please provide data to support your position.

Not relevant to my stated opinion, and you completely ignored my pending questions.

My wish is that the players are physically healthy, well-motivated, communicating with each other, and that the coaching staff has confidence in itself & the players, and the players have confidence in themselves.

The shortened bench use is itself a "hedge" that has produced end-of-game victories, but has lowered expectations of the team's highest ceiling. What's been missing has been identified & discussed, and it's time to build out team performance that will be required to maximize the team's upcoming tests. Every top team is engaged in the same exercise.

 

[Karmacop]

Honest question:

Has Hurley EVER employed a zone defense in his tenure here?

 

[CL82]

Pitino is crushin' it with the refs this year.

Well, he's been in the business for a while, and probably resorted to his default tools of persuasion...

 

[CL82]

Honest question:

Has Hurley EVER employed a zone defense in his tenure here?

Yes

 

[jibsey]

I just spent a good 30 seconds trying to figure out whose logo is the cross with light blue circle around it in the way top right. 😂 Been quite a week…

Unbelievable to see it.

 

[Chief00]

Well, let me just throw this in here.

For a team that is positive against their opponent in nearly every metric, often by a lot, being behind in FT attempts by 23% or 104 foul shots, is a 5 alarm fire.

 

[Scottobot]

I mean I will say it, Stewart is soft.

To be honest I don’t see Stewart improving his rebounding and if he doesn’t, he is not going to start next year. Hurley has called in him to grab those defensive boards, and if Stewart can’t do it he has no one but himself to blame. On the other hard if Stewart starts grabbing 4 contested boards in traffic I think everyone’s opinion of him would greatly improve.

 

[ArizonaHsky]

To be honest I don’t see Stewart improving his rebounding and if he doesn’t, he is not going to start next year. Hurley has called in him to grab those defensive boards, and if Stewart can’t do it he has no one but himself to blame. On the other hard if Stewart starts grabbing 4 contested boards in traffic I think everyone’s opinion of him would greatly improve.

I just dont see that happening. I dont mean to pile on the guy because he can shoot. He is one of many college basketball players that are not physical and unfortunately on this team we need him to rebound. Ross and Stewart comparison is interesting. I like Ross a little better because he is way more energetic out there which means he can influence more plays. I do not like when Ross and Stewart are out there together. That is a recipe for disaster

 

[Chief00]

Unbelievable to see it.

Interesting, the “experts” who minimize the unfair fouls against us, write it off as u taking 104 more 3 pt attempts and hence less likely to draw fouls. But, after you subtract that out we took 16 more 2 point FG attempts.
1479 UConn FGA-1359 Opponent FGA =120-104 (UConn more 3 attempts) =‘16 more UConn 2pt FGA.