C
Chief00
In today’s college game who would have thought we could go 0-15 from the three line and still win a game against a comparable conference team? We did win, but I wouldn’t want to take this challenge on again.
Interestingly, they saw we were shooting so poorly from the outside, USF played zone much of the last 10 minutes.
The positive was Josh Carlton - Wow. Now I know why Danny started Josh over Cobb. I believe Josh led UConn in Points, Rebounds, and Assists. The only negative was 5 turnovers. He finished strong on his moves, something Chief has harped on all season.
Let’s review some of the seasons themes.
- Did we switch better on screens than earlier this season - Yes
- Did we set screens on the blocks? Surprisingly, we did for the first time after Chief and others recalled how the 1999 team did that. Indeed, these screens opened up some inside shots and also gave us open 3’s that we missed. I hope we do more of these screens.
- Did we improve on inbounds plays? The answer is no and there were a few that no one moved. I don’t understand? When we did move, no one cut sharpe or hard. As a team we need to focus on this.
- Did we deliver the ball to a teammate in the triple threat position? Sometimes but not usually. Still too many passes down by the ankles inside and where a 3 shooter has to move left or right or look and reach down. Our shooting is bad enough without creating this handicap.
- Did we reduce turnovers? I think so to about 10. A big improvement from our 20 turnover games.
- We still gave up too many offensive rebounds and over-all they held a sizable rebounding edge.
- Thankfully, we played good defense throughout the game limiting USF to 33% FG shooting and much worse from the 3 line. We are playing the switches better and going underneath the screen guy without getting burnt on the outside shot.
Whatever the discipline motive was behind benching CV at the start of the game, the results haven’t worked. His productivity was way down today. Sometimes a coach just has to discipline a guy but unless it’s imperative, he needs to start.
Chief noticed we played AG off the ball a lot today. Maybe it was an attempt to conserve his energy and free up his offense. Worth a try, but the results were poor. Gilbert shot poorly as did Tarin. Josh led the team in assists, our assists to turnover ratio was under 1 and no guard had more than 2 assists.
Polley, Smith and Vital all shot FT’s well and that was clearly a factor. We also avoided sending the opponents to the line too often and we had a narrow foul shot advantage. A key metric for us winning games.
I will say Whaley did some positive things today in his brief playing time. He played better than Cobb.
My final observation was about the offense/defense substituting between Sid and Polley. When Sid fouled the 3 point shooter late in the game that was evidence in some respects it didn’t work.
We can get into some other topics later in the thread: the recruits at the game - Ray Allen (great speech) - how what we do today impacts next season. However, I wanted to cover the game first.
Interestingly, they saw we were shooting so poorly from the outside, USF played zone much of the last 10 minutes.
The positive was Josh Carlton - Wow. Now I know why Danny started Josh over Cobb. I believe Josh led UConn in Points, Rebounds, and Assists. The only negative was 5 turnovers. He finished strong on his moves, something Chief has harped on all season.
Let’s review some of the seasons themes.
- Did we switch better on screens than earlier this season - Yes
- Did we set screens on the blocks? Surprisingly, we did for the first time after Chief and others recalled how the 1999 team did that. Indeed, these screens opened up some inside shots and also gave us open 3’s that we missed. I hope we do more of these screens.
- Did we improve on inbounds plays? The answer is no and there were a few that no one moved. I don’t understand? When we did move, no one cut sharpe or hard. As a team we need to focus on this.
- Did we deliver the ball to a teammate in the triple threat position? Sometimes but not usually. Still too many passes down by the ankles inside and where a 3 shooter has to move left or right or look and reach down. Our shooting is bad enough without creating this handicap.
- Did we reduce turnovers? I think so to about 10. A big improvement from our 20 turnover games.
- We still gave up too many offensive rebounds and over-all they held a sizable rebounding edge.
- Thankfully, we played good defense throughout the game limiting USF to 33% FG shooting and much worse from the 3 line. We are playing the switches better and going underneath the screen guy without getting burnt on the outside shot.
Whatever the discipline motive was behind benching CV at the start of the game, the results haven’t worked. His productivity was way down today. Sometimes a coach just has to discipline a guy but unless it’s imperative, he needs to start.
Chief noticed we played AG off the ball a lot today. Maybe it was an attempt to conserve his energy and free up his offense. Worth a try, but the results were poor. Gilbert shot poorly as did Tarin. Josh led the team in assists, our assists to turnover ratio was under 1 and no guard had more than 2 assists.
Polley, Smith and Vital all shot FT’s well and that was clearly a factor. We also avoided sending the opponents to the line too often and we had a narrow foul shot advantage. A key metric for us winning games.
I will say Whaley did some positive things today in his brief playing time. He played better than Cobb.
My final observation was about the offense/defense substituting between Sid and Polley. When Sid fouled the 3 point shooter late in the game that was evidence in some respects it didn’t work.
We can get into some other topics later in the thread: the recruits at the game - Ray Allen (great speech) - how what we do today impacts next season. However, I wanted to cover the game first.
