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Kansas thoughts

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RichZ

RichZ

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I don't really think that anything would have mattered. At least tonight, Kansas was simply a better team.
That being said...
  1. Particularly in the first half, they got an awful lot of help from the refs. Seemed like we were not allowed to play interior D at all.
  2. The announcers raved about Kansas D all game long, but we got the shot we wanted quite often -- but in the first half, we couldn't put one in the hole. DHam got open looks on his short floaters, hooks and jumpers, and it seemed like he missed them all. Shonn missed jumpers and hooks that he normally makes. Jalen went to the hole and got blocked -- at least in the first half.
  3. I watch a lot of college basketball, and while Buddy may be a more prolific shooter, Perry Ellis is the best all around player I've seen this year.
  4. Shonn was a complete non-factor. Our whole front line was a non factor, but Shonn has been an integral part of the offense, and with him ineffective, it's a big chunk of the puzzle missing.
  5. Rebounding. We had none.
  6. I'm disappointed, but not devastated. Most of us knew that this wasn't a championship caliber team going in. I think most level headed fans were hoping for a sweet sixteen appearance. I was hoping for that with just a glimmer of hope of a trip to the round of eight. We fell a round short of where I had reasonable hopes that we could go. I can live with that, I guess. Happy we won the league, such as it is, and made the tourney. Happy we came back from the atrocious start in the first round. Not thrilled with the end result, but a little cheered by the improved play in the 2nd half.
  7. Now that we're out, I don't really have a rooting interest, and right now, I have no desire at all to watch any more basketball. I guess I'll pay attention enough to cheer for whoever 'cuse and dook are playing, but that might be it for me this season.
 
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poor shooting, worse rebounding, and too many people didn't show up

we had our chances to make a run, we simply didn't take advantage of those changes
 
Palatine said:
I think that is a fair analysis.

I would add. Brimah getting two fouls in two minutes was huge.
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Yes he got 2 fouls, because he's not very smart and they were a ton smarter and better than him. Oh wait let's hear from jerry? LOL
 
1) I honestly thought the game was officiated fine. Amida's three fouls were, simply put, idiotic fouls. He had an obvious over the back, he slapped down on a driver, and then he tried to take a charge for absolutely no reason.
2) I disagree on our shot selection. I feel like a large majority of our first half shots were late in the shot clock, forced, contested jumpers or wild drives to the hoop. We had trouble running any semblance of an offense due to their defensive overplay. To my memory, we tried to go back door once the entire half. More often than not, one guy dribble while 3 or 4 watched.
3, 4, 5) Agree. From Shonn's first post opp, you saw that he was not able to just elevate and shoot. He had to alter the arch of his shot because whoever was defending him; be it Ellis, Traylor, or Lucas, was right there with him athletically. Huge factor in our offense becoming so stagnant. We stopped going to him all together because he was so ineffective.
6) I'm also disappointed. I didn't think we would win this game, but I also didn't think we'd be down 24 in the first half. I always thought our ceiling was Sweet 16 and was hoping that would be accomplished. If we didn't crap away games late against Tulsa, Temple, Cinci and others, we are not a 9 seed being forced to play the best team in the country in the first weekend.
7) I would like to see Kansas win it. I like this team. There is no annoying one and done guy, just a really solid, cohesive team of mostly vets.
 
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boog204 said:
2) I disagree on our shot selection. I feel like a large majority of our first half shots were late in the shot clock, forced, contested jumpers or wild drives to the hoop. We had trouble running any semblance of an offense due to their defensive overplay. To my memory, we tried to go back door once the entire half. More often than not, one guy dribble while 3 or 4 watched.
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I agree that we often wasted 10 to 15 seconds of the shot clock and went one on one too much, but we were still getting open looks. Looks that we expect to make. Gibbs and Jalen did it a little, but DHam did it a LOT.

boog204 said:
7) I would like to see Kansas win it. I like this team. There is no annoying one and done guy, just a really solid, cohesive team of mostly vets.
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Agree. They beat us fair and square, and are an excellent team that executed a solid gameplan very well. Selden is good enough to be the star player on just about anyone's team, and plays in the shadow of Ellis, who is playing at an entiurely different level.
 
Kansas was a better team.

Their fans were very cordial, and liked UConn a good amount.

They played an outstanding first half.

Refs didn't change the outcome but they helped KU in the first half make a 12-15 lead a 20.

Second half refs actually favored UConn some and helped UConns comeback. Even reffing the whole game and UConn probably loses by 8 or so.

Good fight the second half.

Hopefully everyone is back and UConn can make a run next year.

Final thought. KU and UNC are the two best teams I've seen this year, KU is much better on the perimeter but UNC has crazy depth inside.
 
We got good shots but didn't make enough of them especially in the first half. Kansas is really good and obviously the better team. We made a 2nd half run but Kansas played good D and made enough shots to hold us off. We never gave up and played hard the entire game so while I'm disappointed I'm proud of this team. We were simply overmatched tonight. Kansas offense was really impressive.
 
Yeah I mean I think we just got beat by a better team, flat out.

To me - it was two basic things:

1.) The Kansas D wasn't THAT great - I thought we got lots of good looks but just couldn't finish.

2.) The size difference overall was... wow. If this team is in need of anything - imo - it's size and girth. We just got our heads bounced off the mat like a basketball today. I feel like a lot of the depth issues and point guard 'who is on first' type issues will get solved with the incoming recruiting class. I'm not sure the size problem is.

Other than that - KU is just a great team. No shame at all in losing to them.
 
Palatine said:
I think that is a fair analysis.

I would add. Brimah getting two fouls in two minutes was huge.
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Yes and the second foul was silly and deserved. First, like several 1st half calls were facetious.
 
Kansas put on a clinic in the first half, playing as well as any team I've ever seen. Ellis reminds me of Emeka.
I was surprised we were able to get back in the game in the second half.
 
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I rewound the first foul call. It was BS. Brimah did everything right. Stayed straight, arms didn't come down. Selden initiated contact. Should've been a no-call. That said, going over the back a minute later was idiotic on AB's part.
 
Towney007 said:
1.) The Kansas D wasn't THAT great - I thought we got lots of good looks but just couldn't finish.
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I've heard this a lot, including from some friends with whom I was texting during the game. I also heard the announcers mention good looks/shots not falling for us in the first half.

I don't know the answer empirically, but that's not the way I saw it for most of the first half. I saw us forced to take a lot of tough shots, especially DHam and Rodney come to mind; and we never got our transition game going, which has been a key for us when we've played well. I thought the Kansas defense was excellent in the first half, really exposing our offensive weaknesses. They played with great energy and intensity. To my eyes, that was the biggest factor in our shots not falling.
 
There were a couple of elite teams that were head and shoulders above the pack, we played one of them. The brackets really were not kind this year. 2014 in NYC was key. Playing UNC in NC, UCLA in CA - not kind. You look at how Cuse's bracket is shaping up for them and if we had been a 10 seed there we could be talking about a solid shot at the elite 8.

That said, if we had a great season maybe we're a #3 or 4 playing in Brooklyn or Providence with a huge home court advantage. We did not. On to next season.
 
8893 said:
I've heard this a lot, including from some friends with whom I was texting during the game. I also heard the announcers mention good looks/shots not falling for us in the first half.

I don't know the answer empirically, but that's not the way I saw it for most of the first half. I saw us forced to take a lot of tough shots, especially DHam and Rodney come to mind; and we never got our transition game going, which has been a key for us when we've played well. I thought the Kansas defense was excellent in the first half, really exposing our offensive weaknesses. They played with great energy and intensity. To my eyes, that was the biggest factor in our shots not falling.
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I agree. The off-ball denial was excellent and we could not capitalize on anyone overcommitting. Combine that with interior shot-blocking, it was fairly lethal.
 
uconnfan68 said:
To be fair, he had 3 in 3 minutes. Don't shortchange him.
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Brimah was the invisible man last night. Never in good position and spent his 4-5 minutes of playing time simply reaching in..

We simply had no inside presence... no one was even in position to go to the offensive boards..
 
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We lost to a better, smarter team. KU played very good defense in the first half, and we did what we always do and played one on one and missed forced shots late in the shot clock. It's the same approach Cinci used on us, and Temple, with the difference being that Kansas has a much, much better offense than those teams. Second half comeback was due to UConn stepping up its defense, which lead to some easy baskets.

Purvis stepped up his game and gives me added confidence for next year. He's a warrior. I think late in the year Shonn Miller has looked like a guy who played at Cornell. He gave us a great year, but he is overmatched against front lines like this. Brimah needs some weight and strength. Adams will be a star. DHam can be amazing if he has enough talent around him to avoid double teams.
 
There were points in the first half where following Kansas' ball movement was like watching pinball. Crisp passes, court awareness, peripheral vision, beating your man to a spot - it was all there. I don't know if they simply stopped executing in the early 2nd half or if our D made a difference, but damn, that was one really good team playing to a really good game plan. And when you add the size advantage, we were simply outclassed and out-talented.

You knew they weren't going to keep hitting 3s at a 77% pace in the 2nd half because nobody can do that, but I was still surprised we were able to get 15 points of that 24 point deficit back fairly quickly. And to do that without contributions from Shonn or AB was all the more impressive.

Anyway, I was watching a replay of Yale-Duke this morning and the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial came on. I felt that was just rubbing salt in the wound.
 
Kansas was a better team. You don't beat a better team by going at them in the exact same way they prepared for. I love that KO believes that at UConn teams prepare for us but yesterday was the down side to that philosophy. It was clear from the beginning that UConn did nothing different and as a result, was not in a position to win, let alone make it close.
 
mauconnfan said:
Yes he got 2 fouls, because he's not very smart and they were a ton smarter and better than him. Oh wait let's hear from jerry? LOL
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You're just off the deep end with this stuff.
 
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Palatine said:
I think that is a fair analysis.

I would add. Brimah getting two fouls in two minutes was huge.
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When he finally came back in during the second half he got his third foul in one minute. Three minutes ......three fouls. Cannot win that way.
 
Deadrody said:
Yeah, that game was kind of an exclamation point on the end of the argument about Brimah this year, huh?
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What argument? About whether he has improved from when he got here? He obviously has improved, but he still plays bad games where's he's a non factor. They're not mutually exclusive.
 
Great analysis people. Brimah getting into foul trouble quickly was a major impact to the game. He also had a game of fumble fingers and that reduced the offensive options in the second half.
I would have preferred Kentan or even Nolan playing against Lucas as opposed to Shonn this game because Shonn was clearly overmatched on the defensive end against Lucas. And he was neutralized on the offensive end. But the huge deficit, and DHam's inability to finish on the offensive end, tied KO's hands.
I believe it was a combo of Kansas's defense and DHam reverting back to the pre tournament DHam that reduced his offensive output. Had he finished plays like he did against Cinci (the defense against him that game was every bit as good if not better than the Kansas defense) and had AB stayed out of foul trouble this might have been a different game.
Where Kansas really impacted the game was their play on Miller. They overplayed him. He's a master at creating his own shot but Ellis and Lucas were constantly double teaming him. And they were far more effective because of their skill set than Temple and Cinci. The limitation to Shonn's game was sadly exposed by this. He is slow at seeing things develop and he has limited skills at passing. Love Shonn for what he can do and UConn does not get into the tourney without Shonn on the team, but he was always a limited option.
 
7774 said:
What argument? About whether he has improved from when he got here? He obviously has improved, but he still plays bad games where's he's a non factor. They're not mutually exclusive.
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To this point exactly, he has improved in some games and when he has bad games he hasn't improved? LOL, it adds up to very little just check out the "good" games vs the "eh or bad" games. He's closer to the same guy is my point and after 3 years we should expect more form our 5 at UConn am I wrong saying this?
 
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