Memphis Post Game Thread

[HuskyHawk]

The problem is I'm just not sure Mahaney is going to turn into a very good point guard and it makes us a lot less athletic because it's keeping one of Liam, Solo, Jaylin off the floor and it's keeping Hass off the floor when he's in there.

People bring up Tristen but Tristen was a point guard coming in. He had a 22 point triple double with 5 steals in his fourth game at UConn against Buffalo. He's just a lot bigger/more physical than Mahaney and he wasn't getting targeted all the time on defense. Mahaney has a couple things working against him. He's trying to learn the toughest position for the most advanced offensive team in the country as someone who isn't a natural point guard. At the same time he's getting targeted on defense because he's the slightest and least athletic guy on the court.

I just worry they may be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The team and Mahaney are too talented to have the whole season depend on something that may not be a fit. I trust the staff because they've been right about basically everything but we're really going to have to start seeing it work and 6 of the next 7 games are against big time teams.

I agree 100%. When he decided to come here I never imagined he's be anything but a SG. Then Ball evidently made a leap and Hurley tried to work Mahaney into the starting lineup. I don't think that will continue much longer. He's the backup SG on this team. The microwave off the bench. We got lucky with Cam being able to facilitate despite not being a PG.

Diarra needs to start and they need to try a lot harder to run offense through McNeeley up top, as they did Castle last year. I have more faith in McNeeley learning that role. Use him like the Celtics use Tatum to some extent. When Nowell is healthy they need to get him some minutes and see if he can run the team at PG.

It's a challenge for Hurley to figure out. From a talent perspective I think I'd rank our guys
McNeeley, Alex, Stewart, Ball, Ross, Reed. Not sure who's next. There's not a true facilitator among our top 6 players. Last year we had 3. So he has to try to get Liam, Solo and/or Ross to own that. Ross should be practicing at PG right now.

 

[upstater]

Since the 80s. The fact that you’re “worried” is just mind boggling. No wonder he entertained the Lakers job..

I'm worried about him. Not UConn. Hurley has been very open about everything to do with the referees and his relationship in the past. If you think this is OK, you're not listening to...

... Hurley!

 

[RuffRuff]

I agree 100%. When he decided to come here I never imagined he's be anything but a SG. Then Ball evidently made a leap and Hurley tried to work Mahaney into the starting lineup. I don't think that will continue much longer. He's the backup SG on this team. The microwave off the bench. We got lucky with Cam being able to facilitate despite not being a PG.

Diarra needs to start and they need to try a lot harder to run offense through McNeeley up top, as they did Castle last year. I have more faith in McNeeley learning that role. Use him like the Celtics use Tatum to some extent. When Nowell is healthy they need to get him some minutes and see if he can run the team at PG.

It's a challenge for Hurley to figure out. From a talent perspective I think I'd rank our guys
McNeeley, Alex, Stewart, Ball, Ross, Reed. Not sure who's next. There's not a true facilitator among our top 6 players. Last year we had 3. So he has to try to get Liam, Solo and/or Ross to own that. Ross should be practicing at PG right now.

Reality is that Solo really hasn’t made any leap. He doesn’t create off the dribble, at all. This leaves even more pressure on the PG. The overall blend in the backcourt lacks balance. At some point DH will have to explore a 3 as a 2 or a freshman into the rotation. Need to create mismatches as opposed to suffering from them.

That loss wasn’t on the Hurley T. Memphis outplayed us for 85% of that game. They set the tone with physicality and grit from the tip, which any BE should embrace.

 

[JerseyAlum]

I wonder how much the early T allegedly on the UConn trainer really set Hurley off more than usual and set the stage for what happened later and how the game was officiated late. Is there a history with this crew and Hurley, I wonder?

Does not matter. That first one was inexcusable. the trainer should know better than to mutter something about the officiating. No excuse “oh he was barely audible” cuts it. The foul on Ball was a jole and the foul on Liam was moreso a joke given the tic tac fouls they called on us the whole game but not Memphis.

Still, inexcusable of Hurley to act demonstrably about the officials ever. Does not matter if they tore Sampson apart but no fouls were called for him.

You instill that in players to remain calm regardless but as a coach you need to walk the walk.

 

[upstater]

Wrong. All the top teams are playing at least one competitive game by the fifth game of the season. If we had done that we wouldnt be in the losers bracket playing teams with lower kenpom.

I don't get the math here.

This Memphis game WAS our first competitive game. It doesn't really matter that they played 3 cupcakes or four. They treat them like exhibitions anyway.

This argument makes no sense to me.

If they scheduled one or two less cupcakes, we'd be saying this is an early season competitive game.

 

[RedStickHusky]

And Big Guards have an easier time of seeing the Lob action and making that pass

A big part of Samson's trouble is we don't have a pick and roll lob partner for him.

 

[JoeyBuckets]

The embarrassment to the program takes are Lame. The playing Cupcakes in the beginning of the season have been going on for Years. All of a sudden it’s a problem. We are back to back national champions. We have a-lot of new pieces here..how about we give these new players some
Time to work on there game and Gel as a team. We will be ready for March…and again have a chance to win another national championship!

 

[Frank06830]

Ok, I've held off to let the smoke clear...

Positives:

Reed was great. Hope all of you that trashed his signing and said we should have gotten Cliff or Ballo can reevaluate. Tarris averaging 14 and 10 on the season in a little over 20mpg. And, he'll be here for one more year.

We had no business being in overtime with a chance to win. Big ups for coming back when we were thoroughly outplayed the majority of the game.

Memphis is a team of experienced, talented, mercenaries. They will win games this year. And lose some head scratchers as well. Haggerty is a stud, Hunter and Rogers are already 1000pt scorers, and their bigs are all seniors who were starters at other places. We have a lot of new faces and the old faces (sans Alex) are trying to take on new/bigger roles. It will come.

Concerns:

Memphis is/was significantly more athletic than us at almost every position. There were times where 1-5 they were quicker, stronger, tougher. They were chippy and honestly, I thought we looked soft for the first 35 minutes of the game. It made things very difficult on both ends. Ross and JStew add some athleticism, but who sits?

Our guards, up until the last 10-15 when Hassan turned it around were not very good. Mahaney, for the first time to me, was a complete liability on the defensive end. We'll be fine, but I think we're seeing the effect of not having three lead guards on the court as we did last year. We still put points in but there were some half court struggles because our guards were picking up their dribble and stagnating.

Goes without saying that both SJ and DH with absolutely idiotic moments at the most inopportune time. This is a senior and HOF-caliber coach having no composure whatsoever. To add onto SJ, he's got to find a way to stay on the court and be a some sort of a factor. Again, this is a byproduct of having three outstanding triple threat guys last year in the pick and roll game. We just don't have those guys this year.

Officiating was bad both ways. Getting beat off the dribble consistently against athletic guards will yield lots of fouls. We watched Tristen draw fouls for two years on iffy calls. Live with it. But bad officiating isn't to blame for fouling three point shooters and poor execution.

Excellent take. except for Haggerty at 20 they were all 21-22-23 years old. Including a 6th year player. A solid game plan well executed by experienced players

 

[JohnFSilver]

Reality is that Solo really hasn’t made any leap. He doesn’t create off the dribble, at all. This leaves even more pressure on the PG. The overall blend in the backcourt lacks balance. At some point DH will have to explore a 3 as a 2 or a freshman into the rotation. Need to create mismatches as opposed to suffering from them.

That loss wasn’t on the Hurley T. Memphis outplayed us for 85% of that game. They set the tone with physicality and grit from the tip, which any BE should embrace.

Yikes. Solo looks good to me. And, this is an old coach thing where a turnover in the first minute means as much as one in the late second half .

That is dumb.

With one minute left, after 3, at 92-92 it was a 52.7% win probability for UConn. They had the ball.

The McNeeley foul and the four point untimed possession gave Memphis an 80.2% win probability, per ESPN.

That is a massive swing, caused, by the coach.

 

[Gurleyman]

We kinda got punched in the mouth at Kansas last year. We hung in and had a chance, but it felt like this one where facing a higher level of athleticism caught us off guard and took us out of what we wanted to do. And we had already played Indiana and Texas. Indiana came after 3 cupcakes - perhaps Indiana was a better matchup than Memphis was, but the formula was pretty similar.

Two years ago we played 5 cupcakes before Oregon and beat them pretty easily (and then Alabama and Iowa State).

So the run of cupcakes building into the exempt tournament where we open with an unranked opponent and then build into bigger challenges has been the way we’ve scheduled. This Memphis team was maybe too good this year to be the intermediate step … but those things are unknown in the portal era.

 

[Sphinx]

Lord knows I haven't read the whole thread, but I'm surprised I haven't seen much about DH's inability to win the close ones. Monday was yet another example -- and the reason is not new. Games that come down to the wire are largely decided by the refs, and the refs aren't ever gonna decide in favor of DH.

 

[DRBackup]

Hey, if you don't like Hurley. You have to give back the nattys because that's what makes Hurley Hurley.

Same thing I used to say about Calhoun when people would complain about the yelling and the swearing. That was part of who Calhoun was. Its a package deal.

 

[willie99]

“The whistle favored Memphis the entire game…”
Every losing team’s fans always think the refs had it in for them

The box score don't lie

And it took Two T's to win that game, 4 free throws on top of their yuuuuuge advantage to begin with

 

[DRBackup]

Lord knows I haven't read the whole thread, but I'm surprised I haven't seen much about DH's inability to win the close ones. Monday was yet another example -- and the reason is not new. Games that come down to the wire are largely decided by the refs, and the refs aren't ever gonna decide in favor of DH.

Goes without saying that they should do their job without favoring either team, regardless.

 

[willie99]

Same thing I used to say about Calhoun when people would complain about the yelling and the swearing. That was part of who Calhoun was. Its a package deal.

And I still have a man crush on my Avatar

He made UConn

 

[TheHorde]

Same thing I used to say about Calhoun when people would complain about the yelling and the swearing. That was part of who Calhoun was. Its a package deal.

And notice that over the past two years we didn’t really see many questionable officiating calls. Granted the teams were so talented that it likely wouldn’t have mattered much if there were. But is it possible that the seeds Hurley planted about being treated fairly stuck?

 

[superjohn]

I agree 100%. When he decided to come here I never imagined he's be anything but a SG. Then Ball evidently made a leap and Hurley tried to work Mahaney into the starting lineup. I don't think that will continue much longer. He's the backup SG on this team. The microwave off the bench. We got lucky with Cam being able to facilitate despite not being a PG.

Diarra needs to start and they need to try a lot harder to run offense through McNeeley up top, as they did Castle last year. I have more faith in McNeeley learning that role. Use him like the Celtics use Tatum to some extent. When Nowell is healthy they need to get him some minutes and see if he can run the team at PG.

It's a challenge for Hurley to figure out. From a talent perspective I think I'd rank our guys
McNeeley, Alex, Stewart, Ball, Ross, Reed. Not sure who's next. There's not a true facilitator among our top 6 players. Last year we had 3. So he has to try to get Liam, Solo and/or Ross to own that. Ross should be practicing at PG right now.

I agree with you. We always talk about positionless basketball and it seems like we have players on this team who fit that mold. I'm not convinced we need a tradional point guard, obviously it would be ideal to have one but we're sacrificing so much if Mahaney can't pull it off and it's a bit hard to envision it all clicking for Mahaney in that role. I think he will eventually play better but he's going to be at a real disadvantage against athletic teams like Memphis, Marquette, Johnnies it just is what it is.

Back to positionless basketball. I don't see why Liam, Solo, and Jaylin can't bring the ball up. Teams hardly full court press anymore and if they do it's just an occasional thing, long gone are the days of 40 minutes of hell Arkansas and Louisville.

Since Mahaney and Diarra aren't really dribble drive guys I don't see why we can't get the ball up court with our 5 best players and then initiate offense through Alex, Liam, and Jaylin in the halfcourt. They all have the size to see over defenses, they're all good decision makers and passers. It makes us a lot bigger and more athletic.

If Hurley is deadset on Hass being our energy, change of pace guy off the bench and he doesn't have plans of handing the reins over to Nowell this seems like something that should be explored a lot more.

29 minutes for Hass and 24 minutes for Mahaney is too much when they're both struggling mightily and we're having so much trouble guarding more athletic players.

 

[DRBackup]

The way we schedule has shown to work. Back to back national championships. 19 straight neutral straight wins. 43-3 in our last 46 games and 1 loss proves that it’s flawed?

Totally true. Still, there is a difference between weaker teams and the bottom of the barrel. The 4 teams we played before Memphis were some of the worst teams in the entire country.

 

[AntG168]

Totally true. Still, there is a difference between weaker teams and the bottom of the barrel. The 4 teams we played before Memphis were some of the worst teams in the entire country.

As they were last year. Some are only making this an issue because we lost a game. Totally reactionary

 

[Iluvsuebird]

But he wasn't wrong.

Yes he was. The game was on the line. The one you don't do in that spot is lose your damn mind.

 

[Iluvsuebird]

The loss is on Danny, but not for the T. Everyone in the world could see that Mahaney and Samson weren’t working, but Danny played them way too much to start the second half.

This.

 

[DogMania]

The cupcake complaint is silly. UConn pretty much always starts with cupcakes, as do many if not most top teams.

I don't think it's silly. These prior teams weren't cupcakes, but more like bonbons. Yes, most play these types of programs early, but they should have added at least one solid program before the tournament to get them ready for what they faced.

I doubt anyone here would say they were ready and prepared for the size, athleticism, quickness and tanacity they faced. Memphis just about completely disrupted their motion offense and they seemed lost as to how to exploit their aggressive perimeter D and double teams throughout much of the game. Yes, they had some success taking it inside or finding the open man, but not enough.

And as for their D, they struggled to keep them from driving to the basket and closing out on their 3 Pt shooters.

Lots to work on, and I'm confident they'll get much better. Their early weak schedule didn't prepare them enough. I know they have pretty much a team where most of the players are taking on new roles, and the staff needed to see who would fill these roles and try to build some chemistry. With that said, they simply need to add at least one team that was close to their level of size and athleticism to prepare for yesterday's game. I wasn't surprised by the outcome, and proud how they fought back and almost won a game that exposed many of their current weaknesses.

 

[DRBackup]

There is not evidence for this. At all. The evidence actually suggest that the way we’ve been scheduling works. One loss is not enough to challenge that. Memphis didn’t win tonight because they played San Francisco. They won because we couldn’t guard. Nothing would have changed that tonight except a personnel change

Yeah, I'm not sure there's any evidence either way. To say that playing a few teams in the #325 - #360 somehow correlates to great success later in the year is nonsense. What is hard to argue is that playing better competition wouldn't be beneficial to the team. It would. How much is the only open question.

 

[alphasigko]

Johnson will should spend a lot of time “riding the pine”.

FIFY - Not sure he will though. If not "riding the pine", he should certainly not start over Reed.

 

[HuskyHawk]

UConn too advantage of this. Karaban killed when the big guy was on him.

Biggest issue for team was defense and defensive rebounding .

Alex had 9 points on 9 threes until middle of the second half. He didn't do much of it.