It’s as bad as we thought | Page 2 | The Boneyard

It’s as bad as we thought

You can visibly see these guys panic and rush it when they get the ball to the rim. The guards are throwing up prayers and the bigs might as well be blindfolded. These guys all need to go up stronger. Right now nobody on this team outside of Sanogo is confident offensively.
 
So much for being one of the better offensive rebounding teams when we miss the put backs at that rate!
 
businesslawyer said:
I see it differently. Without Bouk, Akon and Jackson, the principal problem is a lack of athleticism. We are without those players unathletic compared to our conference peers. Carlton, Martin, Cole, Gaffney, Adams and Polley do not have the combination of strength, hops, speed and quickness that their peers do. Only Sanogo and Whaley are plus on athleticism at this level. Sãnogo shows it but is still learning, and Whalley, frankly, seems to be too concerned about his stroke from 3 and not enough about finishing in the paint and making foul shots.
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Personally, I wouldn't call Sanogo a + athlete--I'd call him really skilled and humongous with phenomenal hands and coordination. He doesn't run very fast or act as a vertical spacer by any means IMO. So I guess it depends how you define athleticism--we may be in agreement anyways because I do consider coordination, footwork, skill to be a part of your athleticism

Totally agree that we're functional athleticism deficient right now outside of Martin and Whaley probably. But there's also skilled guards all over the country that aren't super athletic but are able to make plays at the rim. Plenty of them just in our conference. Athleticism and size just masks a lack of skill to an extent--which is probably why Martin is able to convert at the rim much better % than the other perimeter players despite his meatloaf hands.
 
mussels said:
My admittedly casual takeaway, is that Whaley needs to pull the trigger more on some of those open threes he has been passing on. He's shooting 44.4%, so he can make them.
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If teams sag off him and he has time to catch and square up, I'm okay with him shooting 3-4 three's a game. I'd wager a pint of macro beer that Whaley ends up with a higher 3 pt shooting percentage for the year than Martin or Adams.
 
husky429 said:
I think we need to run more in transition if we want to improve our shooting %s. We aren't good in the half-court. We also turn the ball over a lot on the break. I don't have the stats on our team, but I've gotta imagine that the higher % of turnovers would be worth it if we can just score the ball more on the run.
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The next time Gaff runs in transition will be his first
navery12 said:
Not a great list of teams

View attachment 63935
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3 from the CT maybe it's the water
 
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NJHusky said:
he did have 2 dunks and left with a perfect shooting percentage :D
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Hey I liked Javonte and I wish he had stayed, but this year is kind of like a Monopoly get out of jail free card. I wish the kid the best.
 
NJHusky said:
Just for perspective, can you post the teams/% at the top of the list?
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No surprise why Gonzaga is so good, high percentage at the rim and they take a ton of shots from there

5E23512A-22F6-4585-8AA5-87CCE6478A50.jpeg
 
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CL82 said:
Hey I liked Javonte and I wish he had stayed, but this year is kind of like a Monopoly get out of jail free card. I wish the kid the best.
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agree 100%
 
Have Ty Polley start and begin his work in the post and midrange and crashing the boards.

Ty Polley is the answer.

Cole is a losing player. Worst finisher on the team and least clutch player on the team. He needs to play off ball.
 
Edward Sargent said:
So much for being one of the better offensive rebounding teams when we miss the put backs at that rate!
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Well sometimes they get fouled on the put backs and that means a trip to the line, even if they only make one of two . Problem is that sometimes they miss both foul shots.
 
husky429 said:
Akok and Jackson aren't guys that know how to finish around the rim in the half court unless they're catching lobs or have wide open dunks. They are both elite in transition but half-court offense is lacking.

Another reason why I think we need to be running more (even if it means more TOs), is that we can start to develop our young guys that are so good at running. They won't get better at fixing TOs unless they practice. Hopefully when Jackson and Akok are back and get some game time, we can go to that.

I'm excluding 5s from this conversation mostly. If Sanogo can't shoot 50%+ from 2 he shouldn't see the floor.
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I'm with you on running. Have been all along. Hurley seems to think we need to play slow, because we are offensively challenged. I think that's why you play fast.

My completely amateur, eye test only opinion is that we have too many guys who are playing volleyball around the rim. I'm not sure why we even call them layups when they are released so far from the basket. They are just throwing the ball at the backboard as quickly as they can. It's rushed.

Instead, jump, get the damned ball near the backboard and then release it. Go up strong, protect the ball, initiate the contact, then make your shot.

 
Huskymagic said:
Have Ty Polley start and begin his work in the post and midrange and crashing the boards.

Ty Polley is the answer.

Cole is a losing player. Worst finisher on the team and least clutch player on the team. He needs to play off ball.
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Not sure how good Polley's footwork would be in the post. He needs footwork and post moves. Not sure he has post moves. Kind of late in the year for an experiment.

The one 3 with very good footwork was Vance Jackson. He had excellent footwork but left because he did not want to play close to the basket. I don't think he ever became a star at New Mexico or New Mexico state. I did like his shot and inside footwork. Too bad he did not stay with the program.

Cole does seem to break the press and get the ball upcourt. If he is not the point guard, do you really want Gaffney to be the one? If we had another good point guard, I would agree that Cole would be better off ball. Though, his shooting percentage, on average, is not that great either.
 
Thirty Three said:
From Katie Sharp on twitter...

“UConn is shooting 52.7% on shots at the rim (layups, dunks, tip-ins) per hoop-math.com.

That ranks 325th out of 347 D-1 teams.”
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22nd in yip % !!!!!
 
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Improviser said:
Not sure how good Polley's footwork would be in the post. He needs footwork and post moves. Not sure he has post moves. Kind of late in the year for an experiment.

The one 3 with very good footwork was Vance Jackson. He had excellent footwork but left because he did not want to play close to the basket. I don't think he ever became a star at New Mexico or New Mexico state. I did like his shot and inside footwork. Too bad he did not stay with the program.

Cole does seem to break the press and get the ball upcourt. If he is not the point guard, do you really want Gaffney to be the one? If we had another good point guard, I would agree that Cole would be better off ball. Though, his shooting percentage, on average, is not that great either.
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Dagger Trey Ty is a wing on offense. He’s best as a second option. He’s a big weapon to winning.

However, because we lack any good options on offense with Bouk our and our point guards playing subpar overall, teams are making it an emphasis to play Polley tight and take him out of games.

Until Bouks return we need to play Polley differently and make teams adjust again how they play him.

No team cares if Cole scores. It never leads to winning.
 
husky429 said:
I think we need to run more in transition if we want to improve our shooting %s. We aren't good in the half-court. We also turn the ball over a lot on the break. I don't have the stats on our team, but I've gotta imagine that the higher % of turnovers would be worth it if we can just score the ball more on the run.
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Coach, we all have to admit our game has been frickin stall-ball since Bouk went out. It's a reality. I guess they know best?
 
HuskyHawk said:
I'm with you on running. Have been all along. Hurley seems to think we need to play slow, because we are offensively challenged. I think that's why you play fast.

My completely amateur, eye test only opinion is that we have too many guys who are playing volleyball around the rim. I'm not sure why we even call them layups when they are released so far from the basket. They are just throwing the ball at the backboard as quickly as they can. It's rushed.

Instead, jump, get the damned ball near the backboard and then release it. Go up strong, protect the ball, initiate the contact, then make your shot.

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Seriously, a fantastic video. K Free w/ the forwards, hell all the coaches should break this thing down and spend 30 minutes exclusively practicing scoring thru contact.

It completely negates the culture Coach Hurley is looking to cultivate. Toughness. Leading the Big East in O Rebounding is fantastic but shooting 40% on two foot put-backs originating from the O-Rebound reflects mental softness.
 
Huskymagic said:
Have Ty Polley start and begin his work in the post and midrange and crashing the boards.

Ty Polley is the answer.

Cole is a losing player. Worst finisher on the team and least clutch player on the team. He needs to play off ball.
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seriously, r u on drugs? he only has taken 12% of his shots at the rim! a number sooo bad, and at 6'9'' no less, that it defies explanation. any explanation. heck, rj 20%, badams 25%, and jalen, 30%, blow that away. 6'9''!
on the udderhand, we take aboot 40% there, which seems like a decent % when compared to the seemingly 30-50% for most teams. ergo, it's not the 'taking' the shot thing, it's the 'making' the shot thing, which we all know from just watching. except tyler. he never goes there, which we also all know from just watching.
i fully expect us to revert to our mean, when fully whole. it'll be a good mean. i mean, when we get meaner.
 
In one of our tourney games with Adrien and Sticks (I think it was UTSA), the broadcast mics caught the talking between Adrien and Sticks telling each other to "Dunk that $@#!".

We should play that video with the sound on at Gampel.
 
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First, let me say that I love what Martin has brought to the team so far. He reminds me so much of Donny Marshall but with a little better handle and outside game at the same stage.

That said, one thing I've noticed on his drives is that as he initiates contact, he swings the ball side to side in front of face to make space to get his shot up. Kinda what Ray did on his famous game-winner versus G'town in the BE Final. The problem with that is that it makes it much harder to put the ball up with any touch and also to have good control of the direction the ball is going up. It's a rapid motion, and he goes directly into the shot after without a pause to re-center the ball and reset his arms. I feel like that leads to his release at the rim often being a bit frenetic rather than controlled.
 
ConnEd said:
That said, one thing I've noticed on his drives is that as he initiates contact, he swings the ball side to side in front of face to make space to get his shot up. Kinda what Ray did on his famous game-winner versus G'town in the BE Final. The problem with that is that it makes it much harder to put the ball up with any touch and also to have good control of the direction the ball is going up. It's a rapid motion, and he goes directly into the shot after without a pause to re-center the ball and reset his arms. I feel like that leads to his release at the rim often being a bit frenetic rather than controlled.
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Reminds me of @tcf15 tweet. This video made me chuckle and it's so applicable for a lot of players.

 
This topic and the data have spurred some interesting observations. Aside from the missed bunnies, part of the reason our close-in percentage is so bad is because we have very few transition baskets. What happened to our fast break? I do not recall a UCONN team so disinclined to run. I'm guessing that the easy answer is Bouk, but I agree with the functional athleticism opinion. You would think that our rebounding advantage may lead to run-outs, but more likely, we are crashing from everywhere and not leaking anyone out.

This is so pronounced that when an opposing player falls under their own basket, we do not try to take advantage of the obvious 5 on 4. Even then, we don't push the ball. I want to jump through the screen watching us then get into our sets.
 
husky429 said:
I'm surprised Martin isn't worse. Eye test failed me there. RJ, Gaffney, and Adams are just abysmal though. Wow.
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Martin gets a lot of foul calls when he misses put backs. That makes his numbers look better than they really are. He never gets an ‘and 1’. Ever.
Well, almost never.
 
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My memory is not what it once was, but the last two breaks that I remember were of Carlton - one make, one bad miss. And then there was Polly's first game back; held my breath on that one. Thought we were Wing University.
 
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