Creighton Post Game Thread | Page 13 | The Boneyard

Creighton Post Game Thread

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auror said:
He wasn't getting open and when we went to him twice in the final 10 minutes he took fadeaway hooks and clanked a front end of a 1 and 1.
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You're 100% right on his inability to seal. I've watched him off ball a number of times where he just doesn't make himself a solid target. I'm not a student of how you teach that, but I see other bigs do it and make it look easy. He struggles.
 
McDermott was telling Creighton to push it up the court and then they would isolate us and drive it. They had a strategy, we did not. He wins again. When we high hedge and our center drops back the Creighton ball handler would follow him into the lane like a screener. They were chasing us and we looked lost. Hurley is too stubborn to make changes. And all our quick threes hurt us tonight. Such a frustrating game to go to. It looked like we had never played as a group outside of the start of the second half. Agree that our 3 guard lineup sucks. Silas, Solo, Mullins. Take one out of the starting lineup.
 
ConnHuskBask said:
Sooner or later this was bound to happen. Go figure you lose when 2 starters and the entire bench no show.

Things could very easily tailspin from here - looking forward to seeing how they respond Sat and next week is the Johnnies.
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We actually got 15 points off the bench and Ross played great. The bench while not a big strength was decent this game.
 
To be clear, we have three loses, 10 days away from March, with almost a 100% healthy roster, against Big East physicality and Big East refs. SMH
 
Hurley didn't pull any punches at post game press conference. Sounds like some significant changes in starting lineup against Villanova game. Huge BE implications.
 
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blkknight1 said:
The basic problem is our perimeter guys can’t stay in front of their guys or they are getting lost on defense. This puts stress on the rest of the defense.

On offense we have no finishers
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We honestly look really slow. On defense, we can’t stand in front of our guys in an offense. We don’t seem to get too many open. Looks like even some of the shots Braelyn we’re making were ridiculous. Why is it that we can’t get open? Looks.\
ConnHuskBask said:
Sooner or later this was bound to happen. Go figure you lose when 2 starters and the entire bench no show.

Things could very easily tailspin from here - looking forward to seeing how they respond Sat and next week is the Johnnies.
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worst part is that it begann to feel like a tail spin and we never responded and yes, it could go on. The free-throw shooting is indicative of a bigger problem. They are just soft. Soft teams don’t make improvements and just keep doing things at a bare minimum. And that is on Danny - I mean it is a coaching thing when we talk free throws.

But this thread, which will eventually be locked I hope is getting a little of it too personal within individual players. I mean no one on the team really played spectacular tonight. Mullins got better as game went on but wasn’t perfect.

And from there, it just got worse and worse. This was definitely a team stinker. So you want to get on the team that’s fine but hyper focus on one player and start making all kinds of negative comments. I don’t know just doesn’t seem to fit.
 
Al Czervik said:
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.
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That’s a good point. It took an A-level coach until the 16th game of the conference season to scheme out a way to keep it close enough to win (the cold streak for UConn at the end was the icing).
superjohn said:
We lost the 1 seed but that's the least of our worries problems right now.
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What good is a 1 seed if you have to play a 2 seed on their home court?

Probably a blessing in disguise.
 
auror said:
He wasn't getting open and when we went to him twice in the final 10 minutes he took fadeaway hooks and clanked a front end of a 1 and 1.
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I think running PnR with him as the recipient takes away a lot of the mental side that he struggles with and allows him to focus on just finishing. Asking him to figure out the angle for low post entries/seals consistently doesn’t seem to workout, and he can’t consistently process the floor when he receives a high post opportunity. He’s a pretty good play finisher when all he has to do is catch and release.
 
MJKI said:
Reibe and his camp have to be furious about how Hurley has continued to divy up minutes when it’s clear Reed doesn’t play with the intensity needed and is a black hole on offense. Reibe goes 100% and the team is better with him than with Reed
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Evidently, this concerns me a lot more than it does most people here. In a recent post-game presser - I think it was after St. John’s or the prior game - Hurley said that he wished Eric’s camp looked at the journey the same way Clingan’s did. I was shocked to hear Hurley bring that up in a presser, and I interpreted his comments as frustration with Reibe’s camp and chatter coming from them. Not going to speculate, but that kid needs to be in Storrs beyond this year.
 
2/20/24: Creighton 85, Uconn 66 (it wasn’t that close). Uconn 24-3, 14-2 BE

2/24/24 UConn 78, Villanova 54, 25-3, 15-2 BE

Ending record 37-3, most dominant run in NCAA history.

Obviously, we all hope that history repeats itself.

I’m as frustrated as anyone, but name any other championship team (even ‘99) that had no frustrating losses down the stretch. It is the greatness and the frustration of college hoops.
 
Reed should start dropping some pounds as he needs to be quicker. Our centers in the past would race down the court. Think Voskuhl, Travis Knight, Sellers, Okafor, Samson and Donovan. It's winning time. Need to get better as the season winds down.
 
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I’m not blaming officiating on this loss, but my observation from being at the game is we are tentative finishing around the rim. We’ve gotten so used to no calls being called in our favor down low, that it has changed the way we try to finish shots and we’re often taking high difficulty acrobatic shots when other teams just lower their shoulder, go up strong and draw a foul.

There were multiple plays where Mullins got completely mauled going to the rim and no call. After this happens we tend to settle for 3’s and mid range shots. Most games we make enough 3’s to make up for the poor finishing around the rim and FT differential…tonight the shots just weren’t falling.
 
auror said:
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.
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This nails it pretty good.

2023 - i think Hurley probably assuming we were going to get Sanogo-lite with Reed. Watch Sanogo NCAA highlights, good Lord we attacked the paint about a half dozen* different ways with Adama. Impossible to guard, and downright scary to defend against to be honest.
2024 - the pairing of Clingan/Samson was just lob city all the time. Again, scary and impossible.

Last two years, we had Samson who helped our dunk numbers. But TR is just too one dimensional that doesn't open up possibilites for others because he chooses to be stationary without the ball.

2023 - 5th in the country on Dunk attempts [160]
2024 - 1st in the country [196]
2025 - 32nd in the country [124]
2026 - 55th so far [92]

"Good offense gets dunks". With a PG like Silas we should be top 20. But we just don't have that until Riebe gets the majority minutes. Unfortunately, I don't think that's the right move either. We are either stuck with a clunky, inconsistent offense or TR better get comfortable rollin downhill with the guards.

*Sanogo was incredible. PNR, Seals, patient footwork, drives from the 3pt line (!!), trash put backs. Not to mention he dropped those back to back 3s against Miami to open the game. That's the sort of dynamic post this offense requires.
 
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Jaydumo20 said:
Believe it or not, the best thing to happen to this team will be this loss. Less of a target, more playing uphill. I'm not trying to sugar coat it. I think they'd start playing better if they weren't waiting to fall off that tight rope theyve been walking.

(P.S. this season has been like 5 years long with a twilight zone feel to
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FightOnCT said:
I can’t defend this. I’ve tried but I cannot for the life of me understand how we somehow have gotten worse.
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There's:
-no joy.
-no passion.
-no leader.
-no growth in key players.
-no solutions from the coaches..
-no change from 2025.
 
TouchdownHusky said:
He was going nowhere after 2004. AK is a real good college player. Not great but good. As a pro he will not be quick enough, a good enough shooter and nowhere near as athletic as he would need to be.
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He was being projected as an early 2nd round pick. You can't forget, those teams made him look much better than he is. In 2024 he was surrounded by 4 cerebral players and they dominated. That was a very weak draft, he did well in the combine. Easily his peak value. These last two years have done nothing to add to his market and he's walking into one of the strongest, deepest drafts ever.
 
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superjohn said:
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.
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But, but...he is Donny's cousin!!!
 
Hurleyman216 said:
I’m not blaming officiating on this loss, but my observation from being at the game is we are tentative finishing around the rim. We’ve gotten so used to no calls being called in our favor down low, that it has changed the way we try to finish shots and we’re often taking high difficulty acrobatic shots when other teams just lower their shoulder, go up strong and draw a foul.

There were multiple plays where Mullins got completely mauled going to the rim and no call. After this happens we tend to settle for 3’s and mid range shots. Most games we make enough 3’s to make up for the poor finishing around the rim and FT differential…tonight the shots just weren’t falling.
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We're tentative because we are officially a jump shooting team. We are outshot at the FT line now two years in a row, with generally the same dynamic of player profile. This is the recruitment movement Hurley seems to be moving to, jump shooters 2-4.
 
RuffRuff said:
He was being projected as an early 2nd round pick. You can't forget, those teams made him look much better than he is. In 2024 he was surrounded by 4 cerebral players and they dominated. That was a very weak draft, he did well in the combine. Easily his peak value. These last two years have done nothing to add to his market and he's walking into one of the strongest, deepest drafts ever.
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If he goes in the 2nd round(which he will) will you wear a clown suit and post it here?
 
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CTpessimist said:
Creightons a bubble team, we could still win the big east regular season and conference tournament, the sky isnt falling. At least not yet.
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Post/handle

And Creighton is nowhere close to a bubble team.
 
11-18 on FTs...61%...this has been a problem the whole season... How can this not be coached to get a better result on game day? Totally baffling to me.

Solo, Silas and Alex were totally inept on offense and their defense was not much better.

Not the way to be playing as the regular season ends and tourney time begins.
 
CTpessimist said:
Creightons a bubble team, we could still win the big east regular season and conference tournament, the sky isnt falling. At least not yet.
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Creighton is absolutely not a bubble team. They have no shot at the tournament unless they win the BET. Their kenpom is 71 after tonight.
 
Ouch. I gotta admit that one hurt. You know ish was going down by the rotations. I don't know what the hell happened, but I'm not changing my view on the team - they can still do anything. Hell, even our best teams had headscratchers.
 
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