East Texas PM Post Game Thread

[BigErnMcCracken]

Don’t be misled by these blowouts and our #2 ranking.

Amazing post.

 

[RuffRuff]

Lots of empty donor seats in the lower bowl tonight. Student section packed to the gills. Poor showing by the olds tonight.

Probably didn’t want to pull away from the boneyard to talk about Wes Baleksuknia and Kevin Ollie .

 

[navery12]

This board is embarrassing

 

[Al Czervik]

Nowell needs to run point with Mahaney as a two off the bench. The offense runs better that way and will be needed when we’re not playing cupcakes.

 

[Brochacho]

Overall, our last 50 games have been something.

47-3. Undefeated at home. Undefeated at neutral sites. Two championships. Even with our losses factored in, we are 19.82 points better than our opponents on average per game. Pretty cool - I don't think we will ever have a 50 game run like this again.

 

[KingAG]

We would’ve have 30 TOs against this Marquette defense tonight.

 

[Kitaman]

Nowell gave me freshman Bazz vibes tonight. That's a high compliment.

 

[navery12]

Totally agree on the scheduling. 4 teams that were -35 each is not great. At least put a couple of games against teams that are -17 to -25. They aren't that hard to find even with not knowing everything before the schedule is set.

But they have done this pretty much for two seasons previous, so I'll leave it to the staff to figure out what's best.

That might be nice, but it's just as valuable to learn that Mahaney and Ball are able to play in a lead guard role if needed. Or that Karaban is capable of playing the small ball 5 at times. Or that Nowell and Abraham look ready to step up in case of emergency and aren't just being thrown into the fire. And those things can't be experimented with against a solid mid major like that

 

[RuffRuff]

We would’ve have 30 TOs against this Marquette defense tonight.

Exactly the kind of game I’d be curious to see how we execute. Grinding half court game. So much of our offense so far has been playground, what will we do when the other guys our size slap the floor and square up man in the HC? I haven’t really seen much so far that gives me any sense on how we’d perform when the screws are tightened.

I know it’s fun to watch Ross dunk like Julius Erving, but I get a lot more satisfaction in watching a well run set as a much better indicator of what we’ll need next week forward.

Sloppy game. The offense does not look anywhere close to what it needs to be. We’re not getting nearly enough lob dunks or backdoor cut layups. I think they’re in for a tough practice.

Hurley said it well, these guards just aren’t seeing the slips, rolls, etc that last years team did. That squad had 5 players that had amazing awareness and vision for one another. I’m honestly not sure anyone but Alex and Hassan have that on this years team. And it really takes all 5 guys working in harmony to be able to execute this offense. Part of that is tenure, but you’d hope some of these sophomores would be able to cut and read a bit more like last years team did. They haven’t show it much at all yet. I wouldn’t expect the new guys to fully gel on it yet, but you’d hope the sophs might.

 

[Al Czervik]

Nowell needs to run point with Mahaney as a two off the bench. The offense runs better that way and will be needed when we’re not playing cupcakes.

As a qualification, Hass as the starter w Nowell as a backup at point

 

[superjohn]

This board is embarrassing

It's gotten a lot worse. People are hysterical about our team and about the Big East. We aren't playing at the level we did in March and the Big East lost a few cupcake games. You would think it was the later Ollie years and we were playing in a worse version of the AAC if you read this board.

 

[HooperScooper]

I'm sure Hurley is not happy at all with that performance. Very sloppy and inefficient. We constantly got beat off the dribble and gave up a lot of open 3s (East Texas A&M just couldn't make any of them ). Plus we lost the loose ball battle. A lot to clean up before going to Maui.

“Just comically bad,” Hurley said to open his post-game press conference. “Second half rebounding was so far below standard. Ball security throughout the game, it’s been a long time since we’ve been that bad… I think at times we played hard, but once we got it to 37 with 12 minutes to go, it turned into a debacle out there. Just played so far below the standard across the board.”

Good. Gives him lots of ammunition for the next few practices.

No. 2 UConn men’s basketball beats East Texas A&M, 81-46, despite season-high 19 turnovers

The UConn men’s basketball team stormed past East Texas A&M for an 81-46 win on Tuesday night at Gampel Pavilion, the team’s last buy game before the Maui Invitational.

www.courant.com

 

[RuffRuff]

It's gotten a lot worse. People are hysterical about our team and about the Big East. We aren't playing at the level we did in March and the Big East lost a few cupcake games. You would think it was the later Ollie years and we were playing in a worse version of the AAC if you read this board.

Maybe you two can get a room at the Hilton

 

[KingAG]

We gave up 17 offensive rebounds to a sub 330 team.

 

[housekeys]

One thing about the competition. While on paper these teams are horrible, they share one thing with every other team we are going to play. They will absolutely give us their best effort of the season. Not necessarily their best game, but their best effort. That is no excuse for UConn. But it is the reality. This year more than ever, it is about the final result, more so than the style of the win.

 

[Jumpman62114]

As others have noted, kind of a lethargic game overall. I could see maui going well or our inconsistent guard play leading to serious issues. So the true tests begin…

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Maybe you two can get a room at the Hilton

What’s the point? Who could sleep with all the crying?

 

[nomar]

With the caveat that I’m fairly jaded, that was unimpressive. Extremely sloppy.

Maybe not the worst thing in the world. Gives the staff a reason to rip into the guys at the next film session and practice.

 

[uconn_jack]

I'm not sure who ultimately will or should start, but it's clear that AK, Hass, Ball, McNeeley, and Reed are the best unit they have.

 

[Sphinx]

One thing I'll wager is that we'll be playing from behind at some point in Maui, maybe double digits behind, and we will see where our leadership comes from. Will there be any cool hand besides Alex -- and maybe Hassan?

 

[caw]

Decent shooting game for Mahaney. Only 1 assist but 0 turnovers is great especially compared to Diarra’s 5. Looks like the starting lineup and 9 man rotation is set for Maui at least.

You sure about that? Nowell snuck in 10 minutes this game and I thought played well and I don't see any of the other four off the bench giving way easily.

 

[UConNick]

It’s over and done with. Sloppy as heck most of the game. Put together about 7 UConn minutes at the start of the second but then it seemed like auto pilot switched on and the intensity disappeared. Too many blow-bys on defense.

Oh, we still won by 35.

Obviously no one’s going to be happy with that game. We’re UConn and we have standards here that other schools simply don’t. But it’s a reminder that, not only is our A game probably better than anyone else’s, our B game is damn good, too, and our C game can probably scrape by quite a few top 25 teams (i.e., still be competitive).

Think we saw a C/C- game today - and again, we still won by 35. But as others have said I think it’ll be better in the long run because it gives Hurley some excellent ammo to work with on refocusing the team over the next few days to ensure we don’t bring anything that weak in Maui. It’s November and we’ve got a lot of new pieces. There’s going to be some disorganization. All systems remain go.

E: also happy to see Nowell get some first half minutes. If he’s a legitimate tenth man then we’ll have something that for all the top-end star power we didn’t have in 23 or 24: insane depth.

 

[alphasigko]

“Just comically bad,” Hurley said to open his post-game press conference. “Second half rebounding was so far below standard. Ball security throughout the game, it’s been a long time since we’ve been that bad… I think at times we played hard, but once we got it to 37 with 12 minutes to go, it turned into a debacle out there. Just played so far below the standard across the board.”

Good. Gives him lots of ammunition for the next few practices.

No. 2 UConn men’s basketball beats East Texas A&M, 81-46, despite season-high 19 turnovers

The UConn men’s basketball team stormed past East Texas A&M for an 81-46 win on Tuesday night at Gampel Pavilion, the team’s last buy game before the Maui Invitational.

www.courant.com

According to some here Coach Dan should not have that kind opinion on what we watched this evening.

 

[bendm]

You sure about that? Nowell snuck in 10 minutes this game and I thought played well and I don't see any of the other four off the bench giving way easily.

Pretty sure. 10 mins isn’t a lot in a 35 point win and Everyone else was sleepwalking through the second half

 

[3rdbass]

I think we (me included) can stop with the Jaylin Stewart getting drafted idea. Looks to me like he may be out of the rotation

Huh? Out of the rotation? He is playing meaningful minutes and like Donny mentioned he is doing a good job looking for other open players and not pushing it when not there. He is going to get his minutes but we might see him here for at least one more year. Too early to tell after 5 scrimmages including Rhode Island game. LOL!

 

[3rdbass]

Coming into the season I thought that obviously we would be missing that extra inside dimension that Clingan brought - we are - , but maybe would have a hard time finding what Newton brought. He knew how to get into the lane and either score or create and was a mature player. With Castle also gone, I think that right now Diarra is the closest to being able to do that. Plus he is a great defender. Clearly he gets himself into trouble and winds up being turned over, but with Mahaney I think we become a bit static.

We are also a very young team. Our sophs didn’t play a lot last year. Hurley is getting a lot of guys in right now which probably produces some of the erratic play. His problem is that if he shortens the bench, a few pretty talented kids will be mostly sitting. But he will figure it out. Is Nowell more of a facilitator than Ball, who needs to be playing a lot? I would not be shocked by some early bumps but hope all that talent jells into a solid, consistent tough out.

FWIW, Marquette looks pretty good vs. a Purdue team that is worlds better than any of our opponents so far.

It will be interesting to see how much time Nowell starts to get. He clearly is our only consistent creator on offense. Ball has been a disappointment on D and Mahaney just looks so slow out there at times . Diarra can drive but he might be a better 6th man. I still think Mahaney is playing out of position at PG and maybe we should start seeing more Nowell there.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Certainly some overreactions to a sloppy game, but it is pretty entertaining seeing posters clown on other posters for relaying levels of concern with the play. Sorta holier than thou. I mean, our Coach who we all see as a Demi-God came out in the post-game presser and said much worse than anyone on here.

 

[Deleted at users request]

Through these cupcake games there’s a consistent theme of us not having a PG.

I wonder how long we stick with Mahaney with him playing this way. Feel like he would thrive much better in a shooting guard role where he just has to worry about scoring.

We never saw the Ball, Ross, Liam, AK, Johnson/Reed lineup either which is confusing. If there’s a chance that’s a thing why not give it some run before competition picks up?

I agree with others that I’m concerned about guys being able to make their own plays. Solo pretty much does not drive at all unless he’s attacking a close out. It’s confusing to see a kid that athletic never attempt to drive the ball.

It’s almost like we fell in love with this offense and system a little too much. Guys are learning more on how to run this offense than how to be actual basketball players.

I hope I’m wrong but we’ll find out as this schedule ramps up what we have.

 

[HuskyinWRNY]

I'm bot that impressed yet, we've only played cupcakes. But I'm beginning to see great heights for this team.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Certainly some overreactions to a sloppy game, but it is pretty entertaining seeing posters clown on other posters for relaying levels of concern with the play. Sorta holier than thou. I mean, our Coach who we all see as a Demi-God came out in the post-game presser and said much worse than anyone on here.

They must think it’s ok for Dan to be critical because he’s Dan. We can’t be critical because we aren’t basketball coaches. Naturally, this logic doesn’t extend to any other part of their lives.