Creighton Post Game Thread

[Conquistador]

4 rebounds and 2 points on 1-6 shooting while getting torched on defense all night in 25 mins ….good luck finding one

What’s even more frustrating is when he gets torched, he doesn’t even seem to care. He turns and just casually jogs back. Then he sits on the bench and looks like a 10 year old think about what dandelions he wants pick in the grass.

Sorry I’m digressing here. AK, if you’re reading this, you were bad today bro.

 

[JungleLobo]

There is no such things as a good loss

Hmm, not sure about that one. It took away the thought that they could always rely on turning it on late and pulling it out. Showed them that they all could go ice cold at the same time, creates some urgency for the next 3 big games.

 

[UCan3]

That was the softest loss that I’ve seen in many years. Completely out hustled, and chokes at every turn.

What I am struggling with is the lack of any improvement in free-throw shooting. How can you just go to the line and hit one for three? Or one for two over and over again as the other team just hits free-throw after free-throw after free throw,

I’ve been saying this all year - get into a close game with UConn. Get up by seven and then contrary to what you do with most teams - start fouling early in shot clock - get into a free-throw shooting contest.

This is the way we will exit the tournament by the way very similar fashion if we don’t give FT priority in practice.

The fact that’s all I would have them do next practice. Forget about shooting forget about playing defense just let’s sit here and shoot free throws for the next seven hours.


So many other problems with the way we played tonight not sure what Karaban, was doing, but that team just played like the worst version of itself, pretty much a nightmare performance as bad as it gets.

 

[Fatroony5]

At least 4,5 of those wins were when we sucked areas during the early years of the Hurley rebuild and Creighton was real good.

He is a very good coach but this narrative gets overblown.

He did nothing to outcoach Hurley tonight.

This was all on player performance, or lack thereof.

Fine take out the Covid year. Since 2021-22 season, he’s 7-4 against Hurley. Anyway you slice it, he consistently is getting his team to outperform against UConn. It’s silly to suggest he did absolutely nothing to outcoach Hurley tonight. He went small, he switched more, attacked the paint way more. Thats coaching. Dan didn’t have his team prepared well enough and let his team suffer an awful offensive stretch during that game. That’s on coaching.

 

[Mr. French]

I don’t make declarations about the rest of the season. This team can absolutely do damage in the tournament, that hasn’t changed.

But if you aren’t alarmed at the last few games, I have no idea what you’re seeing.

I’m never going to say we can’t play like we did earlier this year. Teams sometimes ebb and flow. But these games are very unnerving for a team that is a championship contender.

 

[NewBlood]

Brother Tyler Olander played on that team 😆

Like he said. Assassins

 

[RuffRuff]

If Mullins leaves, he goes back into the starting lineup. If Mullins decides to stay another year we give him the Adama “thanks for everything you gave to the program” handshake to make room.

It just doesn’t make sense to have two guys who do the same things and have somewhat the same flaws on the court together.

Nope, the definition of redundant. Had this convo weeks back as well, thank you. It becomes crazy out there, two guys jacking away.

This board treats the idea of double bigs like duct tape. They think it fixes everything

No need for double bigs, we aren't Dusty Mays. If anything we need to use our big when it's a CLEAR advantage. How many times did we even go into the post in the second half? Tarris had 15 at the half. He finished with 15. Just dumb basketball. For some reason, Hurley thought it smart to let Mullins hoist for like 8 posessions in a row. I honestly don't know what he's doing with this team. Still waiting for him to pull the dove out of his sleeve with this group

 

[3rdbass]

So, here’s the argument for either Stewart or Reed over Solo with the starting lineup.

Solo commits his third foul and goes out with just under four minutes left in the first half - we’re down 37-34. He’s out until about 16 minutes left in the second half. Stewie and Reed cover that span in his place.

UConn outscores Creighton 21-11 with Solo on the bench. We’re winning 55-48 when he returns. He comes back in and misses two threes as Creighton immediately goes on an 11-2 run to take the lead.

No doubt if Solo isn't hitting his 3 there is no reason for him to play starter minutes. GIve them to Ross and Smith who at least play a lick of D.

 

[husky429]

You can't have two starters be no-shows like AK and Solo were tonight.

Nor can you expect to send a team to the line 30+ times and expect to win.

Demary, Tarris, and Mullins held up their end of the bargain. Ross helped us but Stewart is working his way out of minutes if he isn't careful.

 

[Marat]

Hurley has a few tough decisions to make, if we want to improve our defense. Defense wins games.

 

[gsmooth]

Last 5 games the opponents offensive plan is drive to the hole. Expect that the rest of the way.

Yeah it's easy to see that UConn besides Silas and Reed don't have good 1 on 1 defenders in the starting lineup.

 

[UConn990411]

This team has never been quite as good as its record, and all their flaws caught up to them tonight.

They need Reed, Karaban, and Solo to find the best versions of themselves in a hurry.

 

[RashadRay11]

Tarris has just 3 more total blocks (43) than turnovers (40). For a big, who should barely be dribbling at all. So there's that.

 

[KingAG]

The over the top fawning over him has never been a good thing in several respects, I've commented on this many times in the past. He's a great role player but he's been playing the last two seasons like he has the weight of the world on him and he's been trying to do things on the court he actually can't do on a basketball court.

This talk that he's an all-time great Husky, that he's going to lead them to a three-peat and now three in four years, that he's a player of the year candidate/first team All-American candidate, calling him Captain America, constantly saying that everything changed for UConn basketball when he stepped on campus, we're lost without him...

It's ridiculous expectations for a great role player who can't back up any of it with his game. It's also disrespectful to Clingan, Sanogo, Newton etc. and players who were a lot better than him under Calhoun.

I hate this crusade. Everything did change when he got here. He is an all time great Husky. No he wasn't good enough to lead us to a 3 peat, but so what. We heard all off season that this team was finally built to slot AK in his natural role. And for God's sake theyve gotten to 24-3. Albeit not always aesthetically pleasing. I'd dare you to ask any of those players you claim have been so disrespected if they think they win those without him. Enough with this AK slander. He had a bad game. But hes averaged 14, 6, and 3 this season approaching 50-40-90. Can we stop pretending he's been some failure of a player. Good grief, we are such an ungrateful fanbase at times.

Are we really upset he's been called captain America? Like come on. He's the most winningest player in the country. He has 2 championship rings. And we're upset over a nickname? What are we doing here?

 

[superjohn]

Another thing that bums me out is that there's been no progression from Jaylin, it's now at the point where it's regression. He's a really great kid and he showed a lot of game when I watched him in high school. He was all over draft boards early in his UConn career and now he's just a spectator whether he's on the bench or in the game.

 

[UCan3]

If you wanna see the glass half full they didn’t turn the ball over on any inbound plays!

They wanted us to get the ball on offense and put us on the FT line, they weren’t even pressing that much. Watching us go 1 for 2 or 1-3 from the line, why go for the inbound steal? To much fun watching us miss free throws all game…

 

[uconngb]

Not shocked. We've been waiting for this to happen for the entirety of the conference season and now it has.

We're really not very good.

But worse, we're not very good by design. Our best rotations are rotations that we avoid because we feel some kind of obligation to certain players.

Anyway, that's the one seed done.

I have to say this is probably the most frustrating coaching job by Hurley since he’s been here. Maybe not the worst, but the most frustrating.

Because the issues are SO OBVIOUS. But they don’t get fixed. Abd to top it off, he turns on the fan base with his 2 NCs of equity.

Stop bitching Danny and fix the fixable. There’s a whole blueprint on this board alone from a bunch of idiots, myself included. It ain’t hard to identify.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Played to lose?
“Guys let’s do what we can to not win this game!”
Hot
Take

Welp, their D sure fit that description tonight, my man. Tough to argue with that.

Defensive play and effort was pathetic. This was a Top 5 defense through the first ~1/2 of the season. So we know they can do it.

 

[3rdbass]

Nope, the definition of redundant. Had this convo weeks back as well, thank you. It becomes crazy out there, two guys jacking away.

No need for double bigs, we aren't Dusty Mays. If anything we need to use our big when it's a CLEAR advantage. How many times did we even go into the post in the second half? Tarris had 15 at the half. He finished with 15. Just dumb basketball. For some reason, Hurley thought it smart to let Mullins hoist for like 8 posessions in a row. I honestly don't know what he's doing with this team. Still waiting for him to pull the dove out of his sleeve with this group

Yeah we just love our weave offense at the top of the key and settle for a contested 3. Or we do have Demary go inside but always looking for a tight pass to the bigs and never looking to just look for his own offense. I'm getting sick of this boring offense. No wonder fans have a hard time getting excited about this team.

 

[Fishy]

No doubt if Solo isn't hitting his 3 there is no reason for him to play starter minutes. GIve them to Ross and Smith who at least play a lick of D.

By no means do I want to pin all of this on Solo - he’s talented player, but it’s a matter of having too many cooks in the kitchen with that lineup.

I think you make the first rotation and the second better by subbing him in when Braylon or AK comes out.

 

[AdamaNation]

Time to change up the line up.

Ball to the bench. Ross at the 3. More energy. More defense. Just as good 3 point shooting

Whole coaching staff needs to go. Hahaha. I kid.

 

[Horatio]

I'm not either. I'm just interested to see what the fixes are. Offense was mostly fine to me tonight. We scored 84 points. Giving up 91 to that Creighton team is abysmal.

We don’t have the rim protection we’re used to, at all. That’s the difference.

 

[RuffRuff]

Another thing that bums me out is that there's been no progression from Jaylin, it's now at the point where it's regression. He's a really great kid and he showed a lot of game when I watched him in high school. He was all over draft boards early in his UConn career and now he's just a spectator whether he's on the bench or in the game.

Rock bottom for him right now. 10 minutes of nothingness tonight.

 

[Fatroony5]

You can't have two starters be no-shows like AK and Solo were tonight.

Nor can you expect to send a team to the line 30+ times and expect to win.

Demary, Tarris, and Mullins held up their end of the bargain. Ross helped us but Stewart is working his way out of minutes if he isn't careful.

Coming into this game, their last 10 game stretch ranked as one of the worst in the country in free throw rate, it’s like 41. That’s insane. They can’t stop fouling & I’m not sure how much they can clean that up. I think they can clean up some things offensively but this stretch defensively is certain concerning.

 

[Mr. French]

Are you meaning to say Ross but saying Reed in every post? Reed starts, my guy and he ain’t a replacement for Solo.

So, here’s the argument for either Stewart or Reed over Solo with the starting lineup.

Solo commits his third foul and goes out with just under four minutes left in the first half - we’re down 37-34. He’s out until about 16 minutes left in the second half. Stewie and Reed cover that span in his place.

UConn outscores Creighton 21-11 with Solo on the bench. We’re winning 55-48 when he returns. He comes back in and misses two threes as Creighton immediately goes on an 11-2 run to take the lead.