I'm not a fan of taking 2 threes to try to win the game down by 2. All we needed was an easy bucket to tie and go to overtime. Unfortunately no one can drive to the lane for an easy layup. I probably would have gone to Sanogo. But they insisted on taking a three. Oh well.
Have to agree here. I'm generally for not calling a TO in that situation as that helps the D as much as you. Our guys should be smart enough and good enough by now to get the ball up quickly and start the offense w/o wasting time. One thing about missing AJax is he pushes tempo whereas Newton likes to settle above the key. On the last play it took Newton 4 seconds to cross half court.
That said, Hurley had 7.5 seconds if he wanted to call a TO. In hindsight, maybe he should've called it. I probably would've put Alleyne in for Joey there (Joey had just missed two open treys and Alleyne is crazy enough to crash the hoop and draw a foul). Hell, Hurley could've been a hero to half the BY there and put Clingan in too along with Adama. You're playing for the last shot with Sanogo, Clingan, Karaban, Newton and Alleyne. How in hell would Marquette defend that?
Anyway, OT would've been fine. Marquette was losing the war of attrition. In the post game locker room speech, Shaka talked about getting five stops at the end of the game. Well, so did we. In fact, Marquette didn't score in final 3:40. Nobody scored in the final 2:30, which is something you rarely see with teams as good as this. We had better looks but couldn't convert.
Just to put on the record, after Marquette went ahead 70-66 at 3:40, here are the final possessions:
3:22 Alleyne pass inside to Sanogo blocked, TO for MU
3:10 Jones missed 3 (22 secs on shot clock)
2:43 Alleyne missed 3 (5 secs on shot clock), UConn rebound
2:38 Sanogo layup after Marquette tips intercepted pass to Hawk, who feeds Adama
2:22 Jones falls down (no call) resulting in TO
2:17 Alleyne feeds Hawk for wide open transition 3, missed
2:14 Rebound goes OB, called a jump ball, UConn retains possession
1:55 Hawk misses short contested floater bank shot, (2 secs on shot clock). Could've slipped a pass to an open Sanogo underneath. AJax fouls out trying to tie up Prosper.
1:53 Prosper misses front end of 1 and 1.
1:21 Newton uses a ton of time at top of key. Passes to Hawk with 4 secs left, Hawk has open 10 footer, but passes to Joey, who rims a trey with 1 second on clock.
0:56 Kolek misses twisting 8 footer. Sanogo rebounds.
0:49 UConn timeout.
0:41 Newton hits wide open Joey on left wing. Joey rims another trey with 15 secs on shot clock. Rebound goes straight down to Kolek, not boxed out by Sanogo.
0:12 Kolek misses a trey with 4 secs on shot clock. Sanogo rebounds. Maybe bad decision by Kolek there, could've run off another couple seconds and tried to draw a foul going to hoop.
0:07.5 Newton crosses midcourt... and it goes to hell from there. Newton dribbles for 4 seconds. Sanogo has position on his man at 3.5 secs for what should be an easy bounce pass and layup. Newton holds ball another 1.5 seconds before finding Hawk for a desperation three as clock runs out.
All in all, Hurley could've called a TO at 7.5 left. But other than that, our guys played pretty solid ball at the end and just didn't make shots.
