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Message: [QUOTE="Storrs South, post: 4120769, member: 7275"] I got to be honest, I don't see why everyone is so fixated on Diggins and Samson to play. This is the deepest team Hurley has ever had so comparing freshmen run to previous seasons doesn't make sense when the competition for minutes was Kassoum Yakwe, Eric Cobb, or Tarin Smith. This team goes 9 deep when healthy, mostly consisting of juniors and seniors. You need to earn your time on the court, specifically at the defensive end as we know with Hurley and likely makes exceptions if Hurley thinks you are special offensively (see Bouk and Hawk). With Martin out, Hawkins took Martins minutes and they were 8 deep until the second half when Sanogo went out and down to 7 deep. No one player was easy to point to as playing poorly, rather it seemed a complete effort of just lack of energy across the board: everyone missed some wide open 3s, some missed layups, some silly unforced turnovers, and UMES making some really lucky shots (could cut up the tape and count 5 or 6 that had no business going in). That's not an excuse for the overall effort, but it's more to the point of we aren't in practice and some bizarre stuff happened coupled with another slow start that allowed UMES to be emboldened to play way above their skill level. Diggins and Johnson have gotten some play and...they looked like freshmen. They will both be great players, but this coaching staff at the very least should have earned the fanbases trust after taking this team from KenPom 179 to 98 to 52 to 21 to whatever they are as of this (I believe 28) in 3-4 years. Growth isn't always linear, despite the fact they got us back to respectability so quickly and in such a straight progression. The things that need to be fixed are obvious: don't feed Sanogo unless he gets better position, Sanogo passing out of double teams, Andre being more careful with the ball, Andre taking the open 3 when presented, Gaffney being more aggressive driving and shooting, Whaley shooting the 3 when it's there, guys doing a better job keeping their guy in front of them and not biting on ball fakes as hard, Hawkins fixing his handle. Just overall less reliant on feeding it to Adama and hoping he can get a basket. They won't correct all of those things, but improve in a couple areas and they should be good. They are usually solid enough on offense rebounding that it covers up a lot of mistakes, but didn't hit the boards hard (a lot of that due to Martin's absence) which is why they got exposed. Coupled with UMES hitting some really difficult shots that were well defended, it limited UConn getting out in transition. Those two things probably add an additional 10-12 point cushion and we are talking about this game like the Binghamton contest. My only takeaway is the last two weeks have shown how important guys like Whaley and Martin are to the overall operation particularly on defense and rebounding. Not that two freshmen who still have a lot to learn need to getting minutes. [/QUOTE]

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