Reed was a Beast and totally dominated on both ends of the court with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 blocks. When Tarris plays like this, we are very difficult to beat. He was a man amongst boys and exposed SJU’s weakness in the paint. His domination was both in quality of play and Will. He kept his intensity and logged 30 minutes.
Our defense was exceptional, holding St John’s 2 for 28 on FG’s the second half. Their top scorer had just 10 points.
How do we totally dominate except for one category fouls/FTA’s? We had 18 fouls to their 11 and 11 foul shots to St John’s 18, despite a 32 point win. O’Connell’s crew was definitely SJU MVP this game. The officiating was so embarassing that they were shamed into having to overrule 3 calls upon review. In fact, Hurley rubbed their nose in it when he made a successful appeal when we had a huge lead late. Why is their initial instinct always to call anything even remotely close against us? Including not calling an obvious flagrant foul. They and the Big East office need to do some self inspection.
We outshot St John’s FG wise 47% to 20%, thanks to layups and points in the paint, but the 3pt % was horrible for both teams (UConn 28% to SJU 25%).
I loved our assist to turnover ratio 20 to 5 (or 4 to 1 ratio). Hurley has Reed playing the hedge the way Donovan did, playing underneath it and staying more with the Big. That puts him in better position to block shots and rebound.
While our bench only delivered 11 points, they gave us exactly what we needed tonight with defense, 9 rebounds and zero turnovers. I thought Ross gave us a spark off the bench, despite a quiet 4 points. His defense and 4 rebounds gave us energy and toughness. Smith had 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals.
Reibe’s main contribution tonight was giving us 5 fouls in the trenches that Reed did not pick up. Obviously, he needs to get stronger to be more effective in these rough games. Anyone know why Stewart did not play after doing well last game?
Demary only had 7 points but played tough with 8 rebounds, 5 assists and only 1 turnover. Smith had 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals.
While Mullins needs to get stronger, but in addition to an elite skillset (shots just touching bottom of net etc), he also is an elite athlete and his dunk today showed it. His 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks and 1 steal to go along with 9 points, exhibited that athleticism too. We need to get a Reed like big body and have Mullins return to be a star next season along with Ball/Demary. Adding Alex’s shots to his plate next season would give him plenty of opportunity as would a summer in the weight room. He would be a top 5 pick.
Karaban and Ball gave us a combined 50% shooting (10-20) for 25 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists. They displayed good leadership on the court and Alex was even told by the ref to tone down his post play celebrating. They played our most minutes (Karaban 35, Ball 32) and literarily would not let our team take the foot off the gas, a weakness in many of our Big East games.
Proud of our guys on the team, the coaches not being stubborn and making adjustments and the Hartford fans. It was a great atmosphere and the team and fans were on the same page. The students showed up and were great considering many are better students than we probably were - maybe more nerdy than experienced playing /knowing basketball?
Overall, tonight ended any conversation, about the location of our best home court advantage and after over 3 years of wins in Hartford the data backs that up. I love Gampel and have seats there but this was big time tonight. Thank you students, who put their books down and came to Hartford to learn about and participate in an intense home court advantage.
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