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Chief's Briefs

C

Chief00

I read 990411 posts about last game and kept it in mind but came to a very different conclusion. While video is fine I always feel if you have a good seat at a game you can learn so much more.
- Really like Vital - he's our toughest player, has improved his defense a lot and can make shots.
- We got beat by a better team - but put that aside for a moment - we lost because we did not adjust to "1 " Milton going off from 3. We did not make an adjustment on him until he had 15 points - he finished with just 20. I saw Killings show KO the stat sheet and then KO made the adjustment toward the end of the first half.
- Sorry 990411 - one of our biggest defensive problems is we switch too easily. Guys don't fight through anything to stay with their guy. This creates designed mismatches that our opponents take advantage of. Facey is our only Big who can defend the perimeter. We miss the macho man on man where you follow your guy no matter where he goes. In all due respect - that's defense! Again I believe Miller's focus is wrong.
- The fact that I think every one of Brimah's 3-4 blocks went intentionally out of bounds - shows there has been no coaching up of this Big. There was not once an attempt to direct it toward mid court to start a break. I will leave it at that.
- Another thing we have seen no improvement in 4 years is that Brimah attempts to block everything - his man is wide open and there is no rotation to Brimah's man in Coach Miller's defenses. Under Calhoun that rotation was part of the defensive package. Again, Miller thinks like a guard not a Big.
- Enoch was wide open underneath and never got the ball. He needs to grab a guard and tell them to feed him the ball when he's open like that.
- I thought Facey and Jackson were the two other guys who competed besides Vital.
- I thought KO coached really hard today. Just did not have the answers and certain adjustments were not corrected soon enough. Again - his assistants need to be more on the ball.
 
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As usual your brief is enlightening. Many years ago I had excellent seats and it gives you a perspective you don't get on TV or seats further away. I especially like and agree with your comment about assistant coaches. They are there to be extra eyes and ears for the head coach. This is something you can observe from those better seats so thanks for informing us about what you saw. I always look forward to your post game brief!
 
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I read 990411 posts about last game and kept it in mind but came to a very different conclusion. While video is fine I always feel if you have a good seat at a game you can learn so much more.
- Really like Vital - he's our toughest player, has improved his defense a lot and can make shots.
- We got beat by a better team - but put that aside for a moment - we lost because we did not adjust to "1 " Milton going off from 3. We did not make an adjustment on him until he had 15 points - he finished with just 20. I saw Killings show KO the stat sheet and then KO made the adjustment toward the end of the first half.
- Sorry 990411 - one of our biggest defensive problems is we switch too easily. Guys don't fight through anything to stay with their guy. This creates designed mismatches that our opponents take advantage of. Facey is our only Big who can defend the perimeter. We miss the macho man on man where you follow your guy no matter where he goes. In all due respect - that's defense! Again I believe Miller's focus is wrong.
- The fact that I think every one of Brimah's 3-4 blocks went intentionally out of bounds - shows there has been no coaching up of this Big. There was not once an attempt to direct it toward mid court to start a break. I will leave it at that.
- Another thing we have seen no improvement in 4 years is that Brimah attempts to block everything - his man is wide open and there is no rotation to Brimah's man in Coach Miller's defenses. Under Calhoun that rotation was part of the defensive package. Again, Miller thinks like a guard not a Big.
- Enoch was wide open underneath and never got the ball. He needs to grab a guard and tell them to feed him the ball when he's open like that.
- I thought Facey and Jackson were the two other guys who competed besides Vital.
- I thought KO coached really hard today. Just did not have the answers and certain adjustments were not corrected soon enough. Again - his assistants need to be more on the ball.
Finally a coherent post from you. And no gratuitous mention of Bunky. For that you get my first ever Chief like.
 
C

Chief00

As usual your brief is enlightening. Many years ago I had excellent seats and it gives you a perspective you don't get on TV or seats further away. I especially like and agree with your comment about assistant coaches. They are there to be extra eyes and ears for the head coach. This is something you can observe from those better seats so thanks for informing us about what you saw. I always look forward to your post game brief!
Thanks RM99.
 
C

Chief00

Errr, twice Brimah made blocks today and collected it, didn't knock it out of bounds. In fact, there were multiple replays of one of them.

Now I recall one of them but the vivid thing to my eyes were the blocks out of bounds
 
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Now I recall one of them but the vivid thing to my eyes were the blocks out of bounds

On the Ojeleye block, he was coming at Oj, and he had a body under him, so he had to lunge forward with his upper body. I do think Brimah is generally not good at keeping the ball in bounds, but I think today was one of the rare days that he did.
 
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Chief, we played man-to-man for all but a handful of possessions, and given that our main problem was over helping (Milton alone hit six threes in the first half), I find your conclusions to be bizarre. This was my favorite part of your post: "I saw Killings show KO the stat sheet and then KO made the adjustment toward the end of the first half."

You're painting the staff as laughably simple-minded. Do you really think KO doesn't know who Shake Milton is? He's one of the best shooters in the AAC. You make it seem as if he decided, "hey, we shouldn't let the 41% three point shooter have uncontested looks."

Your depicting of Miller as somebody who doesn't value defensive rotations is just so peak Chief I can't even.
 
C

Chief00

Chief, we played man-to-man for all but a handful of possessions, and given that our main problem was over helping (Milton alone hit six threes in the first half), I find your conclusions to be bizarre. This was my favorite part of your post: "I saw Killings show KO the stat sheet and then KO made the adjustment toward the end of the first half."

You're painting the staff as laughably simple-minded. Do you really think KO doesn't know who Shake Milton is? He's one of the best shooters in the AAC. You make it seem as if he decided, "hey, we shouldn't let the 41% three point shooter have uncontested looks."

Your depicting of Miller as somebody who doesn't value defensive rotations is just so peak Chief I can't even.

That is exactly what happened - my point is switching on every screen is NOT UConn man to man defense. Traditionally UConn attempts to fight through the screens.

When you switch like that you get guard against Bigs mismatches 22 feet from the basket. The Bigs are almost always gone to lose those and then there is a Big on small mismatch underneath.

The second half we attempted to fight through those type of mismatch screens and we played them even.

Much better than our zone garbage in Dallas and we did not have our best player.

Why did Calhoun play like that? Remember Kemba's ankle breaker against Pitt - Pitt switched on everything and it was just after such a mismatch switch Kemba made that historic play.

990411 - thanks for giving me the opportunity to educate you. Best Regards , Chief00
 
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That is exactly what happened - my point is switching on every screen is NOT UConn man to man defense. Traditionally UConn attempts to fight through the screens.

When you switch like that you get guard against Bigs mismatches 22 feet from the basket. The Bigs are almost always gone to lose those and then there is a Big on small mismatch underneath.

The second half we attempted to fight through those type of mismatch screens and we played them even.

Much better than our zone garbage in Dallas and we did not have our best player.

Why did Calhoun play like that? Remember Kemba's ankle breaker against Pitt - Pitt switched on everything and it was just after such a mismatch switch Kemba made that historic play.

990411 - thanks for giving me the opportunity to educate you. Best Regards , Chief00

I think the whole point of the zone is to avoid switching. Your observations are on the money but your conclusions do not follow. "Fighting through the screens" has proven to be untenable with the current personnel, and unless something drastically changes, you're not going to replicate the 2014 model with no Phil Nolan, no Niels Giffey, and no DeAndre Daniels. I will acknowledge that the defense was very good in the second half, but that was due in large part to Brimah protecting the rim. Position him down there permanently and you're looking at a different defense.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn from you.
 
C

Chief00

I think the whole point of the zone is to avoid switching. Your observations are on the money but your conclusions do not follow. "Fighting through the screens" has proven to be untenable with the current personnel, and unless something drastically changes, you're not going to replicate the 2014 model with no Phil Nolan, no Niels Giffey, and no DeAndre Daniels. I will acknowledge that the defense was very good in the second half, but that was due in large part to Brimah protecting the rim. Position him down there permanently and you're looking at a different defense.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn from you.

Maybe you are right Brimah won't change but I am still gone to call him out on things until his last game at UConn. I think KO made a mistake making Brimah a Captain so early in his career. The desire to block every shot is an example. If you read Bill Russell's book - he took great pains to keep the opponent guessing - once he had established that threat. He still affected most interior shots either physically or mentally, but the opponent could not automatically have a rule to pass to his man when he comes over. Some will call it a low BB IQ but I really think it's more a mental laziness or not taking on the responsibility to have to think about the game. I guess I will never understand it. By all accounts he is a good kid - cheers for his teammates, etc. However, there's a whole element of the game he has never accepted the challenge to take on. Is it a lack of effective Big Coaching? Did he think he arrived way back when KO made him Captain and did not need to learn more? Maybe he just isn't a student of the game? Is he just physically incapable of so many basic fundamentals of the game - strongly holding his position, preparing to catch a ball with expectation, followed by vision and hands? I am starting to think I will never know.
 
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I thought the OP had some spot on thoughts. Brimah though, minus one "swinging swat", was pretty damn good for the most part on D. Yes he does leave too much space between he and his guy on the block enabling passes to go by him, but who's going to change that 4 years in? Not the coaching that's for sure, he doesn't get that part. But rebounding and blocking shots he was good - now offense it's a wasted uniform on that end. Awful - when a team takes the ally oop away he's basically a scarecrow, which is exactly what 1 point in 34 minutes tells you. Certainly an issue for the other 4 guys.
 
C

Chief00

I thought the OP had some spot on thoughts. Brimah though, minus one "swinging swat", was pretty damn good for the most part on D. Yes he does leave too much space between he and his guy on the block enabling passes to go by him, but who's going to change that 4 years in? Not the coaching that's for sure, he doesn't get that part. But rebounding and blocking shots he was good - now offense it's a wasted uniform on that end. Awful - when a team takes the ally oop away he's basically a scarecrow, which is exactly what 1 point in 34 minutes tells you. Certainly an issue for the other 4 guys.

Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me but I thought he blocked at least two shots out of bounds. Agree, yesterday his rebounding was better than usual. SMU still got some critical second shots.
His poor offense - starts with poor position and an inability to know when a pass is coming. I remember his Freshman year I thought he would develop a face up mid range shot - well that never happened.

Other than the Ally Oop - there is not one offensive move he really has any confidence in four years later.
 

Fishy

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Brimah generally tries to send his blocks into low orbit, but he actually blocked and collected one yesterday during the mini-run that got the deficit down to five.

But his defense was not particularly great - SMU had a field day around the rim in the second half.
 

David 76

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When did blocks start having to double as passes to teammates?
Seems there would be a lot of passes to the opponent under the basket if you take that too far.
 
C

Chief00

When did blocks start having to double as passes to teammates?
Seems there would be a lot of passes to the opponent under the basket if you take that too far.

Young fellow - Bill Russell 60 years ago put that into practice! At a minimum blocking most shots out of bounds prevents the possibility of that happening.
 
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I think KO made a mistake making Brimah a Captain so early in his career

This I strongly agree with. Brimah is a cheerleader, not a captain.

In a captain you want two qualities: toughness and intelligence (basketball-wise). Guys like KEA, Caron, Okafor, Price, Kemba, Bazz, Boat, and Adams. Declaring a captain who has little feel for the game and does nothing to direct guys on the court sets the wrong tone.
 
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His defense was bad. He was out of position several times, SMU were having an easy time around the rim and Brimah had several rebounds stripped away.

He's a terrible offensive player unless he's getting lobs against 6-7 guys.

Brimah generally tries to send his blocks into low orbit, but he actually blocked and collected one yesterday during the mini-run that got the deficit down to five.

But his defense was not particularly great - SMU had a field day around the rim in the second half.
 

intlzncster

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Chief, we played man-to-man for all but a handful of possessions, and given that our main problem was over helping (Milton alone hit six threes in the first half), I find your conclusions to be bizarre. This was my favorite part of your post: "I saw Killings show KO the stat sheet and then KO made the adjustment toward the end of the first half."

You're painting the staff as laughably simple-minded. Do you really think KO doesn't know who Shake Milton is? He's one of the best shooters in the AAC. You make it seem as if he decided, "hey, we shouldn't let the 41% three point shooter have uncontested looks."

Your depicting of Miller as somebody who doesn't value defensive rotations is just so peak Chief I can't even.

I love the fact that Miller apparently has complete control over the defense. That's news to me, and probably to the entire team as well.
 
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C

Chief00

I love the fact that Miller apparently has complete control over the defense. That's news to me, and probably to the entire team as well.

How do you reach that conclusion? I said Killings showed the statistic to KO then KO made the adjustment.
 

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