Lesson Learned From Providence Game | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Lesson Learned From Providence Game

Disappointing but again an exhibition and a good chance for the team to play a decent team early.
  • I do not like Larrier and Gilbert on the floor at the same time. It shouldn't matter but there is something about it that doesn't work.
  • Larrier shoots too much.
  • We need more paint touches. UConn should be going inside more. A lot of dribbling around and jacking up shots rather than working the ball in and out.
  • Just like Christopher Walken needs more cowbell, UConn needs more Vital.
  • I like Carlton. He looks like he could develop into a good player.
  • I like Polley. He looks like he could develop into a good player.
  • MAL looked good and he has size. He needs a haircut.
  • Anderson looked like our fourth guard, which he is.
  • I didn't see Onuorah. Did he play?
  • Anybody still think Larrier is a four?
  • Not enough passing for baskets. Haven't seen a box score but I'm guessing we didn't have many assists.
 
Forte said:
Transfers no matter how touted never seem to be our A listers.
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Transfers are almost *never* A-listers. Most of them are barely B and C listers....

Transfers transfer because

-Not enough playing time
-Grades
-Being a dingus
-Disappointments
-Something that's bad that's not on the surface

You can get one-tool, job-site kind of guys through the transfer wire. You can get a dude who can rebound. You can get a guy to be the 8th guy off the bench who can handle the ball a little bit. Those guys you can find. 1 in 10, you'll get a guy who can start and contribute at a high level. Most of the time, they're transfers because they're not very good college athletes for whatever reason.
 
Towney007 said:
Transfers are almost *never* A-listers.

Transfers transfer because

-Not enough playing time
-Grades
-Being a dingus
-Disappointments
-Something that's bad that's not on the surface

You can get one-tool, job-site kind of guys through the transfer wire. You can get a dude who can rebound. You can get a guy to be the 8th guy off the bench who can handle the ball a little bit. Those guys you can find. 1 in 10, you'll get a guy who can start and contribute at a high level. Most of the time, they're transfers because they're not very good college athletes for whatever reason.
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Transfers and Juco kids should be supplemental players at Uconn. That changed with recruiting difficulties
 
Towney007 said:
It's hard to recruit well when you're in a bad conference and your team stinks. This is true.
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I agree with you here, KO is landing the best quality he can so I don’t fault him there. He had MAL who is good quality but it didnt hold. What concerns me is the raggedy offense that seems frantic and ends up with players playing 1 on 1 street ball, while watching PC run set plays resulting in easy baskets. Is this teaching or execution? Remember teams like Harvard who ran back door cuts for easy layups? Their personnel was not better than ours now so KO needs to up his game. Unfortunately our OOC is front loaded as always so they better get moving.
 
jibsey said:
I agree with you here, KO is landing the best quality he can so I don’t fault him there. He had MAL who is good quality but it didnt hold. What concerns me is the raggedy offense that seems frantic and ends up with players playing 1 on 1 street ball, while watching PC run set plays resulting in easy baskets. Is this teaching or execution? Remember teams like Harvard who ran back door cuts for easy layups? Their personnel was not better than ours now so KO needs to up his game. Unfortunately our OOC is front loaded as always so they better get moving.
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It’s teaching or lack thereof. Too many seasons with different players to think it’s poor execution. And if it is continually poor execution that goes back to crappy teaching. Either way the buck stops with the multi million dollar a year coach.
 
.-.
Things I learned tonight:
Mohegan's arena is pretty nice
PC's dance team is very talented in every sense
Anderson, Gilbert, and Vital all have the talent to be elite defenders
Eric Cobb does a hilarious Al Horford impersonation
 
It's not "1 on 1 streetball". It's a pro style offense which is a lot of pick and roll and iso. That's what Ollie knows/prefers. He does occasionally run offensive sets, but he seems to prefer to let his players create. It wll be ugly, and will take time to develop, but if Adams, Gilbert, and Vital make up their minds to relentlessly attack the rim, guys will get more layups/oops and open shots. Larrier has to let the game come to him, or stop settling for jump shots. If he takes 14 shots a game, 10 of them need to be in the paint.

Polley was impressive, I'd start giving more of Larrier's minutes to him.
 
jibsey said:
I agree with you here, KO is landing the best quality he can so I don’t fault him there. He had MAL who is good quality but it didnt hold. What concerns me is the raggedy offense that seems frantic and ends up with players playing 1 on 1 street ball, while watching PC run set plays resulting in easy baskets. Is this teaching or execution? Remember teams like Harvard who ran back door cuts for easy layups? Their personnel was not better than ours now so KO needs to up his game. Unfortunately our OOC is front loaded as always so they better get moving.
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He hit on Adams. Hit on Hamilton. Purvis was fine. I like Vital. Couple of perfectly decent to good transfers in Gibbs and Miller who were fun. But literally almost every other guy has been a dumpster fire, left Uconn or grossly underperformed expectations. I'm not sure he has the best eye for talent. The locker room basically mutinied on him last year. The school's still chasing football money and with that program being a half-tick up from barely conscious, the conference situation isn't changing. Kids aren't dumb - they see that.

The whole thing is basically snowballing in front of everyone. I literally can't believe I'm like this after losing a pre-season game of all things, but I can't ever remember seeing a UConn team to obviously un-ready to play basketball... ever. And I just think it starts at the top. It's too much of the same thing. It's running pro-sets with players who just aren't good enough to run that style of an offense. It's a general lack of intensity. It's good players plateau-ing. The one or two obviously talented kids on the team are really good players and make waves nationally, but they're not developed as much as they could be - so you don't see guys like Allen, Hamilton, Butler, etc anymore.

I love the guy, but i'm tired of defending him.I don't think he's really that great of a college basketball coach. I could totally see him being great in the NBA, but this is just... it's not good.
 
I do not think anything can be taken from this game. It is an exhibition folks! Players are playing half assed (think of it like an all star game in the NBA), coaches are tinkering with line ups, defenses and offenses, teams are gelling and getting used to the new comers while filling the holes after departures, etc.
 
Travelman32 said:
I do not think anything can be taken from this game. It is an exhibition folks! Players are playing half assed (think of it like an all star game in the NBA), coaches are tinkering with line ups, defenses and offenses, teams are gelling and getting used to the new comers while filling the holes after departures, etc.
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I like your attitude, but apparently PC showed up willing to play whole assed.
 
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temery said:
I like your attitude, but apparently PC showed up willing to play whole assed.
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I just remain hopeful the team I grew up loving in the early 90s will return to prominence, like in those days.
 
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.-.
Travelman32 said:
I just remain hopeful the team I grew up loving in the early 90s will return to prominence, like in those days.
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The team you loved in the early 90s played in the best basketball conference in the country and employed the greatest basketball coach in the history of the sport. Do you think it's likely either of those things are true of this program ever again?
 
Towney007 said:
Transfers are almost *never* A-listers. Most of them are barely B and C listers....

Transfers transfer because

-Not enough playing time
-Grades
-Being a dingus
-Disappointments
-Something that's bad that's not on the surface

You can get one-tool, job-site kind of guys through the transfer wire. You can get a dude who can rebound. You can get a guy to be the 8th guy off the bench who can handle the ball a little bit. Those guys you can find. 1 in 10, you'll get a guy who can start and contribute at a high level. Most of the time, they're transfers because they're not very good college athletes for whatever reason.
Expand ...

This is archaic thinking and not applicable to today's college basketball world, where approximately 8 million kids transfer every year. Also Larrier transferred because the coach left, not for any of the reasons you listed.

The kid basically hasn't played in two years and is coming off a major knee injury so this thread off an exhibition game that was scheduled a week ago is...premature. To put it kindly. And I say that as a guy who thinks Vital ought to be out there 35 minutes a game.

We need to give Terry a fair chance before we pan him.
 
selles said:
This is archaic thinking and not applicable to today's college basketball world, where approximately 8 million kids transfer every year. Also Larrier transferred because the coach left, not for any of the reasons you listed.

The kid basically hasn't played in two years and is coming off a major knee injury so this thread off an exhibition game that was scheduled a week ago is...premature. To put it kindly. And I say that as a guy who thinks Vital ought to be out there 35 minutes a game.

We need to give Terry a fair chance before we pan him.
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Was gonna say, there are dozens of counterexamples of transfers who have been great players on ranked teams, teams that have made deep tourney runs, and even in the NBA.

Additionally, inferring that Larrier and Anderson are risks to team chemistry after this one exhibition game is foolish. Not grounded in reality at all.
 
selles said:
This is archaic thinking and not applicable to today's college basketball world, where approximately 8 million kids transfer every year. Also Larrier transferred because the coach left, not for any of the reasons you listed.

The kid basically hasn't played in two years and is coming off a major knee injury so this thread off an exhibition game that was scheduled a week ago is...premature. To put it kindly. And I say that as a guy who thinks Vital ought to be out there 35 minutes a game.

We need to give Terry a fair chance before we pan him.
Expand ...

I never mentioned Larrier, so I'm not sure what that's about, but it's not archaic thinking at all. Lots of kids transfer in other sports, too.

Occasionally you can find something good. Most of the time, you don't. A few have perfectly reasonable reasons for wanting to transfer. Mostly it's because they're not valued at their current program for whatever reason. A few here and there are correct - they're undervalued. Most of the time, they're just not that good. Just because everyone's doing it doesn't make it good and just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean UConn does it well and just because everyone's doing it means its a viable way to build a powerhouse.

So there's more of it - but the reasons behind it haven't changed much. The results haven't either.

But if we want to talk about Larrier -he's played a whopping sixteen minutes of basketball for UConn in two years or whatever. Regardless of whether that's *his fault* or not - he's not playing basketball. Until he succeeds, it's hard to call it a success. If you're not playing basketball, you're not helping a basketball team.
 
Towney007 said:
I never mentioned Larrier, so I'm not sure what that's about, but it's not archaic thinking at all. Lots of kids transfer in other sports, too.

Occasionally you can find something good. Most of the time, you don't. A few have perfectly reasonable reasons for wanting to transfer. Mostly it's because they're not valued at their current program for whatever reason. A few here and there are correct - they're undervalued. Most of the time, they're just not that good. Just because everyone's doing it doesn't make it good and just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean UConn does it well and just because everyone's doing it means its a viable way to build a powerhouse.

So there's more of it - but the reasons behind it haven't changed much. The results haven't either.

But if we want to talk about Larrier -he's played a whopping sixteen minutes of basketball for UConn in two years or whatever. Regardless of whether that's *his fault* or not - he's not playing basketball. Until he succeeds, it's hard to call it a success. If you're not playing basketball, you're not helping a basketball team.
Expand ...

Sid Wilson pretty much refutes your point, and in my opinion Sid Wilson is a good example of the new mindset of college players. It's a different world now, kids view their commitments differently, and we'd be fools not to try to understand that and take advantage.

As for Larrier, the fact he busted his knee 3 games into last season is hardly a function of his transfer status. Of course you're correct that "until he succeeds, it's hard to call it a success". But it's equally true that until he has had a chance to succeed and fails, it's hard to call it a failure.
 
selles said:
We need to give Terry a fair chance before we pan him.
Expand ...
Okay but is it fair to say he's on the clock?
 
.-.
Larrier will be productive, but KO has to rein him in on shot selection. He can’t just jack it up. He’s easily 12 points a game on this team and some nights 18.
 
Is there any possible way a replay of this game?? Missed it due to work and really want to see how the players looked for the first game...
 
WingU-Conn said:
It's not "1 on 1 streetball". It's a pro style offense which is a lot of pick and roll and iso. That's what Ollie knows/prefers. He does occasionally run offensive sets, but he seems to prefer to let his players create. It wll be ugly, and will take time to develop, but if Adams, Gilbert, and Vital make up their minds to relentlessly attack the rim, guys will get more layups/oops and open shots. Larrier has to let the game come to him, or stop settling for jump shots. If he takes 14 shots a game, 10 of them need to be in the paint.

Polley was impressive, I'd start giving more of Larrier's minutes to him.
Expand ...

What happens when teams realize all we have is guys who can attack and play zone? PC did it last night and the team looked lost.
 
Vital and Adams. 2 players on the team have played in games together.

The other 11 guys are new to playing games with the Huskies.

Only Larrier has seen any practice time alongside Vital and Adams.

So that's 3.

Everyone else including Gilbert and Diarra have only spent a few weeks practicing with them. College players are not going to learn offense and defense in that time.

Kentucky does this every year, practically. Sometimes they're the 9th seed, sometimes they are the 2nd. Between the two, it is all about Calipari's ability to coach, and the players' ability to learn.

I was surprised at the selfishness of play last night. Much less surprised by the confusion on defense and the lack of offensive sets.
 
Candyman34 said:
What happens when teams realize all we have is guys who can attack and play zone? PC did it last night and the team looked lost.
Expand ...
Attack the zone.

Don't stand still and aimlessly swing the ball around the perimeter. Dribble drive, expect the help to come, and know where the open man will be. You can attack the zone off the dribble. If you're willing to pass once you get to the paint, guys will be able to catch and shoot in rhythm on the perimeter, or get layups/dunks in the paint.

If you don't do that, you need motion. Pass the ball and cut to/through the middle of the zone and look for the ball back. Keep moving without the ball. It's not rocket science, but it involves effort and motion off the ball. You only need a bunch of shooters if guys are lazy off the ball and just want to catch and shoot without moving around. You beat a zone with passing by getting it off balance.

The ball moves quicker than the player. So if you move the ball with urgency when passing, move into open space off the ball, and/or penetrate to make the defense collapse and then dish, you can beat the zone. There are multiple options. What you can't do, is stand in one spot feet behind the three point line passing the ball around the perimeter hoping to eventually get a good shot.
 
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upstater said:
Vital and Adams. 2 players on the team have played in games together.

The other 11 guys are new to playing games with the Huskies.

Only Larrier has seen any practice time alongside Vital and Adams.

So that's 3.

Everyone else including Gilbert and Diarra have only spent a few weeks practicing with them. College players are not going to learn offense and defense in that time.

Kentucky does this every year, practically. Sometimes they're the 9th seed, sometimes they are the 2nd. Between the two, it is all about Calipari's ability to coach, and the players' ability to learn.

I was surprised at the selfishness of play last night. Much less surprised by the confusion on defense and the lack of offensive sets.
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LOL. And since our players are as talented as Kentuckys’ 20 McD’s everything should work out fine.
 
Sometimes I feel like there are a lot of armchair coaches on this site.
 
Jalen can hold his own against anyone. Our guards better take note and go to school. He's a junior and already has what it takes.
 
.-.
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