Don’t hate the defense though
Do we employ an analytics guy who actually talks to the players? It's not just Jackson, seems Newton and Hawkins also repeatedly shoot from areas where they suck and eschew the areas where they're actually effective. For instance, none of us should really have major issues with AJax taking a three from the right corner. And we should get on Hawkins for trying to shoot from the left corner.
100%. Xavier sagging off him got so much in his head. He needs to take open shots in rhythm within the flow of the offense. When he hesitates, he’s dead. He shot 36% from 3 last year! That’s very solid. He needs to remind himself of that and have an “” attitude when he’s left open and shoot without hesitation. He can make them.
It did
We were fortunate Creighton didn't exploit this more because there were a few instances where Sanogo was up high and Kalkbrenner was all by himself low in the paint and we could have been burned badly had they gotten the ball to him. Coach Hurley and company need to really take a look at this because it will cost us dearly if we don't fix it.
I saw this too. It really put Kalk in great rebound position with our center 20 feet from hoop.
How many offensive boards he have?
We’ve gone too long unable to win games because defenses are playing us 5 versus 4 and friggin AJ is shooting push shots from the foul line because three years into his UConn career he literally can’t shoot a 10 or 12 foot jump shot. Not that he can’t shoot it well enough — he literally can’t shoot it at all.
I feel a little bad for the guy because I would assume he's probably shooting decent in practice otherwise I don't think he'd get the green light in games like he does. Obviously, his mechanics are unorthodox to begin with, and then when he's in a slump like this where teams are slacking off him as a non-threat, the choice for Hurley is to either let him be strictly a facilitator/rebounder/defender or let him do those things AND trust his ability to shoot. No question his poor shooting has been a liability. It was glaringly obvious today. We'll have to see what happens with Seton Hall, but Hurley might be using a tighter leash. Today, no one shot well except for Sanogo.
Jackson needs to be cutting on offense not parked outside the arc. If he’s moving, his man will follow him or at least be forced to adapt. If you run him as a cutter, you have the option of throwing an alley oop to him.
The other guards had someone playing defense on them and shot poorly. Andre doesn’t have anyone with 10 feet of him and shot poorly. It is not the same thing.
Agreed but here’s the thing. If the only way for Jackson to play offense is to be in the low post, because until he’s there he doesn’t require being guarded, that means Sanogo is outside a lot in which case why aren’t we playing the two bigs together.
And he STILL (coach, where are you?) tries to block his opponents' threes with his highwire act.......leaving him defenseless to box out the shooter for an unimpeded path to an offensive rebound.
@Brochacho nailed it in another thread.
Normally I’d agree, but Nembhard was looking for Kalk on the hedges. It’s hard to make the pass when you have a 6’5 guy and Sanogo in front of you, compared to last year when it was 5’11 RJ Cole
1. That’s an old list
You point out the issue with our O. shooters are going to have off days. You need to have an offense when shoots aren’t falling.
This is exactly what happened in the Marquette game. Maybe it was just because of fouls but AJ was out when we were behind Late and only came back once we we ahead to close out the game
If he’s the 12th best player in college I look forward to him being a lottery pick in 2023
I’m assuming zls44 was being sarcastic. As the saying goes:Liars, damned liars, and statisticians. Nobody who has watched this team would say Jackson is one of the best players in the country.
