Demonic ThoughtZ™

[RichZ]

1. Good start, then we got inexplicably sloppy. Loose with the ball, and horrible defensive positioning.
2. Not quite 5 minutes in, and Sanogo turned and stepped away from the ball as a DePaul guy was driving. Where was he planning on going?
3. Other than the occasional block, Akok is not a good defender.
4. Cole draws a charge 7 minutes in. No one in the building was surprised.
5. Under 12 timeout. We are getting hammered on the boards. 9 to 5. 3-zip offensive. C'mon guys. We're UConn. We don't get out-rebounded.
6. Drive into traffic. Nowhere to go. Panic pass back out. Turnover.
7. 10:31 Tyrese sees the play developing, establishes position outside the forbidden zone, puts his arms straight up and doesn't move. B Johnson goes up for shot and crashes into him. Tyrese gets called for a foul. Sigh. Gonna be a long night, I'm afraid. Johnson misses both FTs. Ball Don't Lie.
8. Again, Sanogo ignoring his man in the paint.
9. Down double digits at 7:40
10. DePaul seemed all around quicker, with much more active hands than us, but we would neutralize that advantage in the 2nd half.
11. Another Sanogo turnover. We need to see Sampson.
12. That was one of the best under one second full court plays I've seen in a long, long time, but until that play, Sanogo had his worst half of the season.
13. By the half, our rebound deficit had evaporated and left a 3 board lead in its wake. That gave me a lot more confidence for the 2nd half.
14. 1 point down at the half. Thank the Lord for RJ. Hoping that we took their best shot in the first half. I went into the 2nd half telling myself that I we can't possibly play another half that poorly, or that DePaul can play that well for another minute. I told my wife I expected a turnaround and a 5 to 10 point win.
15. Why does whatsername keep calling Anei, Akok?
16. Jackson leading our board work, bigtime.
17. I get nervous whenever Akok is in the game. He's a shell of his former self, and a liability at both ends of the floor.
18. And now she called Sanogo Sunoco.
19. She finally called Anei, Anei, with less than 3 minutes left in the game.
20. We ended up winning the battle of the boards by 10. That's 5 each, O & D.
21. Not a lot of assists in the game, but we were behind 4 to 2 at the half, and won that line on the stat sheet 8 to 5.
22. That was a truly ugly game, yet a great win. Showed some team character.
23. I hope Zay's injury is nothing serious. We're going to need him in a few days.

 

[spudzj6]

I hope Zay's injury is nothing serious. We're going to need him in a few days.

Martin and Cole both got banged up pretty good too. Not a good look having 3 starters get worked over in a bottom of the league game with the heart of the schedule coming up fast.

 

[Ts5034]

Im not upset by this win at all. Im chalking this up to the fact that it was a bad team and they were just looking ahead to Creighton and Villanova this week.

 

[uconngb]

1. Good start, then we got inexplicably sloppy. Loose with the ball, and horrible defensive positioning.
2. Not quite 5 minutes in, and Sanogo turned and stepped away from the ball as a DePaul guy was driving. Where was he planning on going?
3. Other than the occasional block, Akok is not a good defender.
4. Cole draws a charge 7 minutes in. No one in the building was surprised.
5. Under 12 timeout. We are getting hammered on the boards. 9 to 5. 3-zip offensive. C'mon guys. We're UConn. We don't get out-rebounded.
6. Drive into traffic. Nowhere to go. Panic pass back out. Turnover.
7. 10:31 Tyrese sees the play developing, establishes position outside the forbidden zone, puts his arms straight up and doesn't move. B Johnson goes up for shot and crashes into him. Tyrese gets called for a foul. Sigh. Gonna be a long night, I'm afraid. Johnson misses both FTs. Ball Don't Lie.
8. Again, Sanogo ignoring his man in the paint.
9. Down double digits at 7:40
10. DePaul seemed all around quicker, with much more active hands than us, but we would neutralize that advantage in the 2nd half.
11. Another Sanogo turnover. We need to see Sampson.
12. That was one of the best under one second full court plays I've seen in a long, long time, but until that play, Sanogo had his worst half of the season.
13. By the half, our rebound deficit had evaporated and left a 3 board lead in its wake. That gave me a lot more confidence for the 2nd half.
14. 1 point down at the half. Thank the Lord for RJ. Hoping that we took their best shot in the first half. I went into the 2nd half telling myself that I we can't possibly play another half that poorly, or that DePaul can play that well for another minute. I told my wife I expected a turnaround and a 5 to 10 point win.
15. Why does whatsername keep calling Anei, Akok?
16. Jackson leading our board work, bigtime.
17. I get nervous whenever Akok is in the game. He's a shell of his former self, and a liability at both ends of the floor.
18. And now she called Sanogo Sunoco.
19. She finally called Anei, Anei, with less than 3 minutes left in the game.
20. We ended up winning the battle of the boards by 10. That's 5 each, O & D.
21. Not a lot of assists in the game, but we were behind 4 to 2 at the half, and won that line on the stat sheet 8 to 5.
22. That was a truly ugly game, yet a great win. Showed some team character.
23. I hope Zay's injury is nothing serious. We're going to need him in a few days.

I’m not very worried by #23. He hasn’t been bringing much save for one game recently.

 

[Glastonhusky]

I’m not very worried by #23. He hasn’t been bringing much save for one game recently.

I'm worried. He does a lot of the little things that don't get noticed. Did you see the MSU game when he was out?

 

[RichZ]

I’m not very worried by #23. He hasn’t been bringing much save for one game recently.

Last 4 games (Prior to last night)
Gtown 15pt, 1 steal, 7, boards in 27 minutes
Butler2 11pt, 1 block, 10 boards in 23 minutes
Butler1 foultrouble 2 blocks. 10 minutes.
SJU 5 points, 5 blocks, 3 boards, 3, steals, 2 dimes, 37 minutes.

Last night, he scored the first basket of the game, but never took another shot. he had 4 boars, 2 blocks and a dime. But mostly, he was a relief valve. When the ball handler got in trouble, he made himself available to set a screen or to receive a pass and get it to RJ or AJ to get the offense going again. Seemed to be part of the gameplan, because when he wasn't in, Polley did pretty much the same thing.

 

[mauconnfan]

Not sure how anyone could not be worried about not having Whaley in the lineup? Our defense is at an overall loss without him in the lineup he does so many things not on the sheet. Last night admittedly he tried to do too much and left some glaring holes but normally our glue.

 

[Ricker]

In the first half Sanogo came up empty with a miss or a turnover 4-5x. I thought he was establishing position too far from the basket which required him to make more moves with the ball than another 3 ft in. When he hadn't been scoring, he started to force the action and it didn't work. He should have passed out and re-established. Kudos to Depaul if this was the result of a defensive plan and execution.

It astonishes me that Polley and Hawkins are both 'on' or both 'off'. Hurley has the right to be able to rely on at least one or the other in every game, and they aren't giving it to him.

RJ Cole is so important to everything we do. He carried this team vs Depaul. He was the entire offense in the first half, handled the ball, drew offensive fouls, and made his free throws in the last minute when Martin & Jackson missed front ends.

Martin's yips under the rim are unacceptable. Everybody misses occasionally, but geez...

Whaley has decided he doesn't want to shoot. If he's open he starts to move to a defender so he has an excuse to pass. The box score is generous to him if he didn't have several turnovers. Off the top of my head I can think of 2 entry passes, a moving pick, and losing his handle on the ball at the sideline. Good or bad game, he usually doesn't make so many pure mistakes.

I don't like it, but I'll forgive Jackson's front end miss because he has made a bunch, Martin has to make an end of game 1 & 1 or give up the ball to a better foul shooter. They needed to foul, he kept the ball, that means he wants to take the FTs, and that means he needs to make them.

This was exactly the game I envisioned when I posted in the Depaul pregame thread. They figure out a way to be in every game and get ahead, then figure how to lose it in the end.

 

[Umami Zen]

Big East road win..Next

 

[Husky1972]

Sanogo, Martin, and Whaley did not have their better games. We won.

That's one of the good things about this team, someone always seems to step up when matchups or bad nights slow other typical contributors down.

Example: Martin has 3 points in 1st Butler game, Cole leads with 17. Cole has 4 points, 3 assists in the 2nd Butler game, Martin shows up with 27/6/2, which wasn't a one-off, as he had 25/6 against Marquette.

Point is that in our 8 Big East games, we've had 3 different leading scorers: Cole (3Xs), Sanogo (3) Martin (2); 3 different leading rebounders: Sanogo (4), Jackson (3), Whaley (1). I don't believe that's typical for most teams, and is a good thing for us.

My concern would be if we had one of our top 4 players have a string of bad games, then we'd be relying on the other 3 to outperform every night, which isn't likely to happen. I expect that Sanogo and Martin will have better games going forward to compensate for an off-night for someone else.