Marquette Post Game Meltdown Thread | Page 8 | The Boneyard

Marquette Post Game Meltdown Thread

We’re unique in the sense that we’re undefeated at home & at neutral sites, but win less or damn near on the road.

Unfortunately, guard play is the most transferable thing to tourney time, & it’s our greatest weakness. We (deservingly so because of this) should be a potential tourney early upset pick.

We’re a good team with major warts
 
I guess the biggest problem with our team right now is 32% from 3 in big east play won't cut it. Playing 4 perimeter players who do very little penetration and can't shoot is recipe for disaster. Where is all this great shooting we were supposed to have to play 4 out?
 
This team is the most unique one in the nation for these reasons IMO.

-Adama is the best player in conference
-Adama is a better player than DC
-There have been too many times where the team looks better with DC
-They can’t both play together
-the team is too close to great to take a step back to work through the necessary growing pains we may see with DC if we made the change.

This is one of the most unique teams we’ve had in a while & idk the answer. Still think we could be a first round out or hang 5
 
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MDHuskFan said:
We’re unique in the sense that we’re undefeated at home & at neutral sites, but win less or damn near on the road.

Unfortunately, guard play is the most transferable thing to tourney time, & it’s our greatest weakness. We (deservingly so because of this) should be a potential tourney early upset pick.

We’re a good team with major warts
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It’s starting to seem like we’re a 10-15 ranked team that got hot early

We have 3 of our 4 hardest conference games out of the way. Win out vs. Butler, GTown, Nova, SJU, DePaul, Seton Hall. That’s 24 wins.

Split the other four games 2-2 at home and our minimum target should 26 wins. I don’t think that’s first round upset territory. But we shouldn’t really be thinking March yet. Take it a game at a time
 
3rdbass said:
I guess the biggest problem with our team right now is 32% from 3 in big east play won't cut it. Playing 4 perimeter players who do very little penetration and can't shoot is recipe for disaster. Where is all this great shooting we were supposed to have to play 4 out?
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You live by the 3 you die by the 3. We need players that can penetrate and we just don’t have that. Even though every team we’ve played in these road games have those players in bunches. They make it look so easy.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
The Top 5 Big East teams have not lost a game to the bottom 6. The Top 5 Big East teams have also not lost a home game. This means that one of these team's number of losses is 100% correlated to the number of road games they have played against other Top 5 teams. Creighton has played at UConn, Xavier, and Marquette, and lost all of those games. UConn has played at Xavier, Marquette and Providence, and has lost all of those games. Providence and Xavier have not played a road game against the other top 5 teams, so they are undefeated.

I don't know how long this correlation will continue, but it is fairly stark right now.
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Providence will win at creighton Saturday.
 
I don’t understand the hate for Hurley in this one. Maybe some ill-advised zone towards the end of the game, but what else? I thought the rotation was good. Clingan was great so he got minutes. AK was excellent tonight so he got minutes. AJ is the straw that stirs the drink so he got minutes. Hurley didn’t cause the turnovers. Hurley didn’t disappear like Hawk.

We lost another game on the road. It sucks. I get it, but I don’t believe it’s Hurley’s fault. When Sanogo and Hawkins don’t perform well, we struggle.
 
Conndog said:
Opposing teams have learned to smother Hawkins, double on Sanogo, and they can win, because all UConn has at that point is outside shooting. But the outside shooting minus Hawkins contribution is shaky. And if no one will drive to hoop to draw contact or score on layup or dunk, then defending outside is easier.

Karaban did well tonight, and Clingan was a star, our best player by far. Sanogo tried hard too. But, I'm not sure how Hurley will overcome the deficiencies of this team. Early in the season, I was convince we didn't have any. Man, these Big East teams have great coaches who know how to devise a winning game plan, and they have some dynamite players too.

One last thing- it was amazing how many times Marquette used the backboard to score on their shots. I didn't know teams still did that nowadays.
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Agree. The most encouraging play of the night was when Ajax found a lane and went hard to the rim for a layup. Don't know if he has the handle or the skill to do this consistently, but that would really open things up. Nice game from Alex, if he could emerge as a 3rd scoring option that would be huge.

Also noticed the shots off the glass, some of the lucky variety.
 
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Punkbo said:
I don’t understand the hate for Hurley in this one. Maybe some ill-advised zone towards the end of the game, but what else? I thought the rotation was good. Clingan was great so he got minutes. AK was excellent tonight so he got minutes. AJ is the straw that stirs the drink so he got minutes. Hurley didn’t cause the turnovers. Hurley didn’t disappear like Hawk.

We lost another game on the road. It sucks. I get it, but I don’t believe it’s Hurley’s fault. When Sanogo and Hawkins don’t perform well, we struggle.
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I don’t think the zone was I’ll advised. Zone is a great tool to try to disrupt the offense when you can’t stop them from driving, which we couldn’t

But it’s pretty clear that we haven’t practiced much zone this year. Looked clunky
 
YearoftheHusky said:
Yep. And lost. My point stands that in our last 7-8 games we have not been playing our best ball. How have you disproven that?
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We have not played our best ball in the last 4 games, correct. The preceding 3 games we won by 22, 11, and 8. Totally fine, full 40 minutes is all that matters. The 8th game we won by 53.

The last 4 have been worse, because:

1) We played 3 top 30 teams on the road and a top 20 team at home, all in the last 4 games.
2) As noted above, our shooting is in a bit of a slump. Calcaterra was on fire in non-conf and struggling in conference play. This can and likely will change.
3) We got the big boy target on our back and our players don't have a ton of experience being in this position. Super charged the away fans. They'll get better at it,.
4) We lost composure on defense on the road against Providence.
5) Opponents are making 81% of their foul shots against us in conference play so far. For the full season, that would literally be the highest mark against in the entire country. In our 3 losses, opponents have made 83%
 
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This team is built for tournament play. The rigorous monotonous conference play isn’t our strong suit. We play better vs teams that haven’t seen us, we’re streaky, we need the motivation of tournament play.
 
I don’t believe it’s been mentioned yet here, but we committed at least three shot clock violations tonight. Not due to Marquette’s defense. Clearly because no one is demanding the ball. Court awareness out the window with guys bumping into their teammates. Lack of communication. No leader. No alpha. No one ready to make a Boatright stink face.
 
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I don’t like the losses, but tough road games, ok I guess.

But if anyone thinks we play a composed game under 5 minutes in close games , I don’t know what to say. We are so far out of sorts in these situations it scares the hell out of me. We play tighter than a drum.
 
Punkbo said:
I don’t understand the hate for Hurley in this one. Maybe some ill-advised zone towards the end of the game, but what else? I thought the rotation was good. Clingan was great so he got minutes. AK was excellent tonight so he got minutes. AJ is the straw that stirs the drink so he got minutes. Hurley didn’t cause the turnovers. Hurley didn’t disappear like Hawk.

We lost another game on the road. It sucks. I get it, but I don’t believe it’s Hurley’s fault. When Sanogo and Hawkins don’t perform well, we struggle.
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I blasted Hurley for 4 years on this board, but I am now probably among the 20% most positive towards him.

Marquette is trying to win too, and they played well tonight. UConn struggled at times, which is not surprising on the road against a good team. This is not the 2004 Huskies. This is not a team of destiny. It will have to grind out wins and get some help to have the season we all want.

I have some quibbles with Hurley, such as defenders always going over screens, AJax's overly green light, and that UConn's offensive and defensive sets don't seem to have a lot of variety possession to possession, but most of that is minor. My biggest complaint is that he should develop sets for Sanogo and Clingan to be on the court together. When in doubt as a coach, put your 5 best players on the court. Sanogo and Clingan are definitely 2 of the 5 best players on the team. I like the offense, and the man-to-man base defense is pretty good.

The season will be decided by a handful of plays at the right time. Hurley will need to be ready to mix things up when that happens, because the other team will be ready for UConn's base sets.
 
Palatine said:
It's Hurley's job to get Hawkins in a position to affect the game. The stuff we ran for him didn't get him open at all. It didn't look like it was Hawkins fault, he was working his butt off.
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C’mon. If Hawk isa first rounder he has to do more than shoot off screens. He needs to create some for himself ( not sure he can). Not Hurley’s job. He must be a wing that can slash to the hoop to set up his 3 point shots.
 
3RingsCT said:
We aren’t playing like a top team so we don’t deserve to be in the conversation. We have 1 or 2 quality wins and 3 losses
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I agree we aren’t playing like a top team right now, but Alabama and Iowa St are great wins, and Creighton with a full squad is certainly a quality win.

I imagine you know this.
 
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auror said:
We have not played our best ball in the last 4 games, correct. The preceding 3 games we won by 22, 11, and 8. Totally fine, full 40 minutes is all that matters. The 8th game we won by 53.

The last 4 have been worse, because:

1) We played 3 top 30 teams on the road and a top 20 team at home, all in the last 4 games.
2) As noted above, our shooting is in a bit of a slump. Calcaterra was on fire in non-conf and struggling in conference play. This can and likely will change.
3) We got the big boy target on our back and our players don't have a ton of experience being in this position. Super charged the away fans. They'll get better at it,.
4) We lost composure on defense on the road against Providence.
5) Opponents are making 81% of their foul shots against us in conference play so far. For the full season, that would literally be the highest mark against in the entire country. In our 3 losses, opponents have made 83%
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It's fine but this board, talking heads around the Big East, and national talking heads were calling us the best team in the country and a team that could absolutely win it all. It's not at all fine if those are the expectations.

It's all fine if everyone adjusts expectations. If we lose in first 2 rounds of the NCAA's none of it is fine.
 
Punkbo said:
I don’t understand the hate for Hurley in this one. Maybe some ill-advised zone towards the end of the game, but what else? I thought the rotation was good. Clingan was great so he got minutes. AK was excellent tonight so he got minutes. AJ is the straw that stirs the drink so he got minutes. Hurley didn’t cause the turnovers. Hurley didn’t disappear like Hawk.

We lost another game on the road. It sucks. I get it, but I don’t believe it’s Hurley’s fault. When Sanogo and Hawkins don’t perform well, we struggle.
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A head coach has to do a lot of things well and Hurley doesn't. He can't get the most ouf of his players, he just doesn't have that skill.
 
Drfla said:
C’mon. If Hawk isa first rounder he has to do more than shoot off screens. He needs to create some for himself ( not sure he can). Not Hurley’s job. He must be a wing that can slash to the hoop to set up his 3 point shots.
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You can be a 1st rounder without a ton of on ball shot creation, sure. Not every guard has the same playstyle. He's flashed some in other games anyways.For example, AJ Griffin went 16th last year.

Has to play better than he did tonight, obviously, though. OMax was all over him tonight. Like too much, fouled and held Hawkins a lot off ball But hey, they treated it like an NBA finals game and didn't call it.

It's easier to not let a guy score when you foul him constantly without getting called for it.
 
Punkbo said:
I don’t understand the hate for Hurley in this one. Maybe some ill-advised zone towards the end of the game, but what else? I thought the rotation was good. Clingan was great so he got minutes. AK was excellent tonight so he got minutes. AJ is the straw that stirs the drink so he got minutes. Hurley didn’t cause the turnovers. Hurley didn’t disappear like Hawk.

We lost another game on the road. It sucks. I get it, but I don’t believe it’s Hurley’s fault. When Sanogo and Hawkins don’t perform well, we struggle.
Expand ...
I don’t know. It was clear to see how good Clingan was defensively. Also, why do they play so slow and programmed? Where is the speed, power and grace we saw beginning of year?
 
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