Creighton Post Game Thread

[Jaydumo20]

The best thing was losing to St. John’s. Let not rationalize that it’s ok to lose to Creighton at home. This team has regressed we can only hope to see the 2nd weekend.

I agree. But nothing is black and white. This wasnt a forgivable loss, but the St.Johns loss, nor any of the too close games leading up to this, resulted in any real lineup changes. It's a last ditch effort, I know, but the guys who are gonna get less minutes now have every right to be upset...but they cant be surprised. I do believe that Ross and Reibe starting will give us better D to start the game off.

 

[freshler40]

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

Is the high hedge part of the winning games or losing games at this point. Perhaps we are an easy defensive read at this stage of a second run against our conference? We seem to wash, wash again, repeat. It might help to introduce new material into both sides of the ball.

 

[Pmurph678]

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.

Took me 3 times reading this over to realize you think Jayden Ross is Jayden Reed.

 

[Excalibur]

Are we even sure Alex makes the first team all BE team this year? Silas will be the first Uconn rep, that I know.


Goes to show you UK's talent recognition and willingness to pay. We should have let him go, let Mullins play the two and picked up a big on ball 3 that could defend. I wonder what UM paid Yaxel. We make that move, we are NC fav.

Yaxel got at least 3. He withdrew from the draft and was being mocked in the mid 20's. UM's offer matched that at a minimum.

 

[Excalibur]

Is the high hedge part of the winning games or losing games at this point. Perhaps we are an easy defensive read at this stage of a second run against our conference? We seem to wash, wash again, repeat. It might help to introduce new material into both sides of the ball.

We are so so at hedging, and terrible when we don't.

 

[Excalibur]

Well he did have several turnovers. I would like to see him not always act like it’s him vs 5 defenders and start some inside out passes.

He turned ball over ALOT last night when he should have passed it so do not agree we “abandoned” him…

He had one turnover last night.

 

[Shabazzkets]

I said in one of the early post-game threads, against a cupcake, that I didn’t see a national championship team here. I got blasted.

It’s game 27 and I still don’t see it. We have problems that the staff can’t fix.

Solo and Alex are poor defenders and Reed is not the type of protector who can cover for this.

Reed is not a reliable low post scorer, is not a dominant rebounder, and plays below the rim. In fairness, he doesn’t get enough help on the rebounding front, either.

We don’t have individuals adept at getting their own shot, aside from Demary and maybe Braylon. That’s ok if we execute offensively at a high level, but we don’t.

We foul too much and don’t hit enough of our own foul shots. Bad combo.

We do lots of things well and have talented players. But the problem areas are too many to really have a shot at the FF.

 

[gsmooth]

I said in one of the early post-game threads, against a cupcake, that I didn’t see a national championship team here. I got blasted.

It’s game 27 and I still don’t see it. We have problems that the staff can’t fix.

Solo and Alex are poor defenders and Reed is not the type of protector who can cover for this.

Reed is not a reliable low post scorer, is not a dominant rebounder, and plays below the rim. In fairness, he doesn’t get enough help on the rebounding front, either.

We don’t have individuals adept at getting their own shot, aside from Demary and maybe Braylon. That’s ok if we execute offensively at a high level, but we don’t.

We foul too much and don’t hit enough of our own foul shots. Bad combo.

We do lots of things well and have talented players. But the problem areas are too many to really have a shot at the FF.

We will see. I am not writing off this team's chances for a Final Four, but they they really have to pick it up. The issues you brought is something I have thought for a while now. I didn't expect UConn to lose to Crieghton last night, but I had a feeling the difference would be in the single digits and close. The issues you pointed didn't just come out of the blue last night. Last night's game was a culmination of these issues throughout the season especially after the Big East games started.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Hurley said he is playing hurt

Maybe that’s true. But he has had these no-show games not infrequently the last 2 seasons. We all have seen it

 

[Deepster]

So, Alex did get kneed in the thigh and he was wearing a full length sleeve last night. That said, the comments from Hurley seemed like there was some of the head coach protecting his guy a little bit. He made shots in warmups and threw up bricks in the game....

 

[gsmooth]

Maybe that’s true. But he has had these no-show games not infrequently the last 2 seasons. We all have seen it

What you said is true-AK has had these games where he disappears and doesn't produce nearly enough. The last 2 games it's undeniable that he is hurt or injured. But my bigger concern or thought is that Hurley did not bench him. AK was doing nothing yesterday. As bad as Alex was, Stewart has not given Hurley and the staff much reason to be confident to take some of Alex's minutes even though he should have played more yesterday. Stewart's lackluster play this year had me annoyed because I wanted Alex to player about 28 minutes a game and instead Hurley is dialing back the bench players' minutes when games are close. AK playing close to 35+ minutes a game in closely contested high leverage situations most certainly has taken a toll on him.

 

[RuffRuff]

Yes, we have those out of conference wins and it's still why we were in position for a 1 seed before last night but we haven't looked anything like that team in a long time and those teams all look like they've inproved a lot minus BYU who isn't deep enough and lost their second best player...

If this was just some one off game against a bad Creighton team we could chalk it up as just being an awful night but we've all seen the way we've been squeaking out wins against bad teams for a while. We've all seen our defense go from looking great to looking horrible...

We're at the point where we need a lineup change and some adjustments in how we play defense because we look like a team that was figured out like a month ago and as other teams are surging we're regressing. If we don't make changes and change our approach we're looking at three more losses before we even get to the NCAA tournament.

We're scoring the ball but as Hurley said our defense is dreadful and a joke. It's all about fixing the defense, if we don't start playing D again the season is lost. He's not a lockdown defender and not the answer but Ross can be some sort of answer to addressing the joke of a defense we've been seeing. Hurley needs to start him and have Solo off the bench as our microwave scorer.

I think you said it in the chat, but it's like this team can't do both well at the same time.

I am ALL for getting Ross starting minutes. A - Solo needs a kick in the @ss. B - it's a more balanced roster and may engage Ross in a way where he really steps up. If he can get a good 20-22 minutes, put in 6-8 pts, play great D, let Mullins rip, it's a better team.

 

[uconnfan68]

He had one turnover last night.

How many missed 2-3’ shots?

 

[HW611]

I think you said it in the chat, but it's like this team can't do both well at the same time.

I am ALL for getting Ross starting minutes. A - Solo needs a kick in the @ss. B - it's a more balanced roster and may engage Ross in a way where he really steps up. If he can get a good 20-22 minutes, put in 6-8 pts, play great D, let Mullins rip, it's a better team.

One of Mullins or Ball off the bench as instant offense for a spark also just makes a lot of sense.

It never made sense bringing defense in off the bench instead of offense.

 

[aceboon]

What you said is true-AK has had these games where he disappears and doesn't produce nearly enough. The last 2 games it's undeniable that he is hurt or injured. But my bigger concern or thought is that Hurley did not bench him. AK was doing nothing yesterday. As bad as Alex was, Stewart has not given Hurley and the staff much reason to be confident to take some of Alex's minutes even though he should have played more yesterday. Stewart's lackluster play this year had me annoyed because I wanted Alex to player about 28 minutes a game and instead Hurley is dialing back the bench players' minutes when games are close. AK playing close to 35+ minutes a game in closely contested high leverage situations most certainly has taken a toll on him.

Alex "only" playing 25 minutes last night was the equivalent of Hurley benching him with the way he usually rides him heavy minutes

 

[Glastonhusky]

I said in one of the early post-game threads, against a cupcake, that I didn’t see a national championship team here. I got blasted.

It’s game 27 and I still don’t see it. We have problems that the staff can’t fix.

Solo and Alex are poor defenders and Reed is not the type of protector who can cover for this.

Reed is not a reliable low post scorer, is not a dominant rebounder, and plays below the rim. In fairness, he doesn’t get enough help on the rebounding front, either.

We don’t have individuals adept at getting their own shot, aside from Demary and maybe Braylon. That’s ok if we execute offensively at a high level, but we don’t.

We foul too much and don’t hit enough of our own foul shots. Bad combo.

We do lots of things well and have talented players. But the problem areas are too many to really have a shot at the FF.

We'll see. As bad as we played last night, if either Solo or Alex hit their scoring average, we probably win the game. We do have talented players, but because of the problems you identified we just have a thin margin for error.

 

[UConnRock]

So- re: Solo & (lack of) defense.
Can someone explain that to me? I thought defense was all about desire? Is he just too slow? What is it?

good defense is anticipation...not reaction. Solo reacts and is seemingly a 1/2 step behind. Mullins puts himself in similar situations but has more athletic skill to make up for the errors.

 

[formerlurker]

I’m not knocking anyone who still feels the sting of last night. It’s normal and necessary to maintain a rabid fan base. All I’ll say is I’m happy I’m old enough not to let a loss for may favorite team take over my life.

 

[uconnfan68]

We'll see. As bad as we played last night, if either Solo or Alex hit their scoring average, we probably win the game. We do have talented players, but because of the problems you identified we just have a thin margin for error.

Outscored by 16 from the line. We foul shooters too often.