Chief’s Briefs - Marquette Edition

[hoophuskee]

Marquette cannot handle UCONN in the paint. No reason the last 2:14 to not get the ball inside. Even the last play/. Call the damn timeout and get the other big in. They are overmatched in the paint. Start the game and throughout using your size. You can see the last 2:14 that Sango was open and/or they just went away from him. Really baffling and poor decisions from both players and especially coaching.

 

[Hankster]

He took enough of shots but what I was disappointed in was that we did not seem to run stuff to get our star going using good percentage shots.

I agree, however, you have to admit, Hawkins was suffocated all game. Great defense. We had a few chances, didn't work out. The good news is we got the monkey off their backs. We had a streak, it had to end somewhere. Now it's fresh going to the dance.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

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 the difference.

Chief, what I highlighted was all you had to say. Could’ve saved your metacarpals. I would’ve added, and Dan Hurley take note, Clingan on the floor with Sanogo, along with Hawk, Karaban and Newton, and the Marquette man to man falls apart rapidly. Even with only Clingan in the game and Sanogo sitting Marquette’s defense was stretched.

 

[FreeKlaiber]

"Marquette cannot handle UCONN in the paint"

to follow up on "hoophuskees" point....
1)their bigs were in foul trouble....
2)we have 2 real good bigs
3)we were playing a 2-3, so they couldve both been in the game
4)when clingan is in the game, on the block he makes things happen- i dont see Zavc edey spend entire game at 3 pt circle (OR THE BENCH!)

all of these are coaching issues

 

[Chief00]

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 agree Karaban is one of our most poised players and we need both Sanogo and Clingan on the court together, especially since we played zone late anyways. Those two made their shots, but did not get enough touches.
Newton is our primary PG but given that, we have to learn to beat teams using the guys who are most likely to make shots other than through a PG breaking his man down.

 

[Chief00]

Marquette cannot handle UCONN in the paint. No reason the last 2:14 to not get the ball inside. Even the last play/. Call the damn timeout and get the other big in. They are overmatched in the paint. Start the game and throughout using your size. You can see the last 2:14 that Sango was open and/or they just went away from him. Really baffling and poor decisions from both players and especially coaching.

It was both player and coaching development opportunities, playing the 2 Bigs together and players getting them the ball. That would have opened up the 3 as well. It seems we were still celebrating the PC game rather than mentally adjusting to what we needed to do to win this one. Hopefully, lesson learned, but would have been nice going into this game giving Clingan/Sanogo over 50 minutes a game.
Donovan had an impact tonight and only played 10 minutes!!!!!!!!
When will we learn, it is March 11th.

 

[jorge34]

"Marquette cannot handle UCONN in the paint"

to follow up on "hoophuskees" point....
1)their bigs were in foul trouble....
2)we have 2 real good bigs
3)we were playing a 2-3, so they couldve both been in the game
4)when clingan is in the game, on the block he makes things happen- i dont see Zavc edey spend entire game at 3 pt circle (OR THE BENCH!)

all of these are coaching issues

Clingan had 5 rebounds and 7 points in 10 minutes; 10 mins

I’d there was EVER a time to play he and Sanogo together, it was last night, at least for a few minutes, in the second half when clingan was dominating.

 

[Drfla]

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.

andre only played 15 minutes. That was a problem. Him committing silly fouls was a problem, not him as a passer on the perimeter or not running the baseline. He didn’t play enough to get into a rhythm. Bad fouls are on him, but he didn’t

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.

wrong
wrong
wrong
wrong

wrong

 

[Drfla]

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.

The problem was that one of our centers couldn’t guard a lamp post last night.

 

[FreeKlaiber]

i love when they mic dannys huddles:

especially when he spent first bit imploring team to listen to only him, and then was interrupted by karaban lol

we missed a possible great coaching adjustment, like when he told the team that marquettes stifling defense at start couldnt possibly continue (it did- instead of telling them to start looking for backscreens, or penetrate their overplay or helping hawkins get prosper off him all night)

 

[Hunt for 7]

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.

AK is now my favorite player on the team. If we need a three to win the game I want AK to take it. He is a winner. And his athleticism is way understated. Maybe he is the next true UConn alpha that gives us the right type of leadership. When one of your captains AJ can’t control his emotions enough to stay on the floor because he is playing wack a mole defense and the other Sanogo although playing well on offensive is pointing and blaming teammates for his lack of defensive then getting yelled at by the coach….how do you win close games. Answer you don’t. Stop blaming Hurley he made good moves tonight the players lost this game not the coach.

 

[mauconnfan]

Danny did a good job finally going to zone it worked for the most part, much better than our man for sure. But the opportunity to shove it down their throats in the interior was there. I mean you went to zone on D and yet Marquette is still beating you up on the perimeter with good defense, making for tough shots. So how do you change that? Throw 7’2 and 6’9 on block and make them double down if they can’t stop the bigs. Add to that they had a bunch of guys with 4 fouls time to isolate AK on Kolek down low when he was guarding him and take it to the rim, he backs off or potentially gets number 5.

Too much weave for me make them uncomfortable on D throw a different look at them. The zone was working what better time for 2 bigs?

 

[MTBingNinja]

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.

Whished Karaban took a few more 3-pointers

 

[Hunt for 7]

i love when they mic dannys huddles:

especially when he spent first bit imploring team to listen to only him, and then was interrupted by karaban lol

we missed a possible great coaching adjustment, like when he told the team that marquettes stifling defense at start couldnt possibly continue (it did- instead of telling them to start looking for backscreens, or penetrate their overplay or helping hawkins get prosper off him all night)

Well AK was more accurate than what Hurley was saying. Not only did Marquette maintain the defensive pressure they increased it. That was just a wrong read and probably gave the team the wrong thought process. I understand what he was trying to do but he just used the wrong example. I agree there should have been more back door cuts as they were overplaying everything and we never made the right offensive adjustment. But we still lost because we missed four wide open threes that were taken by our best shooters,

 

[DMIL]

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.

I understand your perspective here. What I mean by too familiar is losing in the quarterfinals of the BET. A game that was winnable with a team that was talented enough to win the BET. We are all looking for those breakthrough wins, some different outcomes when it matters. The NCAAs will be the last opportunity for some of these guys to change the narrative. We all, at this point, are expecting deep tourney runs whether it’s BET or NCAAs.

 

[businesslawyer]

Marquette cannot handle UCONN in the paint. No reason the last 2:14 to not get the ball inside. Even the last play/. Call the damn timeout and get the other big in. They are overmatched in the paint. Start the game and throughout using your size. You can see the last 2:14 that Sango was open and/or they just went away from him. Really baffling and poor decisions from both players and especially coaching.

I’m sorry. It’s beyond irrational to believe that Hurley told the team not to try to get the ball to Sanogo in the last 2:14. Sheesh. Players are given things to look for, but they have to decide if the play is there and, if not, go to the next option;

 

[Palatine]

He took enough of shots but what I was disappointed in was that we did not seem to run stuff to get our star going using good percentage shots.

He had wide open shots especially in the first half against Marquette. He had a poor shooting. Period. It happens.

 

[Punkbo]

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!

Not sure I agree with this. There are certainly a few plays you could point to where we missed assignments and I agree with Chief that we needed to force Kolek to his right, but we only gave up 14 points in the last 14 minutes. We lost the game because we missed open shots down the stretch.

 

[Chief00]

He had wide open shots especially in the first half against Marquette. He had a poor shooting. Period. It happens.

True, but when it does you run plays to get him layups or fouls. Would we have shot 60% from the FT line in a 2 point loss if Hawkins made a few visits there? He had zero (0) foul shot attempts.

 

[Chief00]

I’m sorry. It’s beyond irrational to believe that Hurley told the team not to try to get the ball to Sanogo in the last 2:14. Sheesh. Players are given things to look for, but they have to decide if the play is there and, if not, go to the next option;

I agree, but is our two minute offense a guy off the bench jacking up 3’s? I like Joey C but when you have two first team Big East guys, find a way to use them. Sanogo seemed to be open and he was dominating his man.

 

[JeffConn]

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.

Here is my morning after two cents worth of observations:

As others have mentioned, Hawkins and Jackson not playing well really cramped our chance of winning. Jackson, in particular, lacks focus on specific game objectives and falls into dysfunctional playing patterns. While Marquette's defensive strategy to stop Hawkins worked to perfection, Jackson got in foul trouble early while covering Kolek and did not adjust his thinking. In the second half, with 3 Marquette starters on the bench, we could have taken advantage with Jackson finding open players while leading fastbreaks. That's how we made real fast comebacks early in the season against both good and bad teams. But instead yesterday, Jackson was on the bench during a crucial game-deciding time. Fast breaking might have freed up some breathing room for Hawkins to shoot more freely.

Hurley made some good in-game adjustments, but Smart was a step ahead of him most of the game. Dan Hurley always seems to give Jackson too much playing leeway. With AJ being the straw that stirs the drink and the importance of his being in the game, Dan Hurley should have settled Jackson down on defense early, once he got his first foul. Also, with the Marquette defensive strategy on Hawkins, Kolek was covering a taller Karaben. As others have mentioned, it might have helped to run more isolation plays down low for Alex to take advantage of his size advantage on Kolek.

I thought in the second half, the zone was initially effective, but with 3 Marquette starters on the bench, I thought Dan Hurley should have switched sooner back to a man-to-man, primarily because our zone appeared to keep allowing Marquette to run too much time off the clock. Marquette's 3 starters went to the bench in foul trouble with at least 10 minutes left in the game. After that, we squandered too much second half playing time with Marquette's floor general/MVP Kolek and the other 2 Marquette starters on the bench. Such a lost opportunity! We could have sped up the game to play more to our desired tempo. Playing a less familiar zone defense may have also allowed Marquette to have such wide open shots from the side.

With all that said, that last second desperation three by Cam Jones was the difference in this game. Sometimes, being lucky is better than being good!

 

[connVA]

As others have said multiple times here and in that monstrously long post-game thread, Marquette literally could not handle Clingan. He drew fourth fouls on both Iguodaro and Kolek and probably would have fouled out half their team had the trend continued. Clearly the refs were inclined to call Marquette for fouls against him whereas Newton and others were being abused without any calls. He completely changed the complexion of the game during that second half stretch he was in. Why not leave him in?

 

[ctchamps]

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!

It was bad until Hurley made adjustments. Then the ten point lead and the momentum clearly going in Marquette’s direction was reduced to a tie with the momentum going in our direction. Until that dagger three with time running out. Kudos to Cam Jones.

We had three opportunities of our own to have a heroic made shot but it wasn’t meant to be.

So yes defense was bad up until a point. And then it was terrific. It was a really tightly contested game at the end and we had several chances to get the W.

Disappointing for certain to lose this way but the degree of angst and recrimination this forum displays at times is not a good look. Not directed at you.

 

[CTBasketball]

Hurley going to zone worked, it pulled us back. That was a nice change of pace lineup too.

But we have to shoot and defend better.

 

[Cheddie]

It was both player and coaching development opportunities, playing the 2 Bigs together and players getting them the ball. That would have opened up the 3 as well. It seems we were still celebrating the PC game rather than mentally adjusting to what we needed to do to win this one. Hopefully, lesson learned, but would have been nice going into this game giving Clingan/Sanogo over 50 minutes a game.
Donovan had an impact tonight and only played 10 minutes!!!!!!!!
When will we learn, it is March 11th.

Playing both bigs together would perhaps allow Clingan to park himself inside. He's not as agile as Sanogo and when he's guarding out by the 3-point line, he can't get back quickly enough to defend at the basket or get optimal rebounding position.

 

[Deleted at users request]

You expect your best defensive player to play defense without fouling. 5 fouls in 15 mins is on him.

There were some bad calls in there but his last one was mind blowingly stupid. Reaching in on a rebounder 90’ away from the damn basket while in the bonus.

Some of this stuff is high school IQ not to do. Like was he not aware that he had 4 and should play it safe??

 

[pj]

Hurley has had a long-standing weakness in the area of roster construction and use of roster. For years he built a limited roster that could only play one way, and teams who matched up well with that and took us out of our game would beat us.

This year he finally built a diverse and versatile roster (though missing the speedy ball handler-distributor, still a more diverse lineup than most college teams have), but he didn't spend enough time building in diversity of styles in play during practice (eg zone and man, a two big lineup and a smaller lineup along with the usual one) so in games he doesn't feel comfortable throwing a new look at the opponent even when the standard look is not working.

It seemed like he started to learn late in the year, put a zone in place, but there was still inadequate ability to mix things up. If you're introducing a zone, try out the two bigs. It wouldn't be right in every game, but in some games it would mess the opponent up.

 

[Chief00]

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.

Newton is our point guard but he is deficient in various critical skills to be our point guard. It is what it is at this point. We did not have Andre to do the fast break push today because of some bad choices he made early in the game. This is also a game after Newton did not start - coach’s decision.

 

[Chief00]

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.

I agree that Karaban has ice water in his veins. The dude is so poised and calm. He cleans up his deficiencies and you see that the second time he matches up with someone.

 

[Chief00]

It was bad until Hurley made adjustments. Then the ten point lead and the momentum clearly going in Marquette’s direction was reduced to a tie with the momentum going in our direction. Until that dagger three with time running out. Kudos to Cam Jones.

We had three opportunities of our own to have a heroic made shot but it wasn’t meant to be.

So yes defense was bad up until a point. And then it was terrific. It was a really tightly contested game at the end and we had several chances to get the W.

Disappointing for certain to lose this way but the degree of angst and recrimination this forum displays at times is not a good look. Not directed at you.

The other thing was Clingan was taken out of the game not to return.