Memphis Post Game Thread

[CardiacAndre7]

Is Ball not entitled to his space? He was not “leaning in” as some claimed. He was in a defensive stance and the Memphis kid swung his elbows wildly in front of his body initiating the contact. Agree to disagree completely.

He isn’t entitled to the offensive player’s cylinder, no.

 

[Zonepress]

Three working theories from the first 4 games that were validated by Memphis

1. Tarris Reed is much better than Samson, and needs to start. This will have the dual impact of improving our starts AND maximizing Samson in the role he's already proven to excel - change of pace big dunking on opponents 2nd team.

2. Our guards are much smaller than last year and physically weaker - so they can't get to their spots to initiate offense and then run through multiple iterations and get clear vision. I don't know the solution here, but its really gumming up the whole works. TNewt/Steph/Cam is a big, strong pack of ballhandlers. Mahaney, Diarra, Solo just needs to be stronger with the ball. Maybe this is why I like the idea of getting Ahmad Nowell minutes. I think he is the best and strongest ball handling guard on the roster.

3. Im kinda worried that Jayden is following in the same buzz/reality cycle as Samson. The missing ingredient with both is strength/ruggedness. You see the athleticism and skill package and get seduced by it - but lack of functional strength means the guys get tossed around when the intensity level rises in game conditions and they can't transfer their skillsets into production.

Agree with your assessment especially point number two

 

[FearThePups]

Well, the definition of "in the cylinder" changed from when it was called as a foul against Reed.

Hmmmm, what was the difference? The color of the jersey?

I thought the same thing. Inconsistent refereeing the whole game.

 

[TheHorde]

He isn’t entitled to the offensive player’s cylinder, no.

He was in his own space he was clerical not in the offensive player’s space. The offensive player swung his elbows FORWARD, which is why he connected with Ball’s jaw who was standing away from him.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

He was in his own space he was clerical not in the offensive player’s space. The offensive player swung his elbows FORWARD, which is why he connected with Ball’s jaw who was standing away from him.

Disagree, all good.

 

[Excalibur]

He isn’t entitled to the offensive player’s cylinder, no.

The cylinder doesn’t matter when elbows are being swung. Ball fouled him before he was hit, but the opposing player swung his elbows without pivoting. That is a dead ball personal foul.

 

[boog204]

2. Our guards are much smaller than last year and physically weaker - so they can't get to their spots to initiate offense and then run through multiple iterations and get clear vision. I don't know the solution here, but its really gumming up the whole works. TNewt/Steph/Cam is a big, strong pack of ballhandlers. Mahaney, Diarra, Solo just needs to be stronger with the ball. Maybe this is why I like the idea of getting Ahmad Nowell minutes. I think he is the best and strongest ball handling guard on the roster.

This is the key. We've been a dominant team the last two years because we had three big guards on the court. Newton, Hawkins, and Andre Natty One and Newton, Cam, and Castle Natty two. Those guys were strong enough and talented enough to basically play any of the perimeter positions and were completely interchangeable in role. Hurley when talking about the incoming recruits stressed that our guards this year were too small to run the alley-oop game with Samson and that he wanted to correct that with the incoming class. Without that wrinkle pretty much Samson's entire offensive game is removed.

I'm also a big fan of starting to acclimate Nowell in. He already looks like a stronger handler than any of the guards who get minutes and his athleticism is clearly better than two of the three.

 

[superjohn]

Is Ball not entitled to his space? He was not “leaning in” as some claimed. He was in a defensive stance and the Memphis kid swung his elbows wildly in front of his body initiating the contact. Agree to disagree completely.

I agree that the offensive player swung his elbow wildly but I think it may have been negated by Solo having at least one arm on the offensive player and maybe both of them on him. It was a bang bang play with Solo running up on him. Solo makes the first contact which most likely negated being in a legal defensive position. I don't have a real problem with the call but when elbows fly there in college games it's usually called a foul and a technical on the guy clearing space with the elbow if he makes contact with the face. I have a real problem with Tarris being called for a foul when his elbow made contact because that was a normal offensive move with the defender giving him no space to turn.

 

[FearThePups]

He may be our best option but that also may not be a good thing.

None of our great guards were no where near ready to run a show as freshman, hell even sophomores.

Did you forget about Khalid El Amin?

 

[TheHorde]

I agree that the offensive player swung his elbow wildly but I think it may have been negated by Solo having at least one arm on the offensive player and maybe both of them on him. It was a bang bang play with Solo running up on him. Solo makes the first contact which most likely negated being in a legal defensive position. I don't have a real problem with the call but when elbows fly there in college games it's usually called a foul and a technical on the guy clearing space with the elbow if he makes contact with the face. I have a real problem with Tarris being called for a foul when his elbow made contact because that was a normal offensive move with the defender giving him no space to turn.

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I hear you but the officials didn’t cite the original arm contact as being the reason they called the foul. I’m familiar with the rule. But I think the offensive player went beyond what could reasonably be construed as “his cylinder”. He took more than his space in my opinion. He leaned forward and swung his elbows to be able to connect with Ball’s jaw. Ball gave him enough room to move his elbows without contacting him UNLESS he leaned into Ball, which he did. I’d argue that they incorrectly applied or interpreted the cylinder rule there.

 

[superjohn]

I hear you but the officials didn’t cite the original arm contact as being the reason they called the foul.

They didn't?

 

[TheHorde]

They didn't?

Right they didn’t. I agree that the offensive player has the right to his space but when you lean forward into the defender and swing your elbows you aren’t in your “cylinder” any longer. You’re in the defender’s space.

 

[Excalibur]

They didn't?

They did. Then they refused to call the elbow based on the "cylinder" rule. Correct call was live ball foul on Ball for the reach/hack, dead ball personal on Memphis for the elbow.

 

[TheHorde]

They did. Then they refused to call the elbow based on the "cylinder" rule. Correct call was live ball foul on Ball for the reach/hack, dead ball personal on Memphis for the elbow.

At the worst they could have no called all of it. Solo got the worst of it obviously. But I don’t recall the contact causing the offensive player to lose possession of the ball, did it?

 

[superjohn]

They did. Then they refused to call the elbow based on the "cylinder" rule. Correct call was live ball foul on Ball for the reach/hack, dead ball personal on Memphis for the elbow.

I agree with that.

 

[boog204]

Did you forget about Khalid El Amin?

The famous story is that KEA "ran the show" on his recruiting visit. Dude was a killer.

 

[Excalibur]

Right they didn’t. I agree that the offensive player has the right to his space but when you lean forward into the defender and swing your elbows you aren’t in your “cylinder” any longer. You’re in the defender’s space.

The whistle clearly blew before the elbow.

 

[TheHorde]

The whistle clearly blew before the elbow.

But wasnt the explanation they gave the tv crew was that it was a cylinder violation and that that’s what the foul was?

 

[The Frog]

don't blame the refs.

I do blame the Ref's. Statistically, there were several calls on Memphis as well. But 10 more on us. But even not that discrepancy. The number on us that were so Ticky tacky. Memphis didn't get those. It had a fixed feeling to it all, how lopsided the ticky-tacky calls were; I would have gotten T-up more than Hurley and the staff if the refs could have seen me also shouting at their BS. Not to take anything away from Memphis. Those guys can definitely ball. And would have gotten my handshake respect at the end of the game.

 

[RuffRuff]

The net net here is we need a 1-2 rotation we need to figure out sooner rather than later that is made up of 4 options:

Diarra
Mahaney
Nowell
Ball

None of these are perfect parts just need to figure out which combo works best. We know what Diarra is and I think we generally know what Ball is. Mahaney and Nowell are WIPs that require projecting.

 

[Palatine]

We win a more evenly officiated game. But we lost so it doesn't matter.

Offense was NOT the problem. Memphis shredded our defense. If Johnson could have stayed on the floor, he would have helped the defense with some rim protection. He would have also provided some protection for the guards. Losing him so quickly was bad. When Reed fouled out we were down by 10 or 11. Johnson came in and Memphis only scored 3 points in the final 3+ minutes as we erased the lead. We got stops. He has to be smarter or we will run Reed into the ground. But he has to give us more meaningful minutes.

Memphis shot over 50% from Three and over 50% overall. So the defense was pretty bad everywhere. The offense was NOT the problem.

 

[superjohn]

Weren't you the same poster that jumped all over me for saying that Mahaney shouldn't start because a backcourt of Mahaney and Diarra was too small?

Probably. Diarra and Mahaney starting together would be ridiculous.

 

[Scottobot]

Hunter is a kid whos been around for a while and when you have open threes because the defender cant keep up you should hit 7/10. Mahaney was awful and overall the defense was bad.

I disagree with that take. The best shooters in college ball can’t make 7 out of 10 in warmups with no one defending them. But given how hot he was UConn needed to prevent him from beating them and they couldn’t. They don’t have a Andre Jackson, or Steph Castle on defense this year. Most teams don’t have that. UConn was lucky to have two of the most elite wing defenders in the game. Also last year when Clingan was in the wings could play really tight on the perimeter and not worry about getting beat on the dribble because the other team would get erased by Clingan if they tried to drive.

 

[Travelman6]

don't blame the refs.

I look forward to a future of impartial robot refs, may it come soon, let's go AI!!


There, I did as you said.

 

[Padutch5]

The referees did not start biased against UConn, but they got there by the end of the game. Showering officials with abuse for 45 minutes is going to have consequences in some games.

I don’t get the Hardaway hate on this board. His team plays decisive and with urgency on offense, and aggressive and fearless defense. He was trapping off the top of his zone in the first half, which you don’t see much. I really like the way Memphis plays. Hardaway coached an almost perfect game to win. Congrats to Memphis.

Sorry to disagree. However, the lead ref is well known to UCONN and is always antagonistic to us. Whenever I see him at the civic center i know it is trouble.