Chief’s Briefs - Creighton Edition

[uconnfan68]

You're right. All the computer systems who see him and compare him to the 2300+ players in college basketball and 362 other teams must be wrong. Its all a big coincidence.

The reason I defer to statistics is because this sport is so dang big that NOBODY watches everyone. Most folks only watch their own teams. The computers don't. They look at everyone.

All you need to do is watch the last game. Or the Xavier game. He wouldn't start for my UConn freshman intramural team based on his offense.

 

[JohnFSilver]

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.

I agree with BL. Have Jackson, essentially, be the 5 man on offense. Sanogo a face up 4. Just invert the offense. I actually like sanogo off the dribble. I wish he was a better passer, but, to be frank, that is asking a lot from a player who didn’t grow up playing hoops.

Passing and court vision can’t be developed. It comes from experience and seeing the game and knowing angles, instinctively.

 

[storrsroars]

All you need to do is watch the last game. Or the Xavier game. He wouldn't start for my UConn freshman intramural team based on his offense.

Except that he could dunk at will against your freshmen intramural team...

 

[connVA]

I have the same opinion: you can't win a big game when you are playing 5 vs. 4 on offence. Jackson can shoot free throws. He has to at a minimum take the ball to the hoop and try to force a layup, otherwise, you just bring him in on defense.

In theory a good idea. The only problem is that the defender sagging off of him by 15 feet also has 15 feet to set up to take the charge.

 

[Rich]

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.

AJ is an athlete, not a basketball player. His game specific skills are atrocious.

How people view him as an NBA prospect is completely beyond me. Should gain 30 pounds and suit up as a TE on the football team, you ask me.

 

[Bootsy]

By this logic, DC comes in for Jackson and you get two bigs in there too

I agree with BL. Have Jackson, essentially, be the 5 man on offense. Sanogo a face up 4. Just invert the offense. I actually like sanogo off the dribble. I wish he was a better passer, but, to be frank, that is asking a lot from a player who didn’t grow up playing hoops.

 

[imno1]

I agree with BL. Have Jackson, essentially, be the 5 man on offense. Sanogo a face up 4. Just invert the offense. I actually like sanogo off the dribble. I wish he was a better passer, but, to be frank, that is asking a lot from a player who didn’t grow up playing hoops.

Passing and court vision can’t be developed. It comes from experience and seeing the game and knowing angles, instinctively.

if you are going to do that play Donovan at the 5, Adama at the 4 and figure out a defense with the 2 bigs on the court at the same time. I’d like to see some run with Clingan, Sanogo, Newton, Hawkins and Calcaterra.

 

[pj]

All you need to do is watch the last game. Or the Xavier game. He wouldn't start for my UConn freshman intramural team based on his offense.

He would score 40 a game on your freshman intramural team.

Andre is a great piece whose problem is he's a jigsaw puzzle piece that only fits with certain other pieces, and if he's not fitting he's a detriment.

It's up to the coach to put him in the right spot with the right teammates on the floor with him.

 

[alphasigko]

Our offense yesterday was the same as I all of our loses: weave and force the ball into AS where he is doubled and either loses the ball when he dribble before a shot or puts up a prayer that has perhaps a 50% chance of going in. It is so predictable and every opponent expects and propares for it.

IMO it's time to start the game with the double BIG and use SJ to spell AS and DC alternately so they can catch their breath. Also start AK, JH and TN with AJ coming off the bench to to rest AK and either DC or AS. But the double BIG needs to be played more than not.

 

[fatlucy]

AJ is an athlete, not a basketball player. His game specific skills are atrocious.

How people view him as an NBA prospect is completely beyond me. Should gain 30 pounds and suit up as a TE on the football team, you ask me.

I think he’s more of a wide out. He’s so fast and no one will out jump him.

 

[Giddyup5]

In theory a good idea. The only problem is that the defender sagging off of him by 15 feet also has 15 feet to set up to take the charge.

I can recall 2 charges all year on Jackson. At this point I would beg and plead jackson to get 2 charges a game. At least that means he is attacking and looking for contact. Some of the calls would go his way.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

aaaannnnddd here we are! (part deux deux)
back in the hot summer, it was offered here that
'give me these six players, and i'll win a dang first round game.'
not a soul responded. the six, newt, hawk, adama, donno, alex, and ajax,
with ajax being the superest sixth man on the planet. notice that no one else is mentioned, not wall man, and not the flotsam of other than mr triple double, some kind of record for him here iirc, transfers (never saw danny screwing up his game coming...).
i don't blame ajax for the loss. his inability to put the biscuit in the basket was also pointed out three years ago, but we can't talk aboot why it was soo obvious. it gives 'experts' the madds.
no, not the players -the coach as he is in charge of mixing up the mess.
the coach. recently, as a possible explanation why the 'great recruiter' (alleyene? diarra? joey? replacing 23-2 jalen, #5 d board and overall #10 board guy for the league cook, and manly man corey- say whaaat?) is laying an egg, i realized that his brain is stuck in hs, as in his dad. any toddler familiar with hs ball knows that if, for whatever reasons, a hs gets branded as the place to be (as common a phenomena across the land as air), then the coach can sit back and win all the time by simply having better talent. ergo, 'danny the recruiter.' not really hard when u have a top brand like UConn to start with. not hard at all.
it's what he grew up with.
up the food chain in hoops, it becomes much, much, different, and the coaching is no longer 'roll the ball out there, then make dinner plans.'
danny specifically brought tris here to run the show, good move, but back in early October, danny started sending public messages on tris 'well, u know, mebbe yes, mebbe no, we'll see...' what?!?! 'were u lying then, or are u lying now?' mismanagement.
danny also regaled us with tales of ajax the point, of course heading to the nba. why would any plan have him so far from the boards, a place where his talent is soo dang obvious? mismanagement.
donno. donno? donno. coaching malpractice. more mismanagement.

mid feb, around .500 in league, extraordinarily frustrating. a lot of the squad is on all-everything lists. we have the horses to be tops, but the management is lousy. he pulled tris at crunch time! insane.
mebbe danny will get off the couch from his specifically mentioned 'fetal position,' and wake the heck up.
the clock on this season, where the field is el stinko, also pointed out looong ago, is too full of opportunity to casually just explain failure away. the six are top quality players.
even a toddler can see this.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

i really, really enjoy the group of new and newer posters, many with awesome names. just don't tell hans that many also just pop in to toss a brick at the danny pom poms crowd. good for traffic, too, so there's that.
the pom pomers used to be much larger -the foolish fifteen in my book. now, it's down to around five.
enlightenment, i guess.

 

[Rich]

I think he’s more of a wide out. He’s so fast and no one will out jump him.

I'll take it. Just get him off the court.

 

[M.S.G.]

A lot of good points in here, a lot of hot takes as well..

I'm at the end of my rope with Jackson, obviously he's one of our most important players but he's so deep within this funk that he's hurting us as much as he's helping us and I don't know the answer. I just don't. I hope the kid can figure it out, get out of his own head but ugh..

One of the bigger issues during our slump was the man to man defense. I think the attention to detail has returned. The past few weeks the defense has been more or less excellent. I thought that Jackson was elite defensively, and the effort expended was outstanding.

It all comes down to live ball turnovers. Just too many and too many long jumpers vs. rim attacks. The coach said it himself in a timeout, they're taking the shots we want them to take.. That along with turnovers was the issue yesterday.

This team still has a chance to get back to that level of basketball we played in Oregon, we're really not that far away from it. Just hope everyone keeps their head, conference schedule is a GRIND.

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

if you are going to do that play Donovan at the 5, Adama at the 4 and figure out a defense with the 2 bigs on the court at the same time. I’d like to see some run with Clingan, Sanogo, Newton, Hawkins and Calcaterra.

How could anyone want joey on the court over alex ? Or anyone for that matter. He has been terrible since gtown 1

 

[gsmooth]

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.

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.

We don’t. That’s a major problem.

If we have to shot 50% from 3 in order to win we aren’t going very far in March

Exactly. What is the Plan B and Plan C?

 

[gsmooth]

All the chatter from opposing fans, opposing benches, and our own fanbase has gotten to Jackson’s head. He’s rattled. Doesn’t know if he’s supposed to shoot or not when he has twenty feet of space. I am sure he thinks he can make it at decent rate but he’s worried about the downside if he misses.

It’s impacting his passing, his fouling, his dribbling too. Has the yips. I think he needs just play the role of intermittent defensive hustle off the bench until the hysteria dies down and teams stop game planning around him in our starting five. His play and the scheme to hang back from him was a main reason we lost yesterday.

This explains Andre’s head space perfectly. It is why now and in the last 2 years he forces tough passes because the last thing in the world he wants to do when he is near the basket, but not in position to dunk, is to shoot.
Dre contributes a lot to this team and should play between 15-25 min a game depending on the game flow. Yesterday I wanted Alleyne subbed back in the game around the 8 min mark when it was clear Creighton was tired and the game was ripe for the taking.
Dre coming off the bench would help him out more and the team. Give some of his minutes to Alleyne and Clingan. Alleyne’s defense was very good yesterday and good all year-UConn does not drop off much if at all defensively when replaces AJax. And Clingan has to be in the game depending on game flow. He was playing fairly well yesterda. The home game against Xavier, I would agree his limited minutes were warranted as he didn’t play well.

 

[businesslawyer]

Jackson’s problems is pretty complex I think. i don’t think he knows how to shoot a jumper. That push shot he uses from 8 feet and out looks like it came from a 1940 game film or a 5th grade game.

But people being surprised with his play is strange too. This has been his game since he first put on a UConn uniform. Teams have been daring him to shoot since the end of his freshman year. They’ve just gotten less worried about him the more they know him.

We shouldn’t be surprised that an NBA level athlete comes in without a jump shoot and in three years he hasn’t been coached up to where he can shoot jumpers from the foul line and the elbow? Sorry, those are shots you can teach middle schoolers to make. Saying you can’t teach him to be a good shooter — o.k. Saying you can’t put that shot in his arsenal in three years? That’s on both him and his coaches, but there is no reason to think that he shouldn’t have been forced to develop that shot by now.

 

[fatlucy]

We shouldn’t be surprised that an NBA level athlete comes in without a jump shoot and in three years he hasn’t been coached up to where he can shoot jumpers from the foul line and the elbow? Sorry, those are shots you can teach middle schoolers to make. Saying you can’t teach him to be a good shooter — o.k. Saying you can’t put that shot in his arsenal in three years? That’s on both him and his coaches, but there is no reason to think that he shouldn’t have been forced to develop that shot by now.

So they can teach Sonogo to reliably hit threes but they slacked off on Jackson. Must be the case, terrible coaching staff.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

I agree with BL. Have Jackson, essentially, be the 5 man on offense. Sanogo a face up 4. Just invert the offense. I actually like sanogo off the dribble. I wish he was a better passer, but, to be frank, that is asking a lot from a player who didn’t grow up playing hoops.

Passing and court vision can’t be developed. It comes from experience and seeing the game and knowing angles, instinctively.

To Sanogo’s credit, he has made LEAPS recently as a passer where he is now capable. I wouldn’t call him a liability passing the ball with how he’s progressed there. Have to give him credit there because we (myself included) were on him hard for it.

 

[PAHusky]

You're right. That list is ancient. It dates back 40 minutes.

I’m looking at the list now and he’s nowhere on it, same as yesterday. Getting it from here - EvanMiya CBB Analytics Sorry if I’m looking in the wrong spot

 

[uconnfan68]

Except that he could dunk at will against your freshmen intramural team...

Can he? Off the dribble? In traffic?

I know he can dribble and dunk on fast breaks. I know he can catch and dunk under the basket. Can he do anything else? If not, why?

 

[freescooter]

He would score 40 a game on your freshman intramural team.

Andre is a great piece whose problem is he's a jigsaw puzzle piece that only fits with certain other pieces, and if he's not fitting he's a detriment.

It's up to the coach to put him in the right spot with the right teammates on the floor with him.

Or put a piece that fits the rest of the puzzle.