Late Game Management

[jibsey]

Coaches in basketball give assistants playcalling roles all the time.

Sanogo is not the star Emeka or Ben was. He is good, but he is not "go get your own for the next 5 trips down the floor" good right now.

He’s a few games into his sophomore year. Look at his stat line yesterday. He needs a bit of help which hopefully will happen by year end.

 

[husky429]

He’s a few games into his sophomore year. Look at his stat line yesterday. He needs a bit of help which hopefully will happen by year end.

Bingo. Next year, he very well may be that guy. But right now he needs to play more in the flow of the game... clearly at his best then.

 

[2014DualCs]

Tough to come off a 2OT game. But that being said, the b2b blowing of sizable leads is why I think ppl are upset. Up 7 yesterday and rushing possessions just doesn’t make sense.

Early in the season though. Tournament has been full of teaching moments for everyone. This will help us later on. Lets get the dub today and stay hungry.

 

[Doctor Hoop]

We threatened to give up a big lead late in the second OT 2 days ago, then coughed up a 7 point lead with about 2 minutes left yesterday . The refs hurt, but the ship was taking on water before that.

Sanogo post up can’t be the only play we have late game. And that made us too easy to defend late. You can either have a player who can get his shot, or the offensive scheme has to create shots. Got to work on the latter.

 

[Rico444]

I will qualify this by saying that I did not see a good chunk of the 2nd half and only caught the last 7 minutes on the radio while driving. That being said, a few thoughts:

- Sanogo had a bad day. I'm not going to kill the guy, because he's probably our best player and not going to be on top of his game every night. He's also early into his sophomore season so I would expect improvement in the areas that were mentioned here: shot selection, passing the ball out when the shot isn't there, etc. That being said, Hurley needs to do a better job helping Adama when he's doubled. The rest of the team does a bad job of helping give him an escape hatch. Flare out to the corner if he's doubled, give him somewhere to pass the ball. At least a few of the bad shots and turnovers were because he had nowhere else to go with the ball.

- I think it's time for Samson to get some more burn. Akok has not looked like the same player on defense that he was pre-injury. I'm not saying he can't get back there, but we should at least start mixing Samson in and seeing if he can contribute this year.

- I have to give Tyrese Martin credit here, he was terrific today from what I saw. That play where he stole the ball, tapped it ahead to himself and got a breakaway dunk was fantastic. It sounds like he had some misses late but overall he's one of our better players and is going to be the reason we win more often than the reason we lose.

- I think we're going to see the offense struggle like this in stretches because of the lack of playmakers. If Hawkins can get to that point by the end of the year that would be a huge lift, but when Sanogo is off and we're not hitting threes the offense is going to have its bad stretches. That being said, playing tough defense like we've seen we can so far this year and making our free throws may be the path to victory in some of our close games.

I would imagine part of the struggle at the end was the fact that we just played an exhausting game yesterday that went to double OT. Add in that we didn't have Whaley and I think we beat this team 6 or more times out of 10. Just have to move on and win today, continue cleaning up some of the mistakes.

 

[HuskyBoi]

The guy is 50. He's had years here and at Wagner/URI to figure it out and hasn't gotten better. He's too rigid and clams up.

Some of the reactionary takes are bad. You acting like "just needs to figure it out" is equally as revolting.

He doesn't need to figure it out. He needs to do some major soul-searching. This isn't a small fix. He is genuinely awful at it consistently.

MAJOR soul searching? LOL. You need to calm down, we beat a ranked team and he looks like a genius, but the next day when he loses to a basically ranked team that isn't ranked, he needs to rethink his whole life

 

[husky429]

MAJOR soul searching? LOL. You need to calm down, we beat a ranked team and he looks like a genius, but the next day when he loses to a basically ranked team that isn't ranked, he needs to rethink his whole life

Soul searching about his late-game management, not his whole life you dingus. I can't tell if you're just stupid, or purposefully using a straw man and also stupid.

He didn't look good managing the game late vs Auburn either. The boneheaded TOs weren't his fauly, but a whole lot that went wrong was.

 

[the Q]

Soul searching about his late-game management, not his whole life you dingus. I can't tell if you're stupid, or purposefully using a straw man and also stupid.

He didn't look good managing the game late vs Auburn either. The boneheaded TOs weren't his fauly, but a whole lot that went wrong was.

I’m not sure what you do when sanogo is the only guy who creates his own shot.

Jackson’s guy can come double with impunity

He’s going to need something like a flex or motion set (with…actual motion) to counteract this

 

[CL82]

It’s a tough call, but I was surprised when Hurley didn’t put him back in after that. Part of me thought the best way for him to overcome it would be to get right back on the horse. He was more broken up about that than he was about the turnover.

In either event, he definitely should have been on the floor down the stretch yesterday when we needed a three. His FT form is also impeccable and he is good at drawing contact if he needed to drive. I would much rather see him than Gaffney in that situation.

I don’t disagree. He’s here to play, but I wouldn’t run him as the first or second option.

Safe travels back… did you get your return Covid test yet?

 

[CL82]

Tough to come off a 2OT game. But that being said, the b2b blowing of sizable leads is why I think ppl are upset. Up 7 yesterday and rushing possessions just doesn’t make sense.

Nah… people are upset because The Boneyard is populated with bipolar fans, like most Internet sites. Everything is either great and we are the greatest team of all time or everything is miserable, the players all stink and the coach can’t coach. It is what it is. You get used to it after a while.

 

[HuskyBoi]

Soul searching about his late-game management, not his whole life you dingus. I can't tell if you're just stupid, or purposefully using a straw man and also stupid.

He didn't look good managing the game late vs Auburn either. The boneheaded TOs weren't his fauly, but a whole lot that went wrong was.

I didn't know Hawkins turnover and Whaley's backboard brick was his fault. I also assume trusting Sanogo to play with 4 fouls down the stretch and OT isn't down to his coaching as well...

 

[husky429]

I’m not sure what you do when sanogo is the only guy who creates his own shot.

Jackson’s guy can come double with impunity

He’s going to need something like a flex or motion set (with…actual motion) to counteract this

The guy feeding Sanogo needs to be a threat to shoot. Any of Gaffney/Cole/Polley/Hawkins, or Rese would work. They're just not as good of passers is the problem. You're right... Jackson's guy was doubling like 15 feet from his man... wasn't even worried about Jackson scoring.

I think part of the answer is we shouldn't have guys creating their own shot late in the game as much. We need to have some offensive sets out of the TOs to get guys open in the flow of the offense instead of playing 1v1.

But also--Rese showed he can create his own yesterday. Cole is capable of getting a 3 or a mid-range pull-up, as is Hawkins. I like having some more effecient players that are 1v1 creators like Bouk... I think it gives our offense better flow and is a big reason for our success so far. But that means when we get late into games, we need to have some sets in the back pocket to get looks for these guys to attack closeouts or find open shots. We went to Sanogo way too much late, and we may have been running some sets to get other looks... but they either weren't very good, or the guys didn't know how to run them well. Cause it wasn't pretty.

 

[husky429]

I didn't know Hawkins turnover and Whaley's backboard brick was his fault. I also assume trusting Sanogo to play with 4 fouls ISNT down to his coaching as well...

Hey genius, read the post you just quoted. I'll even do it for you:

The boneheaded TOs weren't his fault, but a whole lot that went wrong was.

Lazy argument. Gonna make the whole team do suicides with that effort.

 

[UConnSwag11]

The tone of the first 6-10 minutes sets the tone for the rest of the game

 

[Improviser]

MAJOR soul searching? LOL. You need to calm down, we beat a ranked team and he looks like a genius, but the next day when he loses to a basically ranked team that isn't ranked, he needs to rethink his whole life

Cole, Polley, Sanogo made shots when they were needed, and that's why we won. Not coaching genius.

The quibbles here involve clock management and Sanogo's not passing even when double-teamed, and players not being available to catch passes. Those are issues for a coach to teach at team practices and to emphasize during timeouts.

What a coach can do is to teach screening, set up plays to put the players in the best position, and to simulate in game situations with the clock running down.
Maybe, Hurley is doing all that in practice but the players are not applying it in game.

Let's see what happens today.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I will qualify this by saying that I did not see a good chunk of the 2nd half and only caught the last 7 minutes on the radio while driving. That being said, a few thoughts:

- I have to give Tyrese Martin credit here, he was terrific today from what I saw. That play where he stole the ball, tapped it ahead to himself and got a breakaway dunk was fantastic. It sounds like he had some misses late but overall he's one of our better players and is going to be the reason we win more often than the reason we lose.

- I think we're going to see the offense struggle like this in stretches because of the lack of playmakers. If Hawkins can get to that point by the end of the year that would be a huge lift, but when Sanogo is off and we're not hitting threes the offense is going to have its bad stretches. That being said, playing tough defense like we've seen we can so far this year and making our free throws may be the path to victory in some of our close games.

I watched the game yesterday and then Thanksgiving festivities took over.

On these two points above.

Martin marvelously showed his strengths yesterday. The steal, tip dunk play. He had another breakaway for a dunk and a fantastic one handed dunk off an offensive rebound. He missed a 3 from the wing but he was squared up and it was a good shot. Going back to win against Auburn, he was great in the post and brutalized the smaller players Auburn tried to use to defend him. Martin also showed us same weaknesses from last year against better teams. He missed 2-3 layups at the rim. He had 4 turnovers all of which occurred with him trying to be a playmaker. I want Martin as a finisher and not a facilitator. If he dribbles more than once, bad things happen.

UConn's guards are small, not tight with the ball and can't break down their man one on one. Cole has been great so far this year shooting and scoring without having to always be running the point. Look at every game UConn has won the opening tip. Jackson brings the ball up and runs the offense. Cole can get in to the lane and finish against the cupcakes UConn played earlier in the year but he struggles on the floaters and runners against better teams. And he gets eaten up trying to drive and finish against better teams. Gaffney has been a complete failure this year. Any hope I and others had for being a solid back up have not materialized in the two games against high level competition. Yes, Gaff and Cole played real well together in a couple of the cupcake wins, but Gaff has been so far over his head against Auburn and Mich St, he has put way too much burden on Cole. It's a self-defeating cycle. Put me in the camp of giving Sool some burn today if Gaff is ineffective. Coach has to send a clear message to players that performance matters.

Like many I haven't been enthralled with UConn's end of game offensive sets and I do put much of the blame on the staff. They have to have 3-4 core plays they can run over and over to get a look for someone other than Sanogo isolated in the post. Do I think Hurley's end of game coaching would seem better with Bazz, Kemba, AJ Price, Marcus Williams, Scheffer or Smitty at the point? Sure. But he doesn't have that luxury; he does have plenty of other options and he needs to develop them.

 

[the Q]

The guy feeding Sanogo needs to be a threat to shoot. Any of Gaffney/Cole/Polley/Hawkins, or Rese would work. They're just not as good of passers is the problem. You're right... Jackson's guy was doubling like 15 feet from his man... wasn't even worried about Jackson scoring.

I think part of the answer is we shouldn't have guys creating their own shot late in the game as much. We need to have some offensive sets out of the TOs to get guys open in the flow of the offense instead of playing 1v1.

But also--Rese showed he can create his own yesterday. Cole is capable of getting a 3 or a mid-range pull-up, as is Hawkins. I like having some more effecient players that are 1v1 creators like Bouk... I think it gives our offense better flow and is a big reason for our success so far. But that means when we get late into games, we need to have some sets in the back pocket to get looks for these guys to attack closeouts or find open shots. We went to Sanogo way too much late, and we may have been running some sets to get other looks... but they either weren't very good, or the guys didn't know how to run them well. Cause it wasn't pretty.

We had way too many sets where Cole or Martin were the only guys touching the ball throwing up some bad shots.

They are both straight like drivers.

I really like Martin posting up. But then you really need perimeter shooting.

Sanogo also needs to only be fed when he gets position close enough to the basket. Too many catches in the 8-12 foot range…that is just a possession stopper

 

[methodology]

They just can’t get out of their own way. Should have been a double digit win but once again boneheaded plays at the end of the game

 

[Improviser]

Team needs to work on breaking traps. Have other players move towards Cole to catch a pass. Or, Cole needs to try not to get caught in the corner.

 

[husky429]

Team needs to work on breaking traps. Have other players move towards Cole to catch a pass. Or, Cole needs to try not to get caught in the corner.

Sanogo keeps turning his back to the trap. He needs to jump to the sideline after his defender leaves and face Cole. I'm sure we'll go over that in the film