Chief’s Briefs - Marquette Edition | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Chief’s Briefs - Marquette Edition

InKembaITrust said:
Great game. Thought Hurley coached his butt off.

Prosper defended the heck out of Hawkins. Have to give him credit.

Too many times we left the corner three wide open. Also had a few bonehead miscommunications on pick and roles that left the 3 wide open.

AJ on Kolek early in the game seems like a good strategic call on paper, but I don't like putting AJ on a team's primary ball-handler. This is what got him in foul trouble early and removed him from what he's best at; defensive rebounding into an immediate fast break.

Adama did not play any defense in the first half and some of the 2nd half. It looked like he was trying to avoid fouling at all costs. Soft defensive performance by him.

Overall, great game. Great performance by our bench. Unfortunately, when AJs in that much foul trouble and Hawkins can't find a rhythm it'll be hard to win against the best teams in the country.
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You expect your best defensive player to play defense without fouling. 5 fouls in 15 mins is on him.
 
Palatine said:
Really? You really believe that about Hurley? It's insanity.
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I do. Warm seat doesn’t mean fire. I think he’s the guy for the team, he’s shown annual improvement, multiple tournament appearances, and is bringing us our best recruiting class in a long time that should keep us nationally relevant for years to come. I have full faith in Hurley. I think the sweet 16 is our floor this year

But 3-3 BET and 0-3 NCAATs would mean a warm seat. I don’t think it’ll happen, but it’s my position if it does
 
Palatine said:
Really? You really believe that about Hurley? It's insanity.
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I think the Hurley question can be answered empirically next week. There’s people on both sides of the debate. It’s year 5 and while the team ostensibly gets better, there have been no results whatsoever yet, so we’ll see.
 
GHSWolverines said:
The loss stings but...
1) We lost to a very good team who has a good chance of being a 2 seed.
2) Lost by 2 and had the ball on the last possession.
3) the bench stepped up

What hurt was
1) JH and AJ were no shows. It's no secret JH is every opponents goal to stop. JH imo lacks maturity. He easily takes himself out of the game when things are not going well for himself. AJ needs to learn how to channel his energy.
2) poor foul shooting. Even though he was 3-4 from the line, DC needs to work on his foul shooting. He will be on the line a lot.
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AJ played poorly. Didn’t shoot when he should have, and did when he shouldn’t have. Cheap fouls took him right out of the game. When he finally gets to the point where he plays within himself, we’ll be ok. Shooting remains a mystery for a few guys. Has to be a better scheme.

And lastly… why come out so flat? Did they expect another 15 point win? They totally got outworked.
 
DMIL said:
This loss feels too familiar. UCONN fumbled so many opportunities to take over this game. They were certainly out of sync and their defensive effort was inconsistent.

Against the #6 team and the Big East regular season champions they came out flat defensively and played loosing basketball ultimately. The most frustrating thing is that we've had a couple of teams over the last few years that were good enough to win the BET.

AJ and Hawk was the ultimate difference in this loss here in addition to the missed free throws, and a shaky defensive effort.

Dan Hurley's own list is shrinking as it relates to the team goals. A National Championship is all that is left. Let's see if we can get at least 3 wins in the NCAA tournament. The team is good enough. A 3 to 4 seed seems about right for this squad. Let's hope that Hawks and AJ's disappearing act lights a fire in them for the NCAAs.

My Saturday schedule just freed up a bit unfortunately.
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Agreed, but there is no 'lighting the fire under them' due to a no-show today. At this point, they are who they are. They can be brilliant, but also inconsequential.
 
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One last thought before I cry myself to sleep. So much for all the algorithms that say we are a top ten team. Thank goodness AI has not reached singularity. It still can’t find a formula that measures heart and grit and clutch. We missed four very good looks at the end of the game. The algorithms are wrong Marquette, Xavier and probably Creighton all have more of what math can’t measure than we do. And what math can’t measure is how human beings will respond when under pressure. It thinks it can but it cannot. 2.5 hours later and I am still disappointed.
 
August_West said:
The defense was mind blowingly bad, it’s was bad enough thinking we were getting killed on pick and pops, but 1/2 way through the game I realized they weren’t even setting picks. Just replacements , and we were still chasing ball with both players!
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The first 5 minutes of the 2nd half cost us the game. Zero defense. 6-6 with Three 3s, 3 uncontested layups topped off by AS fouling a 3 point shooter in the corner. 18 points in less than 5 minutes.

AS was good scoring the ball and rebounding but his defense was atrocious.
 
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I’m sorry but was this really said???
 
I wrote in the chat that with about 5 minutes left we had about two minutes to make our stand and grab the lead to throw the pressure back on Marquette. We could never quite get over the hump. Hard to win a game when the 2G and SF, supposed to be your top players, put in their worst performances.
 
sdglast said:
Honestly, I thought Marquette play a terrific game, got ridiculous 3 point shooting from a 38% 3 point shooter off the bench (4-5), played very physical defense, got dreadful games from Hawkins (give Marquette credit for physical D on him) and Jackson, and still barely hung on to win. I really didn't have an issue with Hurley tonight. I though him going to the zone was a good job. I agree with a poster that I would have gone back to man when Marquette had the 3 players on the bench, but in the end, UConn had some open looks that didn't fall. Let's be honest, if Kolek played tonight like Hawkins did, Marquette would have gotten blown out. That's what happens when your stud no shows in a game. That and Jackson playing dreadful were killers.
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Exactly. Again we play. C type game and lose to the 1 seed #6 team who will get a 2 in the dance. With the coach, player, and 6 man if the year. We lost by 2. Remember what Louisville did to us in 14? It was the final though.
 
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DMIL said:
This loss feels too familiar. UCONN fumbled so many opportunities to take over this game. They were certainly out of sync and their defensive effort was inconsistent.

Against the #6 team and the Big East regular season champions they came out flat defensively and played loosing basketball ultimately. The most frustrating thing is that we've had a couple of teams over the last few years that were good enough to win the BET.

AJ and Hawk was the ultimate difference in this loss here in addition to the missed free throws, and a shaky defensive effort.

Dan Hurley's own list is shrinking as it relates to the team goals. A National Championship is all that is left. Let's see if we can get at least 3 wins in the NCAA tournament. The team is good enough. A 3 to 4 seed seems about right for this squad. Let's hope that Hawks and AJ's disappearing act lights a fire in them for the NCAAs.

My Saturday schedule just freed up a bit unfortunately.
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This one actually felt different for me. The other ones felt like TOs and fouls cost UConn the game. Tonight it was shooting. Still fumbled opportunities but it wasn't the same IMO. Before it was literally throwing the ball away, tonight was just missing shots.
 
REB1094 said:
I’m fine with the 5th year senior veteran sharpshooter taking shots to end the game. 3 wide open looks for Joey C (I’m considering the pull-up 3 after 5 seconds as an open shot). 0 points to show for it

We gave ourselves multiple chances to win and threw them all away. If we live and die by the 3, they better go in next week. Otherwise Hurley’s seat is going to start getting warm

Clingan and Karaban are going to be BE 1st team players by junior year

Hawkins needs a strong revenge game next week. When I say needs, I mean needs.

There’s going to be a poor 13 seed stepping on the floor with us next week. I hope we come out and eat them alive, run them out of the gym, and end the game after 10 minutes
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Just another dumb statement. “Gave ourselves a chance to win” … “3 wide open looks” … yet you want to put Hurley on the hot seat. This is the reason blogs shouldn’t be allowed. Gives people like you a forum to produce horrible opinions. Hurley can’t make those shots. Like how can you honestly put those sentences together and think it makes sense?
 
They shot well, including two absolutely fortuitous hoops. We didn't make shots we could make. Their defense was good, they made free throws and we didn’t

We were on the short end of a really competitive game

We're on to Albany
 
gsmooth said:
This drove me crazy. Simple assignment defense was missing
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A lot of angry chatter between the players and bad body language on all of those missed assignments (Sanogo throwing his arms up in the air in frustration, etc., etc.). Four defenders guarding three shooters on one side of the arc while paying zero attention to the fact that there was a single defender trying to guard two shooters on the opposite side, inevitably leading to a Marquette player basically taking a practice 3 from the corner. Repeatedly. From what I could tell, a lot of that ire seemed to be directed at Newton.
 
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August_West said:
The defense was mind blowingly bad, it’s was bad enough thinking we were getting killed on pick and pops, but 1/2 way through the game I realized they weren’t even setting picks. Just replacements , and we were still chasing ball with both players!
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It was actually a fantastic play call by Shaka. Only ran it twice and it worked fantastically. Got Sanogo once and Karaban once. IIRC both were not run by Kolek. Just completely slipped the screen and took advantage of the hedge. They ran a similar play at the beginning of the game with their center diving to the rim

I like the high hedge against some teams, but with a passing team like Marquette it's not a good option. Killed UConn with those three plays.

Oddly think their center getting in foul trouble hurt UConn. He couldn't guard Sanogo, but he also isn't a three point threat. They got at least three open threes with their small lineup.
 
Palatine said:
Joey took shots because he wasn't afraid.

We have a good team but not a clutch team. No one WANTED the last shot. It was forced on Hawkins.
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I don't know if no one wanted the last shot. From my vantage point they seemed to lack a sense of urgency on that last possession as if they didn't know how little time was on the clock. There was ample opportunity to get a good shot off and maybe get fouled, but alas it didn't happen. That was a real headscratcher for me.
 
Chief00 said:
Not normally an issue in our Big East play but poor foul shooting in a close game hurt us today, 60% doesn’t cut it in post season.

We did not seem to know our identity today. Our star Hawkins turned down shots and Joey C coming off the bench took the key shots at closing time. No knock on Joey but Adama, Hawkins and Karaban should take most of the key shots at closing time.

Our defense seemed poorly prepared and made bad choices. We left shooters open and we played left handlers as if they were right handlers.

I thought Clingan played well and our team suffered when he came out. Adama played well and tonight would have been a perfect double big night but we were not prepared to do it.

I thought we had learned that Andre would start the game by letting the game come to him on offense. Today he took a different approach and that led an Un-Andre type game that led to foul trouble and him being a non factor in the facets of the game he normally stars in.

One thing we limited was turnovers (9) but our offense seemed out of synced the entire night despite some good performances.

Our bench played well. Clingan, Alleyne and Joey over-all played well and totaled 25 points.

It was a winnable game that we did not win. Give Marquette credit for battling and hitting 3’s from downtown. We did lead the rebounding battle by 10, but they made 4 more threes and in a close game that made
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As usual good analysis by Chief.
If we shoot 12-15 from FT we win.
Despite Hawkins having an unusual bad shooting night, and meltdown by Andre we still had 3 or 4 wide open 3s in last 2 minutes that would have won the game.
The loss highlighted the one weakness of this team which is the lack of a player that can find a way to score when nothing is working. I don’t understand why Hawkins can not use how tight teams play him to pump fake and draw fouls. Hawkins needs to get crafty at getting to FT line. Fake a 3, duck under the guy and draw a foul.
Karaban is the least tight player at crunch time. They need to run more plays get him shots at crunch time.
Clingan was on a roll in second half, why did Hurley pull him?
Especially with Andre in foul trouble.
Andre needs to attack rim for his points. I don’t like him as the passer out on perimeter even though it works sometimes. He needs to be on the baseline because it pulls the defense into him to block him dunking, which opens up the outside shot for the teams best shooters. Go inside to Andre and let him pass back out to shooter.
It seems like we regressed to January where Andre was PG hanging out on perimeter and not dunking the ball. It doesn’t work. Every time he dunks, he fires himself up and defense elevates to new level. Every time he misses a 3 he gets depressed and defense sucks. Get that man some dunks and we could win a championship.

UConn is the more talented of these 2 teams, yet we lost 2 out of 3.
 
I also think that Marquette doing full court pressure on Newton bringing the ball up the court led to Andre being assistant PG and hanging out on perimeter rather than in his “dunkers spot”. The pressure on the ball forced Andre out of position and that messed up our entire offense.
 
Recurring theme losing again close
Don't know why Hurley is adverse playing 2 bigs.
The guards and Jackson got destroyed.
Sanogo should be playing more than 30 minutes in these type of games.

Bad coaching down the stretch - the last 2:14.
 
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REB1094 said:
I do. Warm seat doesn’t mean fire. I think he’s the guy for the team, he’s shown annual improvement, multiple tournament appearances, and is bringing us our best recruiting class in a long time that should keep us nationally relevant for years to come. I have full faith in Hurley. I think the sweet 16 is our floor this year

But 3-3 BET and 0-3 NCAATs would mean a warm seat. I don’t think it’ll happen, but it’s my position if it does
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That's entirely fair and reasonable imo
 
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There was a part of me that thought double bigs while playing 3-2 zone would have been interesting.

A lot of reasons why we lost but IMO the biggest was Marquette made wide (wide) open shots when they had them. We didn’t.

Newton seemed to be trying to get to the hoop but it’s tough to make shots when you have the ball in one hand and a defender grabbing onto the other without a foul call.

Some of Hurley’s in game decisions are questionable historically but last night was on the players. Ya gotta perform on the big stage. Hawk must have enjoyed NYC a little too much Thursday night.

I’m not going to harp on it but the reffing this year as been pi$$ poor. As in the worst I’ve ever seen in my 40+ years. Newt and Adama get mauled whenever they have the ball in their hands. If you want to “let them play”, fine but don’t call ticky tack stuff at one point of the game then let them mug each other at other points. Be consistent. Hopefully when we get to the NCAA tourney, things improve on that front. (*Says he won’t harp on it but then harps on it.)

I’m not as bearish (for all you fellow stock traders) on Hurley as some. The eye test tells me we’re improving every year despite some maddening losses. He has a top 3(?) recruiting class incoming. Next year should be really interesting if the recruiting experts got it right, but I’m still hopeful that we can make some noise in the next few weeks. Hopefully last night was a wake up call that you can’t have mental breakdowns in March. Teams will make you pay….
Onward.
 
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This team looked like the indecisive bunch from the last 10 minutes of the PC game, just with a different type of boneheaded play from the day prior. Just a shame they wasted a great offensive performance from the bench. I agree with @Chief00 on foul shooting. It’s so critical in the postseason. The ‘14 team proved that. When Newton missed the front end of the 1-and-1, I had a really bad feeling about the effect on the outcome of the game, even though many minutes remained.

Andre’s play killed this team last night. There’s no denying it. Newton was getting mugged half the game, but there were moments he literally played like he was out to lunch. What sticks in my mind the most is the fact that Karaban simply isn’t getting enough shots. He scored 10 points on five shots. Despite the BS on this board about his lack of athleticism, this guy will go down as a complete scorer when his UConn career ends. The last few games, he had hit clutch shots with time running out in the half. It’s mind boggling that guys didn’t find him at the end of the game AND Hurley didn’t call a time out to run a play for him on that last possession.

Missed opportunity to grab a better seed, but I’m not dwelling on it. Onto next week, where I expect better results than our last two NCAA tournament appearances.
 
Why didn't AJ back down and abuse Kolek at the rim whenever he guarded him? That was an exploitation opportunity if we ever had one.
 
karstenkibbe said:
The last few games, he had hit clutch shots with time running out in the half. It’s mind boggling that guys didn’t find him at the end of the game AND Hurley didn’t call a time out to run a play for him on that last possession.
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Exactly
karstenkibbe said:
Onto next week, where I expect better results than our last two NCAA tournament appearances.
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Can’t do worse
 
August_West said:
The defense was mind blowingly bad, it’s was bad enough thinking we were getting killed on pick and pops, but 1/2 way through the game I realized they weren’t even setting picks. Just replacements , and we were still chasing ball with both players!
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Good point, as bad as our shooting was late in the game, we lost this one on defense throughout. On how many of their made threes did we have two guys on someone, while leaving a better shooter open? But, also give Marquette credit, they made a few 25 foot type shots, even contested ones.

The lefties on Marquette also messed us up. We did not seem to make that adjustment.

The big city lights seemed to have the wrong impact on players and coaches. Our centers played well, but only split 40 minutes. They were a combined 10 -15 from FG (66%) and 6-8 from FT (75%). Compare that to 36% FG for the team and 43% FT for the team when you subtract Sanogo and Clingan out.
When all the analytics today, how do we miss understanding the impact of that simple math, all season long?

Last night our centers were 30% better than the rest of the team in both FG and FT but they only took 25% of our shots.
 
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