Creighton Post Game Thread

[WeAreUCONN]

Good God man, Creighton is not, nor ever will be, a wolf. Get a grip on yourself Sir.

They just took us behind the woodshed and had their way with us. Not sure what you were watching but we got manhandled and didn’t even fight back.

 

[KingAG]

Meh!!! I’m not panicking about this one. I do think Hurley may need to do a possible “Tinkering” with some playing time / bench minutes perhaps

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.

 

[3rdbass]

Nobody is perfect defensively. Feel like this board just notices it even more when Ross gets beat. But he gets plenty of stops.

Like I’ve said at the beginning of the season, he’s the athletic 3 and D wing that was needed in the lineup. Now that he’s actually playing aggressively on offense he may be able to be somewhat of a playmaker to go with it. Finally.

Honestly should’ve been at this point in his development last year but we’ll take it.

I use to be a big Stewart fan but Ross gives us energy which this team sorely needs. No reason to play both Ball and Mullins together. Mullins needs to start. Smith had a decent game and does try on defense but he can't score inside to save his life. Our bench wasn't bad besides Stewart who has fell off the cliff.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Meh!!! I’m not panicking about this one. I do think Hurley may need to do a possible “Tinkering” with some playing time / bench minutes perhaps

A good start would be Mullins getting a healthy chunk of Solo's shots. He should take more shots than any of our other guards / wings every night.

 

[RuffRuff]

The best part in all this is that Vegas thinks UConn is better than they are and I’m cleaning up.

No energy, no passion. Looking at a freshman to lead them. Doesn’t get easier moving forward

It's literally last year plus Silas. Mullins is basically a wash with McNeeley but with less leadership traits. 2025 plus Silas. 11 loss 8 seed, one dude ain't changing it that much. If anything the entire Fab 5 has regressed.

The awful basketball that we've watched for 7 weeks came to a head. You could only bob and weave against bad teams for so long.

We can stop leaning on the fact we were down two guys against AZ in November and kept it close. As far as I see it, the system with roll backs was the advantage there. Those teams have all gotten better, not sure what we've done.

 

[freshler40]

Hate to say it but we’ve been playing with fire for several weeks against some pretty weak teams. Finally bit us in the arse. Back to work.

Can’t wait to see all the handles posting that I’ve never seen before.

If only we had a strong bench to challenge the starters, things might be different.

 

[HW611]

How does ball handle next year if he takes a nonstarter role for the rest of this year? His numbers support a change. Though I think he’s up to the low 30s now from 3.

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.

 

[RashadRay11]

I can say that team was full of assassins though. Even kromah was cold blooded in that.

Brother Tyler Olander played on that team 😆

 

[JustbrewitMan]

McDermott is now 10-5 against Hurley, just consistently takes his lunch. UConn is allergic to making big runs: they make a small surge then they try to go for these daggers on offense and on defense. Tough 3s, go for steals, huge blocks, fouls etc. Instead of just playing, hunting good looks, contain defense & it leads to huge runs the other way. Creighton is about to get smoked by St John’s on Saturday which makes is that much worse. Brutal loss

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.

 

[RuffRuff]

There is no such things as a good loss

Not in this case, this team needs any advantage seed wise it can get. It's not good enough to take on anyone an win.

 

[JungleLobo]

Houston, we have a problem

UConn has 99 problems but Houston ain’t won

 

[3rdbass]

There is no such things as a good loss

We just lost to St. John's 3 games a row. This isn't a good loss. Just a horrible loss against a real meh team. McDermott just owns Hurley I'm afraid.

 

[Conndog]

Creighton got to the basket all night long- and anything they threw at the hoop seemed to go in. UConn maybe should have played double bigs at least some, so that if Creighton did get inside, then bigs would be there to stop them. I don’t know, it’s frustrating. I guess they were trying to keep Creighton from shooting 3’s but they get tons of close shots and still took a lot of 3’s which they made. The better team won tonight.

 

[ucp990411]

I can’t defend this. I’ve tried but I cannot for the life of me understand how we somehow have gotten worse.

P

But he gives us Defense. That is when we made our runs with Ross in.

His defense is not as good as everyone seems to think. Try focusing on him and you’ll see

 

[superjohn]

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.

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.

 

[3rdbass]

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.

No he had a great game plan of taking It to the hoop all the time even for a slow team he has. Also, shutting Karaban proved to be huge too on defense.

 

[TUCBTUD]

Greg McDermott:

 

[KingAG]

Creighton got to the basket all night long- and anything they threw at the hoop seemed to go in. UConn maybe should have played double bigs at least some, so that if Creighton did get inside, then bigs would be there to stop them. I don’t know, it’s frustrating. I guess they were trying to keep Creighton from shooting 3’s but they get tons of close shots and still took a lot of 3’s which they made. The better team won tonight.

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

 

[Kurt]

Hope Hurley learns his lesson on the importance of having athletes going forward. The missed bunnies and not being to get all the way to the rim on DHOs by anyone not named Demery has been a problem all year. Ross and solo need to swap spots they need defensive activity and length as well as someone who can hit an open 3 when it presents itself in the starting 5. Would also stagger Mullins and Solo and that’s needed badly.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I have a tough time believing I'll say something which hasn't already been brought up in the first 160 posts in this thread, but here it is.

Brutal.

On offense if it wasn't for about a 10 minute spurt by Mullins at end of first half and beginning of second half, this is easily a 20+ point loss.

Karaban should be thankful basketball posters are no longer a thing because every Creighton player just lined him up and buried threes in AK's face while AK's hands were down or 5' from the shooter. And every shot he took was flat and front rimmed. He had zero energy. But, we all saw that.

UConn's guards, all of them. Terrible at getting in to the lane, stopping their dribble and then getting lost in the giants.

Plenty of good shot opportunities by good shooters and they missed them all. Can't do much about bad shooting nights.

Free Throws are a different story. Reed continues to lay eggs and even Ross can't make half his FT's.

UConn's lack of athletes in the front court becomes blaringly obvious when UConn shoots and there is almost no chance of an offensive rebound. Overall, UConn is a bad rebounding team. No one can go and just get a rebound or move outside their immediate area to get a rebound.

Oddly enough, this loss, if followed by a road win at Nova, doesn't do a whole lot of damage.

I hope the coaches can find something and get this team in to the second weekend, but I will not be the least bit surprised if this team loses to a double digit team in the first weekend.

 

[AdamaNation]

OK, gonna try to be an optimist.

AK is the only real contributor from the title teams with this group. Hurley's got a championship culture, but he is not without his blind spots.

Maybe this is a loss that "shocks the system" and guys turn it up a notch. Hopefully it prompts the staff to figure out exactly what changes are needed and how we can adjust.

A 1 seed is probably off the table. That doesn't concern me as much as the fact we've regressed as the season has gone on.

At the same time, we've seen they're capable of beating some of the best teams in the country during the non conference. Gotta turn this into an opportunity to get better.

It may never completely click this year, but I have to believe the staff will be relentless in trying to figure it out.

Aren’t we a 3 in 23?

 

[Fishy]

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.

 

[3rdbass]

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 still want to see karban out there a lot but he shouldn't be trying to take people off the dribble. I don't mind him coming off screens when he is already moving to the basket and then trying to score off the dribble. I just don't want him faking it and then trying to drive especially when the defense is collapsing on him.

 

[AdamaNation]

I could have said Stewart - hell I probably should have - but just make the change.

What about the double bigs?

 

[storrsroars]

Gotta hand it to Creighton for not refusing the gift they were given. I'm usually one of the optimists in chat and I really wasn't all that uncomfortable being down 7 with 4 minutes left. Was certain the "championship DNA" would kick in. Then we missed a whole lot of open close in shots. And Creighton couldn't miss from 3. And by the 1:30 mark I was checking to see if this was a Q2 or Q3 loss.

I have to think AK is hurting. He was not only moving more slowly than usual, he often wasn't really even moving. Ross gave good minutes, but he had to cover for both Solo and AK sucking tonight. It would've been nice if Stewart would contribute. I don't really know if playing both Reed & Riebe together would've done much defensively, but hell, I might've even tried Koroma to sub for AK while keeping Ross in. We've all been worried about the PG spot since Newton left, but even Smith gave good minutes tonight. We're just awful right now in the frontcourt. How do you get outrebounded by Creighton without Kalk?