Creighton Post Game Thread | Page 7 | The Boneyard

Creighton Post Game Thread

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StllH8L8ner said:
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.
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If only we had a strong bench to challenge the starters, things might be different.
 
AdamaNation said:
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.
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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.
 
Fatroony5 said:
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
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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.
 
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KingAG said:
There is no such things as a good loss
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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.
 
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.
 
RuffRuff said:
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.
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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.
 
JustbrewitMan said:
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.
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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.
 
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Conndog said:
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.
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This board treats the idea of double bigs like duct tape. They think it fixes everything
 
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.
 
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.
 
Hurlees4hed said:
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.
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Aren’t we a 3 in 23?
 
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.
 
superjohn said:
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.
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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.
 
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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?
 
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jorge34 said:
4 rebounds and 2 points on 1-6 shooting while getting torched on defense all night in 25 mins ….good luck finding one
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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.
 
KingAG said:
There is no such things as a good loss
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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.
 
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.
 
JustbrewitMan said:
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.
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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.
 
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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.
 
HW611 said:
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.
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Nope, the definition of redundant. Had this convo weeks back as well, thank you. It becomes crazy out there, two guys jacking away.
KingAG said:
This board treats the idea of double bigs like duct tape. They think it fixes everything
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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
 
Fishy said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
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