Last night's problem wasn't Seton Hall's zone, it was Shabazz Napier's right leg

[husky99]

Last night's problem wasn't Seton Hall's zone, it was Shabazz Napier's right leg
The UConn Blog (blog)

 

[61cygni]

If it was as big as a factor as suggested, it bodes well for the team. I seem to remember Bazz getting tripped on a drive, a no-call resulting in a turnover. Can't remember if this was before or after the pick.

 

[OkaForPrez]

The blog is wrong in Suggesting we didn't get whooped in the 2nd half too. The comments on the blog rightly call that out. This also isn't the first really poor outing for bazz this season, he has been jeckyl and Hyde, and that is the last thing you want at the point. Uconn's best teams have had upperclassman leaders at pg, the fact that we have a lot riding on a sophomore scares me, even if he is very talented.

 

[UChusky916]

I !ng hate that blog. They beg for hits by trying to be edgy and catchy, especially with the social media.

 

[DaveHuskiesFan]

The problem last night was we got whooped on both ends of the floor.

 

[Walker11]

Every article that mentions Uconn is posted on the Yard and threads are usually made every time any ESPN guy says something about the team. This is one of the few times I've even seen someone post content from this blog and I think that says something...

 

[Kitaman]

But his left leg was fine, game's over we got beat. No need to look for excuses. happens.

On to Rutgers!!

 

[dogpause]

I freak!ng hate that blog. They beg for hits by trying to be edgy and catchy, especially with the social media.

I thought Porter made some good points, but to call that play "dirty" is irresponsible. Lots of kids have trouble setting a proper screen. Also, he seems to relish arguing with commenters, which is very unprofessional. If he has higher aspirations, he needs to develop a thicker skin and think long term before making such harsh comments.

 

[mauconnfan]

I thought Porter made some good points, but to call that play "dirty" is irresponsible. Lots of kids have trouble setting a proper screen. Also, he seems to relish arguing with commenters, which is very unprofessional. If he has higher aspirations, he needs to develop a thicker skin and think long term before making such harsh comments.

Agreed dogpause. Hey I get it he was injured, a little. Well in that case you play slower and smarter and make sure you don't throw the ball away! And if you can't guard anyone get out. They got their butts kicked and if I were them I'd want them back in a big way. Lord knows they won't shoot it like that again but hey, they played well 2 nights ago and our Huskies were not good at all. Pretty simple.

 

[Kitaman]

I thought Porter made some good points, but to call that play "dirty" is irresponsible. Lots of kids have trouble setting a proper screen.

Good point on the screen, it wasn't dirty just poorly executed. Bazz was too fast and elusive and he tried to compensate. Anyway in the BE there will always be bumps and bruises, keeping team trainers busy all season. That play was minor compared to what's to come (and Bazz certainly likes to drive into the paint with the bigs waiting to clobber him).

 

[HuskyBballFan]

I also did not agree with this post, particularly the point about how "we scored 42 points in the second half so the zone couldn't have bothered us that much." The Seton Hall fan was correct to point out that we scored a whole bunch of points in the meaningless last 2 minutes of the game against their scrubs.

I'm not all that concerned with the whole "zone" narrative, since a) it's exactly the same thing people said last year - and then we beat Syracuse and Louisville's zones in the BET, and b) Seton Hall played essentially the same defense that St. John's did. Bottom line is we didn't do anything well, Seton Hall was lights out from 3 (particularly during a crucial time in the 2nd half where we could have really started to chip away), and nothing really went our way.

 

[Prezidint]

I thought Porter made some good points, but to call that play "dirty" is irresponsible.

I thought so too until I watched the replay. It's hard to project intent on the screener, but the kid clearly was set, then as Bazz went to go around him, he stuck his knee out a couple of inches to initiate contact with Bazz's knee. It was either a dirty play or an extremely wreckless play. In either case, he should have been thrown out of the game, in my opinion. Chopping a man's leg should be a cardinal sin in basketball, as it's one of the few ways you can inflict a bad leg injury on an opponent.

 

[defaultroute]

I freak!ng hate that blog. They beg for hits by trying to be edgy and catchy, especially with the social media.

I find their tweets pretty entertaining and funny but I do miss Kyle's tweets. But recently I've been enjoying Ed Daigneault's tweets.

 

[DogMania]

I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm not a huge fan of blogs in that they look like articles with facts but are often riddled with conjecture and assumptions.

For example, I'm still not sure what was behind Napier's poor performance. Was it partly due to preconditions such as lingering injuries and/or some sort of illness? Was is in part due to the injury sustained during the game where he limped to the side line and didn't come in till a while later, where his play went from so-so to bad? Was much of it due to what SH was doing to stop him or render him ineffective? Or as some yahoo's are saying, is it because of his deficiencies that he's had in his game all along that can't be fixed or can't easily be fixed? Or regardless to what caused his bad performance, that much of what took place wasn't as much his fault as many are making it out to be?

Unless otherwise informed (maybe I missed some article or articles answering some of the above questions with FACTS and/or supported quotes from the coaches and players) I can only go with what I saw. I re-watched the first half and only a fraction of the second. My observations were:

1. Bazz didn't do a great job of getting the team into their offense or at least an effective one. Hard to say how much was due to his leadership and how much was due to running what the coaches told him to run. After replaying part of the game, a good number of the sets they seemed to be trying to run or maybe better put, the type of offense they tried to execute against SH's D wasn't necessarily wrong, but simply poorly executed at times. Sometimes it was simply sloppy play resulting in TOs. Sometimes it was not making the right reads and decisions. (Without going into great detail, there was one set where Bazz drove it right down the middle by the foul line and I believe ended up with a forced shot, where if he had driven the ball a few more steps toward his right where Lamb had been positioned just outside the arc, they could have run a backdoor cut to Jeremy who had a ton of open space behind the defender who was overplaying him. That's just one example many plays that seemed to be poorly read and executed.)

2. Bazz simply had a bad shooting night - Granted he forced up some bad shots, but at least half of them were good looks that simply didn't go down. Now I'm not sure if the cause for the bad shooting was just one-of-those-bad-nights sort of things or if it was due to any of the factors listed above. Regardless, sometimes a PG needs to find ways to set up his teammates who aren't having a bad shooting night, but it sure looked like his options other than Lamb were significantly limited. Olander, Smith and Daniels all struggled with their Js. Our bigs seemed TOs looking to happen, especially Alex. But maybe he did try to create for them by intending to drive and dish, but unfortunately ended horribly with some traffic induced TOs. Whatever the cause, Bazz simply wasn't putting the ball in the basket.

3. If not Bazz then who? - Many fail to take into account that a team only has so many options as far as catalysts for the offense. In UConn's case if the offense is not initiated or run through Bazz, your choices are the freshman, Boatright who is still learning to run the team under various levels of adversity of which two nights ago was the highest level so far. The other choice is Lamb, whose skill is more in the area of scoring and not setting the table for others. We have to face the facts, Bazz was not getting a lot of help out there. It seemed that giving the ball to anyone other than Lamb, maybe Boatright and Giffey seemed to have desirable results. Now maybe if he was playing better and showing more confidence and leadership, the overall confidence of his teammates would have been better. That's what leadership is all about. Bazz is usually very good in that regard, but against SH he looked worried and beaten up, and maybe there was due cause for that we might never know about.

4. Give credit where credit is due - Often when one team has as bad night, a lot has to do with what their opponent is doing. Give SH credit for coming up with an excellent game plan and executing it well. They did a great job of confusing the Huskies in the first half and putting them in a hole and then burying in the 2nd half by shooting the all well and catching fire. I believe that the way the game was called helped them execute their plan. If the refs had continued to call the game like it did the first few minutes over the next 5 or so, UConn would have built on that 9 point lead, and who knows how the game would have gone from there. In stead, SH got right back into the game, and into the heads of a young UConn team that didn't handle the adversity very well. A good teams takes advantage of what is given them and SH took full advantage of it, along with out playing, out willing and out hustling our Huskies. It was a well executed and well deserved win for the Pirates.

Let's hope that UConn can learn from this and string together a lot of nice wins including a rematch at home against SHU about a month from now.

 

[huskymagic]

If it was as big as a factor as suggested, it bodes well for the team. I seem to remember Bazz getting tripped on a drive, a no-call resulting in a turnover. Can't remember if this was before or after the pick.

The problem was not Shabazz's leg it was Shabazz's play and bad decision making. He looked slow and lethargic as did Boatright. Not to mention both he and Boatright got manhandled by Theodore on both ends of the court. Also our big guys were non-existent and avoided contact which is troubling. I need to see Oriakhi and Drummond get mad and start bullying people out there with vengeance ala Jeff Adrien and Hash.

Drummond really needs to man up and start using his body and dominating people on defense and offense. He is playing way too finesse for my liking as is the whole team. There is no reason to be shut down by Herb Pope, Auda, and company of the Seton Hall front court. Also Blaney was abysmal at managing the game and calling timeouts. I am thankful Calhoun is coming back immediately. Forget about box out drills and bullshit. Calhoun needs to smack the big guys in the mouth and make them play like the big bad UConn huskies of old.

If you read the quotes after that game the coach Kevin Willard and Theodore seemed confident they could shut down Napier and UConn as a whole. They knew Lamb would score but everyone else they felt could be shut down.

Shout out to Giffey. He should be playing double them minutes he plays now or starting at the 3. He is very athletic, very good defender, and can hit the open jumper something Roscoe and Daniels have not done consistently.

 

[DogMania]

The problem was not Shabazz's leg it was Shabazz's play and bad decision making. He looked slow and lethargic as did Boatright. Not to mention both he and Boatright got manhandled by Theodore on both ends of the court. Also our big guys were non-existent and avoided contact which is troubling. I need to see Oriakhi and Drummond get mad and start bullying people out there with vengeance ala Jeff Adrien and Hash.

Drummond really needs to man up and start using his body and dominating people on defense and offense. He is playing way too finesse for my liking as is the whole team. There is no reason to be shut down by Herb Pope, Auda, and company of the Seton Hall front court. Also Blaney was abysmal at managing the game and calling timeouts. I am thankful Calhoun is coming back immediately. Forget about box out drills and bullshit. Calhoun needs to smack the big guys in the mouth and make them play like the big bad UConn huskies of old.

If you read the quotes after that game the coach Kevin Willard and Theodore seemed confident they could shut down Napier and UConn as a whole. They knew Lamb would score but everyone else they felt could be shut down.

Shout out to Giffey. He should be playing double them minutes he plays now or starting at the 3. He is very athletic, very good defender, and can hit the open jumper something Roscoe and Daniels have not done consistently.

I agree with most of your comments, but not sure what to think about Bazz's performance. Based on how he's played this season and last, I'm inclined to think that something was wrong, may it been an injury or two, or possibly even illness. I've mentioned this a few times, but there's a real bad virus going around and those who've had it, like I did, it knocks the h*ll out of you. Big time fatigue, and even worse, knocks you to the floor of the bathroom for a half-day or so when you first get it. Not saying he had it or was coming down with it, but he sure looked shaky to me.

Now if neither were the case, I'm a tad concerned. Why? Because if teams are allowed to play physical against he and Boatright, teams might find a great deal of success cutting off the head of the UConn snake, so to speak. It's a matter of physics. If bigger and stronger players who are plus athletes like what we saw with SHU are allowed to bump and reach in our these two guards, there's only so much you can do to stop them from stealing the ball or at a minimum stopping you from going where you want to go.

There is one way to counter that type of D, but it only works if the refs will call the contact before the ball is jarred loose. What Bazz and Boat needed to do more last night was to quickly shift and drive right into the defender as they rushed out to them or ran along side of them. If you an cause enough contact before they get their hand in there, most refs will call the defender on a block. What we saw much of a couple nights ago and often against Pitt in the past, is our guards tend to dribble away from the pressure, fearing they'll get stripped. You just can't play that way, especially when the refs aren't calling the initial bumps and reach-ins. The one thing they have to be careful of is warding off with the off hand or ducking the shoulder which will often draw the charge even if the defender is moving and doesn't have solid defensive position. With that said, where SH was very good and hard to ward off is when dribbling by screens or through traffic, they'd quickly move a player who is off the ball into the vicinity of the driving lane and poking the ball out. Quite often the refs will call reach-ins on those attempts, but the Pirates are building a reputation of being clean thieves, which frankly they were much of the time...not always though and not early in that game. Once they began to get away with the bumping and reaching in without consequence it seemed to really get into the head of our players, even when the Pirates weren't being as agressive as before. Great game plan, by the way. I'm not sure if it was as much as someone doing their homework, or more due to the way that SH plays is like Kryptonite to our li'l supermen.

Enough of the Xs & Os. Bottom line, UConn needed to do something different, but either the coaches had no clue what that was or the players were not able to execute whatever adjustment they were asked to do. My guess based on what I saw was the former. I really didn't see much if any attacking the defender. In stead we saw a lot of dribbling away from pressure or trying to shoot the gap which turned out disastrous for Bazz on a number of occasions.

I expect Bazz to have an outstanding game against RU, putting the SHU game in the rear view mirror for good. I'm sure JC is using that game as a big time teaching tool to kick some bad habits in the ass as well as his players.

 

[Edward Sargent]

Hell I was at 35,000 feet on an airplane watching the Louisville game on ESPNU and watching our boys on the Bottom Line Scroll, and I could tell we got our asses handed to us in the second half. SHU had a near 20 point lead for a good portion of the half