Marquette Post Game Thread

[Elitehuskies]

Last night was definitely a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. Luckily, it ended on some very high notes that we can take as momentum beyond seton hall.

Some positives I’ll note.

AM: watching him this past year has been like someone uncomfortable with public speaking. Deep down inside, you really want him to succeed but when you watch him struggle you feel helpless and at some point you want the hook. He plays the 2 lot more comfortably than dribbling around. It seems his court visibility is 8 ft when he dribbles because he’s so uncomfortable and afraid of getting the ball stolen. I like how he took some shots. He’s getting better and more confident. We need him and hopefully he’ll peak at the right time. He’s our dark horse.

AK: he finally broke the spell that’s haunted him since missing those 2 FTs when we needed him at SH and all those truckload of misses at the 3 are in the rear view mirror. I feel his confidence is back and he does all those little things well. With that last 3, all future 3s are going to feel like the basket is the size of a barrel. He’s now consistent again and will carry us.

LM: he currently plays like we are desperate for a basket. We are not. Quit driving so much. He’s having a hard time beating the defense off the dribble and often throws up circus shots. Look to pass and make better basketball IQ plays. I sense he’ll adjust and trust his teammates more.

Our other guys are playing well and different players getting hot. Reed, Samson, Solo, Hass, Stew all can their moments. We are all concerned for Hass. That knee is our Achilles heel.

Bottom line, we are looking really good now for an extended run. If we can will the BET you better believe we can 3peat. Else, we’ll certainly exceed everyone’s mid season expectations. L F G!

 

[NJHusky]

Watched the game again….we do not help ourselves at times and I really hate complaining about the refs. That said…..we get a really freaking bad whistle.

There’s no leeway. It’s like we’re playing with a 30% lighter trigger than the other team. Mahaney and McNeeley got called for a few that would never, ever have been called our way.

I’m so looking forward to being done with BE refs.

 

[uconn_jack]

The media talking heads love to parrot the "UConn 3pt defense is one of the worst in the country" (as are you), but this is just based off the raw 3pt% numbers.

There's more nuance to how it affects game outcomes than that.

The flip side is part of UConn's strategy is to deny total #'s of 3pt shots per game. For that metric, we are 17th in the nation (18.5 attempts per game).

The end result is we are actually 49th in the country in pts allowed from 3pt range per game.

Good, let the narrative continue and have teams go in assuming they can feast on 3's and build a plan around that, but not get as many shots off as they'd expect.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

The media talking heads love to parrot the "UConn 3pt defense is one of the worst in the country" (as are you), but this is just based off the raw 3pt% numbers.

There's more nuance to how it affects game outcomes than that.

The flip side is part of UConn's strategy is to deny total #'s of 3pt shots per game. For that metric, we are 17th in the nation (18.5 attempts per game).

The end result is we are actually 49th in the country in pts allowed from 3pt range per game.

Interesting.... any way you can compare the first half of the season versus the second half, or even the last-third versus the first two-thirds? Wondering if we got better on the pts allowed from 3pt range as we headed down the home stretch.

 

[cwh20]

Sure, but A) no one really plays the "if" game in the wins. It's just in the losses. Like you just did. And B) people only play the "if" game with what we did, not what the other teams did. It makes the board so boring, there is no actual discussion.

Yup. At any point in a season the combined records are a .500 winning percentage overall. Teams/fans want the “only if” wins but very few deduct the wins they actually have no matter how lucky or unlikely the win was. UConn and Seton Hall can’t both count that game as wins. The winning percentage combined would probably shoot up to .600 with all the extra wins claimed by teams that didn’t actually win.

 

[Gurleyman]

LOL their two best % three point shooters had 1 attempt in total.

Yeah. Joplin was mostly taking contested step backs and deep ones and hit a couple. Jones, who is basically a 25 percent 3 point shooter (since a hot start in November), was 0-5 when he settled for 3s instead of killing us off the bounce. Mitchell, who has never been a good three point shooter, did miss 3 basically wide open looks, but he’s a guy you can leave open and “prove you can make one” before you adjust and stay at home. Sorta like Diarra for us. Maybe Chase Ross missed a couple he should have made, but don’t see much luck or a game plan failure here at all, really. They needed some circus shots just to break 60.

If we draw BYU in the opening round, then yeah, I wouldn’t use the same defensive game plan.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Basically just try to do a little better job taking his left hand away. It's challenging - but once he gets going downhill with his left, it's just a "hope he misses" situation.

That’s kinda what I was thinking re: make him go right. Easier said than done obviously. Most lefties I’ve ever played against may as well have their right arm amputated because they can’t do anything with it. He was friggin automatic. Great player.

 

[DogMania]

Eh, he didn’t take a wide open jumper in the lane with the shot clock running out to make Liam force a deep heave, is tentative on open men on the inbounds, and threw up that weird heave in the corner. He made a jumper, which was nice. I saw the same slow decision maker. We will need someone to spell Hassan and he does look like the better option right now. Cross your fingers.

Mahaney was better, but does tend to over dribble and slow dilivering the basketball. I realize the on the ball pressure was fierce, but he didn't turn it over and made a few nice plays.

It's hard to perform at your best level when you don't get consistent PT. With that said he's been give chances and just doesn't seem to have PG instincts, but he still might be our best off the bench option to spell Diarra.

Hopefully he can continue to earn PT and improve without hurting the team in the process.