Defense was so much better

[nelsonmuntz]

It is hard to believe that the same UConn team that was a turnstile defensively on Wednesday could play defense like it did today. The stats only tell part of the story of how bad UConn was on Wednesday, because St. Joe's was killing the clock in the last 10 minutes, so they ended up with a lot more forced shots late in the shot clock simply because they were running time off. When St. Joe's was tearing UConn up in the first 30 minutes, they were embarrassing UConn off the dribble and getting multiple open looks as the defense would have to collapse on the penetration. The help was always late and there was no second rotation at all. St. Joe's outside shooters were literally shooting uncontested jumpers for much of the game.

Today, Florida couldn't even get into their offense. By the time they got anything going, it was under 10 seconds left on the clock and they were rushing. There was still some penetration into the heart of UConn's defense, but it was getting challenged and the help was arriving. Florida shot 5 for 20 from 3 because they took a lot of contested or rushed 3's.

I think Florida is a young team and didn't have a great game plan coming into the game. Still, UConn played great defense, and pulled out a big win against a good team. Florida will drop out of the rankings after losing to UConn, but this feels like a win that will look better in March than it will in December.

I like UConn's offense. I like the movement and spacing, I think it creates a lot of high percentage shots. The defense was a problem in both of the first two games, but if UConn can play D like they did today, this could be a decent year.

 

[ucawn]

The team feeds off the crowd. That’s why In December all of our mid major games are gonna be close at the start because the “casual fan” doesn’t care about those games

 

[mauconnfan]

They played tough minded and fast to the ball like they were desperate to win on front of a great crowd and yes they fed off of them. Do they realize they need to play that way every game, without white out crowds, away crowds in every game to be the tourney team they desire? We will see. But for this one an "A" for their intensity and passion.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

There are two aspect of the defense that were a problem on Wednesday:

1) Point of attack - Gilbert and Vital were getting chewed up off the dribble. This can be solved with focus and intensity. This definitely improved a lot against Florida.

2) Help and Rotations - I have complained in the past that I do not think the players understand Hurley's defensive rotations. Help on penetration is always really late, and the second rotation on the weakside is often non-existent. When the help is late, all it is doing is ending up in no man's land, not defending its own man, but not getting over in time to help on penetration either. If the help is a little late and the weakside rotation is slow, there could be two open shooters on the weakside.

Watch a replay of any 5 minutes of the St. Joe's game and this was happening all night long. Watch the action away from the ball, and you will see 1 or more St. Joe's players literally undefended with no hope of a closeout for UConn. This is middle school AAU level stuff, and UConn has struggled with it going back to last year.

The Help and Rotations issues are X's and O's, and something Hurley has to address. I have a suspicion that we haven't solved this. Florida, with a young team that hasn't played together much, didn't recognize the late arriving UConn help defense and had their own spacing issues on offense, and couldn't exploit this defensive weakness of UConn's. Florida has a bunch of highly skilled, superior athletes, and they tried to beat UConn 1 on 1 the whole night, and UConn dialed up its defensive intensity and was able to stop them.

Can UConn stop a more passing oriented offense with good spacing and movement, like St. Joe's? We will see soon enough.