Late Game Management

[navery12]

Gaffney was awful whole game can’t be winning games with him dribbling it 15 times with 17 seconds left. Just dreadful coaching.

At some point it has to be on the players. Hurley definitely has his flaws and the offense needs to be improved but do you think he drew up a play to have Gaffney dribble the ball and chuck up a 3?

 

[shizzle787]

My biggest issues are the following (which are very correctable): inexplicably stepping out of bounds when no one is around you and two guys fighting for a rebound where no opponent is near and the ball fumbling out of bounds. Fix just those two problems and we win by 10 today.

 

[superjohn]

Not yet, but I’m getting close. He isn’t naturally comfortable with the ball. He plays nervous. I think he has it in him, but he needs to show it now. We let a huuuuge opportunity slip away to make noise nationally tomorrow. I was looking forward to the Baylor test.

He can make open threes and the occasional drive but he's clearly never going to be a point guard. It's year three and his handle is still bad, he's tentative, and he just doesn't know how to run stuff. Diggins will be lost on D but he's a point guard. We're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole with Gaffney.

 

[UCfor3]

We don't have enough good guards. When you play Martin/Ajax at 2G this much you don't have enough at the moment. Hawkins is the answer to that clearly but until he earns end of game trust we will continue to struggle. Where we really struggle is not having a trustworthy second ball handler or creator. Diggins or Gaffney. One has to step up. Cole has a lot on his plate. Foul trouble or injury from Cole puts us in a real bad spot.

 

[karstenkibbe]

How many bunnies did we miss today!? Felt like last season’s issues with finishing. Easy to diagnose the problem today. Akok, Polley, Hawkins all completely ineffective. Once again, Jackson doing awesome work on the backboards and passing, but he can’t create for himself. I actually wish he tried that floater more than 1-2x/game. It’s the one shot that seems to drop for him.

Once the ball is fed to Sanogo, it never comes back out. Numerous times he drew the double or a close hedge and could have kicked it back out. Martin feeding Sanogo in the post more than once with the shot clock winding down. Forget about late game management by our coach and players. Shot clock management was sub-par on many possessions.

 

[kemba]

There's no way that Diggins can't lead the offense better than Gaffney when Cole is out. Unfortunately, Hurley will never give him a try and let him show what he can do.

Yes. Because he hasn't cracked the rotation by game 6 on a very deep team he clearly brought Diggins here to just sit on the bench for 4 years

 

[gsmooth]

We got screwed. But these evaporating leads at the end of the game have to get fixed. The team can't play with a lead.

Exactly. That last call against Cole was beyond awful and a game changing call. But that can't be the only takeaway. UConn isn't closing games out well at all and all the players tighten up in the clutch.

 

[mauconnfan]

Yes what exactly was the final play DH drew up?

Honestly they should’ve gone to the hole immediately for 2 and crashed the boards for the put back. Polley want going to be allowed to shoot by izzo and sanogo wasn’t getting it in deep easily. Have a better plan than a guard who wasn’t playing well dribbling around aimlessly. Painful play calling. Did Jason Garrett get in the huddle?

 

[gsmooth]

Turning point was when we're up 7 and turned it over, could have pushed it to 9 or 10 instead MSU cut it right to 4.

I felt at that point we would probably find a way to lose unfortunately.

I was lamenting that, too. I am glad I wasn't the only one that hated that possession.

 

[superjohn]

We don't have enough good guards. When you play Martin/Ajax at 2G this much you don't have enough at the moment. Hawkins is the answer to that clearly but until he earns end of game trust we will continue to struggle. Where we really struggle is not having a trustworthy second ball handler or creator. Diggins or Gaffney. One has to step up. Cole has a lot on his plate. Foul trouble or injury from Cole puts us in a real bad spot.

Going to have to make Hawkins a much bigger part of the offense and going to have to play Diggins for us to reach our potential.

 

[I Bleed Blue]

We don't have enough good guards. When you play Martin/Ajax at 2G this much you don't have enough at the moment. Hawkins is the answer to that clearly but until he earns end of game trust we will continue to struggle. Where we really struggle is not having a trustworthy second ball handler or creator. Diggins or Gaffney. One has to step up. Cole has a lot on his plate. Foul trouble or injury from Cole puts us in a real bad spot.

I think we need to give Diggins and Hawkins and Samson Johnson some real run in the upcoming games. Let the talent loose.

Gaffney’s gotta step up on make way. Samson needs to be ready to play and push Akok when he’s not feeling it. He’s be mostly invisible the last couple games.

 

[UncleSpliff]

The last possession by Gaffney was ghastly. That’s the best we could do down 3 with 20 seconds left???

 

[gsmooth]

Honestly they should’ve gone to the hole immediately for 2 and crashed the boards for the put back. Polley want going to be allowed to shoot by izzo and sanogo wasn’t getting it in deep easily. Have a better plan than a guard who wasn’t playing well dribbling around aimlessly. Painful play calling. Did Jason Garrett get in the huddle?

Maybe Jason did. He wasn't there for the entire game, though. If he was, UConn wouldn't have broke 30 pts the entire game. You know the Giants have only broken 30 pts once since he became the offensive coordinator? Someone feel free to verify that.

 

[Horatio]

We don't have enough good guards. When you play Martin/Ajax at 2G this much you don't have enough at the moment. Hawkins is the answer to that clearly but until he earns end of game trust we will continue to struggle. Where we really struggle is not having a trustworthy second ball handler or creator. Diggins or Gaffney. One has to step up. Cole has a lot on his plate. Foul trouble or injury from Cole puts us in a real bad spot.

I agree. Hawkins, Diggins and even Gaffney and Jackson are gonna get fixed in the regular season with conference reps. You can’t correct much in a short tournament with this level of competition.

 

[UCfor3]

I think we need to give Diggins and Hawkins and Samson Johnson some real run in the upcoming games. Let the talent loose.

Gaffney’s gotta step up on make way. Samson needs to be ready to play and push Akok when he’s not feeling it. He’s be mostly invisible the last couple games.

Clearly Akok struggles with inside physicality. Not having Whaley today really stung.

 

[TeasedDonut]

Yes. Because he hasn't cracked the rotation by game 6 on a very deep team he clearly brought Diggins here to just sit on the bench for 4 years

The point is that right now is the time for him to crack the rotation.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Dan Hurley: a 7 point lead is already a 4 point deficit

 

[superjohn]

The last possession by Gaffney was ghastly. That’s the best we could do down 3 with 20 seconds left???

He's not a point guard, Diggins is. Going to have to develop him by giving him minutes.

 

[UConnStats]

Bright side is that we are clearly really good. This was us playing poorly. A few years ago that meant getting blown out by 40 by Arkansas. Little thanksgiving perspective. Booze time. Cheers everyone

 

[JMick]

Bright side is that we are clearly really good. This was us playing poorly. A few years ago that meant getting blown out by 40 by Arkansas. Little thanksgiving perspective. Booze time. Cheers everyone

We are really good. Only makes a loss like this more frustrating. It was a lot of factors that went into the loss today, but we're going to be fine.

 

[buddy]

Coaching cannot be blamed for errors like stepping out of bounds when shooting, unnecessary fouling, but the coaches line up combinations are questionable and as previously stated, poor late game management. I do believe however that this game was handed to MSU by the officiating crew. No question.

 

[UCfor3]

I wanted this one. If we lost to Baylor in the finals it wouldn't have bothered me much with 2 goood wins in the vault. Need to beat VCU tomorrow(assuming they lose). 1-2 would be a major letdown after yesterday.

 

[aburks41]

I wanted this one. If we lost to Baylor in the finals it wouldn't have bothered me much with 2 goood wins in the vault. Need to beat VCU tomorrow(assuming they lose). 1-2 would be a major letdown after yesterday.

Cannot come out flat tomorrow against a bad VCU team. We need to beat them by 20 and stay in the top 25

 

[LIuconn]

How did Hurley's URI teams perform in close games down the stretch?

 

[jibsey]

What about screening for Polley or Hawk? Guys who can make shots.