Creighton Post Game Thread

[SaeHusky]

The way he was carving 'em up early was masterful, then we went away from attacking the paint (him and TR) and settling for jumpers and ill-advised threes. This team juat has no flow state.

Agree. Not sure why we went away from this in 2nd half

 

[UDann]

Team played best in the beginning. As good as Mullens is the chemistry was better when Stewart (now he looks lost) started played with confidence and we were beating good teams. Ross came off the bench and with fire. Now we struggle to win against bad teams with the culmination of a bad loss tonight. Our whole offense was getting the ball to Mullens the last 6 minutes, and he was gassed and missing. What happened to our elite offense? what happened to our elite defense?

Just praying this is a wakeup call because it doesn't look pretty right now and hasn't been for a while.

 

[3rdbass]

Stew was -15 tonight in 10 minutes. That is hard to do in a 10 point loss.

Only + were Ross & Mullins. Start em.

Yep Stewart has fallen off the cliff. His 3 point shot he seems to be jumping forward too much on it.

 

[TheShot1990]

I heard a British soccer commentator say this line once.

“you stick your hand out there one too many times and the snake is liable to bite it”

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Tyler Olander also has two championships. Not to say Karaban is Olander. But yeah.

Clownish.

 

[Conndog]

Was Creighton playing a zone defense? It was a lot harder for UConn to get to the rim than for Creighton. Given defensive weaknesses of our players, why not try a zone more?

 

[Al Czervik]

Villanova exposed one of our weaknesses, which is the pick and roll defense. Our bigs do a half @ss flash (instead of a hard hedge) allowing the ball handler down hill access to the rim where they can continue to a layup or an easy dish to a layup. It’s going to continue for the rest of the season until our bigs stick w the ball handler and stop them from moving forward. It blows my mind watching our bigs turn their back on the ball handler moving downhill after the weak flash. In fairness, you could see our weak side defender attempting to blow up the dish at the rim in the second half, but it’s just a band aid.

Obviously, I still have faith in our staff to figure _hit out similar to how they put Jackson jr into the dunker spot to ruin other teams’ defensive plans.

Everyone, keep your heads up. It feels like the sky is falling, and we’ve expected a loss like this given so many close calls recently. Focus on the positives. We have a good team who still can do some damage. They will figure _hit out. We have a great coaching staff. We will not have the same refs in the tournament. Also, teams will not have enough time to scout us between games like big east coaches have had.

 

[mauconnfan]

That was flat out awful. No words. Creighton was 13-13. Now they are 14-13. Yikes. We beat them by 27 last time. At Creighton.

Karaban - 2 points
Ball 2-9
Demery 2-6

The 3 of them combined for 5-21.

Please don’t throw Silas in any negative reply with the likes of Solo and Alex that’s unfair. He played hard, played well overall and 2-6 isn’t awful. The other 2 guys, they were dreadful.

 

[JungleLobo]

I heard a British soccer commentator say this line once.

“you stick your hand out there one too many times and the snake is liable to bite it”

The ladies love that line

 

[RuffRuff]

The way he was carving 'em up early was masterful, then we went away from attacking the paint (him and TR) and settling for jumpers and ill-advised threes. This team juat has no flow state.

It's almost as if the leaders on the team don't know how to ride a hot hand or mismatch. For all the talk of AK being a leader, you'd think he might guide that out there. I know he was an important piece in directing actions out there, as a leader. Well, we barely run them this year.

 

[Marat]

So this was our WTF loss, right ?

 

[HW611]

Clownish.

Damn, where’s the respect for the guy who has more championships than Boeheim??

 

[Mr. French]

I’ll give you credit on Ross. We play a lot better with him or Stew in the lineup than the combination of Ball and Mullins.

Except he was saying Ross had All-American potential and Hurley not letting him play through is the only thing holding him back. He wasn’t the only one who thought Ross could be a valuable wing role player.

 

[RuffRuff]

Please don’t throw Silas in any negative reply with the likes of Solo and Alex that’s unfair. He played hard, played well overall and 2-6 isn’t awful. The other 2 guys, they were dreadful.

Silas had 17 pts and 9 assists on 4-9 shooting. I'd hardly call that a bad night. Silas was great. My only issue with Silas is how he directs traffic out there - is he? He's the guy that should be finding ways to feed it into Tarris when it's clear it's a mismatch. He's massively talented, not sure where he is as a floor leader/director yet.

 

[Lefty2one]

Sooooo we've decided to try out a February slump instead of a January one?

 

[HW611]

Except he was saying Ross had All-American potential and Hurley not letting him play through is the only thing holding him back. He wasn’t the only one who thought Ross could be a valuable wing role player.

Why do you have to use this crazy hyperbole about something I never said?

I was one of maybe 3 posters on this board who dared to think that Ross should be a starter. Not just a valuable wing.

 

[superjohn]

He was the 5th best player on two NC teams. AK was not bringing some special ingredient to those teams. He was a role player.

He was bringing a special ingredient to those teams, he was a great role player who played with a bunch of significantly better players than him and they all left. Somehow that turned into AK being preseason 1st team All-American, on player of the year watch lists, being called one of the greatest UConn players ever...

 

[Hi-Low]

So this was our WTF loss, right ?

Let's hope....unfortunately next 3 games are against good/ok teams so need to play much better to win any. The "cupcake" games are over.

 

[NewBlood]

1. Start Ross (I can’t believe I’m saying this) or Stewart (hasn’t earned it). Bring Ball off the bench for a shooting lift. We can’t live with his defense and him/Mullins shooting 30 3’s a game kills any offensive flow. Having a bigger 3 thru 5 makes it harder to finish at the rim. We can’t live with Mullins and Ball’s poor on ball defense against the dribble drive.

2. Reed is gassed at the end of games. Calhoun was right, we need more Reibe not only to benefit Reibe, but to save Reed’s legs.

We played our best basketball with Mullins being out or on a minutes restriction. Make that make sense.

Yes and yes. More Defense in the starting 5 and more Reibe getting run. Sure he needs to develop but this offense runs better with him in it

 

[TheShot1990]

Play the hot hand and tonight Ross was playing well and Hurley didn’t give him enough minutes. We needed defense and Ross provided it. Ball was having an off night, he’s streaky but tonight he was way off and Danny should’ve left Ross in.

 

[Husk1esB2B]

Oh boy, s\**t collapsed in this board fast.. Hope these guys can reset and ignore some of the comments here.. still lots of games left, and AK is a UConn legend no matter what (I hope AK can see this)

 

[superjohn]

Play the hot hand and tonight Ross was playing well and Hurley didn’t give him enough minutes. We needed defense and Ross provided it. Ball was having an off night, he’s streaky but tonight he was way off and Danny should’ve left Ross in.

His defense was really bad. It just didn't stick out like a sore thumb because basically everyone's defense was really bad.

 

[HooperScooper]

The Hurley Karaban union needs to be studied. He's made this kid come back twice, plays him 38 mpg, when his market was highest after 2024 in a weak draft. Now he's back 2 years older, not looking all that great, in a loaded draft.

I'm sure he's pocketed some nice NIL, but man the kid missed his train. Coaching mismanagement there. And then we have to hear how decorated he is. Well, he would have been better off less decorated taking the same window kids like AJx took.

Let me get this straight. You think it was Hurley's decision to make Karaban come back to UConn twice? I can assure you that isn't what happened. I can give you Alex's mother's phone number if you want to check on that.

 

[Deepster]

We have been flirting with danger in games like this all year. We played like garbage against Georgetown then spent the last few days getting called out for fan support.

Well, tonight you had $2 beers, free t shirts, a kid walking 40 miles to the game and Okafor giving an impassioned speech at halftime.

And the team laid an egg.

Play better and the fans will act accordingly. This one is on the coach and the team.

 

[auror]

Reed is not the problem.

I've been struggling to describe how I feel about Reed.

He should have had 28 and 18 tonight. Creighton plays a 6'8 230 pound PF at center and we stretch the floor from the other 4 spots on the court. Their backup center is a bad player from Turkey who'd have the Elezaj role on UConn, and has grabbed 15 total rebounds in their 12 games in the New Year.

Reed is a senior, and he just has absolutely no savvy. He has decent touch, but he doesn't know when to go aggressively to the rim (most of the time probably) and when to counter away with the hook.

He should have had 10 FT attempts and 8 offensive rebounds tonight, but just didn't. He knocked the ball out of bounds when trying to grab a board something like 6 times tonight. Don't get me started on the front ends of 1 and 1s. Teams should be hack-a-shaqing him.

We got a couple easy baskets attacking their drop coverage early, and then just nothing the rest of the game. He's got a 7'4" wingspan and very good athleticism but can't dunk lobs likely because he's too heavy, but he's also somehow not strong enough to seal to get easy buckets more than once or twice a game (despite running a ton of plays with this as the intent and goal).

Just... no savvy.