Chiefs Briefs - Colorado Edition

[Candyman]

Is anyone waiting for practice Ross to show up? He comes in looks shakey with his handle and misses open threes. He lost his man like 3 times.

We need Mahney to score. I get why he didn’t play in 2nd half as no one could get a stop and he’d make it worse. But he needs to come in play the 2. Come off screens and get in the lane. He can score he’s just not a pg and can’t run this offense.

We ran so many plays for open threes but when we were missing we needed to attack the paint. Only ball did that at the end. Diarra in the 2nd half ran some nice pick and rolls. We need more of that. We took too many threes and not enough pressure at the rim.

Tarris couldnt get position against there big and like not once did we get him the ball on the block. Thats a mistake. Need to run plays for him like we did Adama to get him angled and in scoring position.

Hurley needs to figure out rotation and the roles for these guys. We need role players and starters who play important minutes. Johnson, Mahaney and Stew with some Nowell all need to know their roles off bench (if he finally benched Samson).

 

[Icehawk]

Maybe hanging out in the paint then running over to the corner to stop the three point shot by your man isn't the way to go.

Way too much of this.

 

[mauconnfan]

Defense was decent. He got a half step on McNeeley in order to get that shot up. He did a little fake left and got the step. McNeeley recovered good and forced him into a tougher shot but still. Good man defense doesn’t let him get by you.

He didn’t get “by him” at all. He made a throw going straight towards the baseline Liam never allowed him to turn towards the basket it was good defense. The guy had no idea he was going to make that prayer.

 

[EBonz30]

Bc the refs were calling the game so tight ‘m& straight up poorly- McNeeley had to back off at the end so he could pray a no foul was called- people are way overlooking the foul madness the last two days.

 

[Mike Honcho]

It's November

If it was known as "November Madness", you'd be spot on

We'll be a lot better come March

If that were the case, I feel like they'd market it as "November Neurosis" just for alliteration.

 

[Mike Honcho]

The team REALLY misses Clingan's defense.

While Diarra is a gritty defender and tough as nails, he shouldn't be taking the final win/lose shot. He's only shooting 17% from three on the season. I think I heard the announcers say he was 3-15 from three coming into the game. Gotta be Karaban catching/not passing in.

What game were you watching? Karaban was 1/9 fg and 1/7 from 3. Diarra was 4/7 and 3/4 from 3 (including that miss, which means he was perfect from three before that play).

Also Diarra made a clutch play at the end of regulation the night before with a perfect pass to Solo.

Not to mention he's got the clutch gene.

 

[AllHusky]

It is unfortunate to lose 2 games(so far)and not be what we were billed(#2) to be. Bright side is it is going to be fascinating to watch our staff go back after Maui and get to work. This journey may end up in the promised land or being a 2 year rebuild as some have mentioned. Who cares, it’s Husky hoops and we all love it. Bring on the Flyers.

 

[Chief00]

Way too much of this.

This is the result of the fouls on our centers.

Is anyone waiting for practice Ross to show up? He comes in looks shakey with his handle and misses open threes. He lost his man like 3 times.

We need Mahney to score. I get why he didn’t play in 2nd half as no one could get a stop and he’d make it worse. But he needs to come in play the 2. Come off screens and get in the lane. He can score he’s just not a pg and can’t run this offense.

We ran so many plays for open threes but when we were missing we needed to attack the paint. Only ball did that at the end. Diarra in the 2nd half ran some nice pick and rolls. We need more of that. We took too many threes and not enough pressure at the rim.

Tarris couldnt get position against there big and like not once did we get him the ball on the block. Thats a mistake. Need to run plays for him like we did Adama to get him angled and in scoring position.

Hurley needs to figure out rotation and the roles for these guys. We need role players and starters who play important minutes. Johnson, Mahaney and Stew with some Nowell all need to know their roles off bench (if he finally benched Samson).

Unfortunately, the very low level cupcake games worked against us. Many of these things the cupcake games even exposed but since we won by 40 - changes were not made as we dreamed that Euro Ball would conquer all.
Now we need to make major on the fly changes with very tough games in schedule.

 

[ctbro1999]

That guy basically made an unbelievable shot to go ahead. The defense was good on that he flung it up there

Yeah, I don't even think he was looking at the basket when he tossed it up. Circus shot.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

I’d love to see Singare play until he fouls out vs MD Eastern Shore because why the hell not

 

[Chief00]

Bc the refs were calling the game so tight ‘m& straight up poorly- McNeeley had to back off at the end so he could pray a no foul was called- people are way overlooking the foul madness the last two days.

I agree the fouls impacted both our rotations and defense, even when no fouls were called. 68 to 37 foul shot difference is huge over two games and we lost by 3 points combined in those two games.

 

[Chief00]

Is anyone waiting for practice Ross to show up? He comes in looks shakey with his handle and misses open threes. He lost his man like 3 times.

We need Mahney to score. I get why he didn’t play in 2nd half as no one could get a stop and he’d make it worse. But he needs to come in play the 2. Come off screens and get in the lane. He can score he’s just not a pg and can’t run this offense.

We ran so many plays for open threes but when we were missing we needed to attack the paint. Only ball did that at the end. Diarra in the 2nd half ran some nice pick and rolls. We need more of that. We took too many threes and not enough pressure at the rim.

Tarris couldnt get position against there big and like not once did we get him the ball on the block. Thats a mistake. Need to run plays for him like we did Adama to get him angled and in scoring position.

Hurley needs to figure out rotation and the roles for these guys. We need role players and starters who play important minutes. Johnson, Mahaney and Stew with some Nowell all need to know their roles off bench (if he finally benched Samson).

In the right shooting role Mahaney will be fine. Playing PG put him out of position on both offense and defense.

 

[Hunt for 7]

Well it took a few minutes but I found something to be happy about. We have the same record as Dook…..that was the first thing that made me smile basketball wise since Monday.

 

[homunculus]

Yeah, I don't even think he was looking at the basket when he tossed it up. Circus shot.

Yes, he was very literally not looking at the basket. Simply flipped it over this head in the general direction of the rim. Obviously doesn’t matter though.

 

[Edward Sargent]

Traditional UConn defense stops drivers cold, or funnels drivers to shot blockers. Samson and Reed are not Clingan, or Okafor, or any of a number of shot blocking bigs we've had. So that leaves stopping the drives and marking 3 point shooters ...

Ooof.

With regard to bigs and fouls, Clingan had a fouling problem early in his career, and straightened that out. History had better repeat.

Unfortunately this isnt early in Samson's career. He has to be committing these fouls in practice

 

[Conndog]

I’d like to see some other players in the mix if defense is bad, plus maybe try zone defense. Nowell has been a positive, maybe Abraham can help out too. Stewart was great against Memphis- would like to see him in game more. While personnel last year were different, offense often began with center up high- has that been abandoned this year? On offense, have to start trying more aggressive driving to the hoop. Reed is much more productive than Johnson. Not getting many fast break opportunities- the play where Solo had the ball on break and didn’t lob to Stewart really stunk too. Just not getting enough out of the players yet- coaches still have to figure it out.

 

[evmore]

McNeeley, Ball and Diarra carried the load today. Ball continued making big time shots, McNeeley is a gamer even when hurt and a shooter, Diarra’s defense, assists and shooting were big the second half.

Our 3 point defense needs work. The players can’t seem to identify and find the shooters. Too much getting caught in between. With fouls so lopsided our defensive aggressiveness broke down the second half and Colorodo got good shots that won the game.

Hurley made one starting lineup change (Diarra) but he needs to make another (Reed).

McNeeley outplayed the 3 officials in the first half scoring 16 points, despite them giving Colorado 15 more foul shoots. Newell also stood out in first half with 4 assists and Stewart looked really good, as he did yesterday. Unfortunately, McNeeley got injured and is on the locker room and we miss his shooting in the second half.

While we committed more dumb fouls than yesterday, a 19-4 first half shot discrepancy is totally ridiculous. The Maui Tournament got sub par officials this year. It is an embarrassment. Five UConn players had 2 first half fouls or more. We were saved by Colorido only shooting 63% from line in first half.

Karaban needs to be more assertive and take charge more. But, that doesn’t mean taking 30 foot shots when he’s not on. He needs to cut and get the ball off those cuts.

Stewart needs to be 6th man off the bench, Nowell 7th. Reed should probably start. Spot on assessment re: 3pt defending.. late closeouts. .. Also, we ran into 53% shooting from 3 a day after Memphis shot 55%. Despite this AND the obvious whistle disparity, we still lost by just 2 & 1. I'm not freaking out.

 

[mauconnfan]

I’m not sure of Stewart not getting a little more time since the 1st half of Memphis very strange? He’s always around the ball, gets more put backs in limited time and gets rebounds as well. Ross hasn’t played the defense we expect and is also not making shots.

Also a huge difference is our guards don’t rebound. Newton, Castle, Spencer always had 12-15 rebounds between them. The only one with decent numbers is Nowell with 2 a game in just 8.8 minutes. Others need to crash the boards if not needing to be back.

 

[2014DualCs]

I've had a night to sleep on it and I've talked myself off the ledge. We've lost by 2 and 1 respectively where opponents are shooting 55%+ from 3 and have gone to the line 15+ more times.

Yes, some of this has to do with our defense not playing well whatsoever. However, I find it difficult to say we deserved a lot of those foul calls. Samson foul out call was SOFT at best. Ball 3 on left wing was CLEARLY a foul and you know damn well if it was one of our closeouts, the other team is going to the line for a 4 pt play. Legit same call that was an over the back on Mahaney vs. Memphis WASN'T called when Colorado player had a hand on Mahaney's back (meanwhile Mahaney highpointed the ball with both hands vs. Memphis).

All in all its not entirely the refs fault, but they've been on our ass the last 2 games with a ton of ticky tack fouls... without returning the favor.

 

[cullaville]

Not good enough. Defense isn‘t good enough, not tough enough on boards, offense stagnates and we settle for deep 3s. Lots to work on. Tomorrow we may play a team that’s better than the two we just lost to. Maybe Hurley should have shut up about “respect” and scheduled some real teams.

the schedule does include some "real teams" . Memphis and the rest of the Maui tems, Texas, Baylor and Gonzaga, they just weren't the in the first four games of the year.

Granted the first four games were very low rated opponents. If Uconn want to play a HBCU team every year, great and I think the rest of the non marquee games could have a regional flair with New England teams with a higher ranking than this year's non con schedule.

 

[boog204]

Spoiled brats

Everybody is a couch potato coaching genius here

Remember that “toxic fan base” report from the offseason that ppl took such offense to? We’re the reigning back-to-back champions and many of our fan base are trashing the team and coach after a rough start after we lost four starters to the nba. Maybe, just maybe, allow the same coaching staff you all deified when things were great figure out and work on the things that are not great. Memphis and Colorado exposed some issues and we have had, due to this tourney setup, zero real practice time to implement major adjustments. We will be fine. We were never going to be as good as last year and by game 30 or so I’d be shocked if we’re not a top ten team and a contender.

 

[ctbro1999]

Stewart needs to be 6th man off the bench, Nowell 7th. Reed should probably start. Spot on assessment re: 3pt defending.. late closeouts. .. Also, we ran into 53% shooting from 3 a day after Memphis shot 55%. Despite this AND the obvious whistle disparity, we still lost by just 2 & 1. I'm not freaking out.

Yeah, I'd be much more concerned if our offense was dog poop and lost despite the other team shooting poorly as well.

 

[HuskyHawk]

the schedule does include some "real teams" . Memphis and the rest of the Maui tems, Texas, Baylor and Gonzaga, they just weren't the in the first four games of the year.

Granted the first four games were very low rated opponents. If Uconn want to play a HBCU team every year, great and I think the rest of the non marquee games could have a regional flair with New England teams with a higher ranking than this year's non con schedule.

The point is that one true cupcake to start the season is fine. Game 2 should be against a team that will give you a game. Yale, Harvard, an A-10 team. Someone like that. Cannot go into a tournament like this playing only sub 300 Kenpom opponents.

It's unlikely we'll play a tournament like this again anyway, but still 4 straight easy games (UNH was probably the best) isn't ideal.

 

[Jmark212]

Too funny. I suppose you'll be long gone by then

Maybe? Maybe not?

 

[Bmcmill33]

The point is that one true cupcake to start the season is fine. Game 2 should be against a team that will give you a game. Yale, Harvard, an A-10 team. Someone like that. Cannot go into a tournament like this playing only sub 300 Kenpom opponents.

It's unlikely we'll play a tournament like this again anyway, but still 4 straight easy games (UNH was probably the best) isn't ideal.

The point is that one true cupcake to start the season is fine. Game 2 should be against a team that will give you a game. Yale, Harvard, an A-10 team. Someone like that. Cannot go into a tournament like this playing only sub 300 Kenpom opponents.

It's unlikely we'll play a tournament like this again anyway, but still 4 straight easy games (UNH was probably the best) isn't ideal.

How much do we pay the crappy teams? Is it possible we just didn't have the funds to cancel the games and schedule better opponents?