Memphis thoughts.

[RichZ]

1. I like a lot abut Memphis. The city, more than the school. It's like an apprentice New Orleans. I like its musical history, and its dry rub ribs. In the early/mid eighties, Keith Lee was one of my favorite, non-UConn players. All that being said, I loved beating the snot out of them last night. Causing their players to simply give up hope well before the game was over.
2. 27 of 32 field goals in the paint. 84+%. A stat that's fueled by our woeful 3 point shooting, and augmented by the number of fast break buckets generated by our pressure and last night's unexpectedly good rebounding, but an impressive stat nonetheless.
3. According to the box score, our only two blocks were by Rodney and Jalen. That may be a first. Or it may be the Memphis scorekeeper not bothering to credit blocks accurately. I swear I remember Shonn getting one for sure.
4. Phil. That might have been the most meaningful, 17 minute, 5 point, 5 board efforts ever.
5. How often does the end of the bench not get into a game we win by 20?
6. Kentan. Two consecutive, awful turnovers put him on the bench with only 3 minutes of PT. But he also had a bucket and two boards in that short period. Kind of surprised e didn't get a couple late minutes to atone for his sins and get his head back on the positive side of things.
7. Enoch. 5 minutes. 2 rebounds. 2 buckets. Not shown in the box score is a great, position based stop of Goodwin, and big dose of the intangible I'd call 'presence'. He couldn't be ignored or taken lightly by the opponent. Been wondering all season, about the guy that KO was so excited by early on. More than once, he referred to Enoch as a "sponge," absorbing everything they were teaching him, especially about defense. Then the few minutes we got to see him over the course of the season so far, he looked lost on D. Not last night. Last night, in just 5 minutes against one of the most aggressive and skilled bigs he's ever faced, he dispelled a lot of doubts. Much more impressive than his 21 minutes against Temple, which had been the high point of his young career until last night. Still a work in progress, but the key word there is progress. He's making some.
8. Our interior guys combined to totally negate their interior game. I think that's the first time I've been able to say that in the KO era.
9. A perimeter of Jalen, Rodney and DHam has become a very imposing thing. Last night JA and RP were almost bazz and boat like in their on ball D and passing lane hawking. A few too many open looks for 3, but their overall D made a lot of those open threes look rushed. Calhoun played great D, too.
10. Our 3 point shooting on the other hand... Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot?

 

[huskiesNhoos]

Commenting on #7, he definitely still got lost on D last night. There was one play specifically where he got spun around looking for a rebound off a missed shot that went to his man, and he tried to recover by literally guarding the guy with his back turned. Ended up in a bucket for memphis but I will agree he was more effective on Goodwin because he was not going to get muscled out like Nolan and brimah

 

[auror]

1. Our interior guys combined to totally negate their interior game. I think that's the first time I've been able to say that in the KO era.
2. A perimeter of Jalen, Rodney and DHam has become a very imposing thing. Last night JA and RP were almost bazz and boat like in their on ball D and passing lane hawking. A few too many open looks for 3, but their overall D made a lot of those open threes look rushed. Calhoun played great D, too.

Too many fouls by both perimeter guys and big guys. The refs were calling it tight on Memphis' drives. We're lucky an 86% shooter went 10-18 (55%) and a 73% shooter went 4-9 (44%). They might not have lost their will and came back a bit if the lead was 4 instead of 12 midway through 2nd.

 

[jibsey]

The help defense on Goodwin was beautiful although we got burned on some early 3's.

 

[minidarren]

Where is that dude from Memphis that used to troll here all the time. Did he get booted?

 

[Dogbreath2U]

Commenting on #7, he definitely still got lost on D last night. There was one play specifically where he got spun around looking for a rebound off a missed shot that went to his man, and he tried to recover by literally guarding the guy with his back turned. Ended up in a bucket for memphis but I will agree he was more effective on Goodwin because he was not going to get muscled out like Nolan and brimah

It was funny and lucky his man did not realize he was being guarded by a blind man, so to speak. Well, if they scored on the possession as you say, it didn't make any difference. It seems like he can be good for a while and then just doesn't have a clue of what to do on D. He'll get it, hopefully sooner than later, but nice moves on offense!

 

[Hey Adrien!]

I know he hasn't played a lot of minutes, but I'm loving the points differential with Brimah back. Memphis and UCF aren't SMU or Cincy, but they aren't bottom feeders and this team simply looked great last two games. At the very least, it feels good to be trending up!

 

[Silk31]

Commenting on #7, he definitely still got lost on D last night. There was one play specifically where he got spun around looking for a rebound off a missed shot that went to his man, and he tried to recover by literally guarding the guy with his back turned. Ended up in a bucket for memphis but I will agree he was more effective on Goodwin because he was not going to get muscled out like Nolan and brimah

Hahaha yea he looked like Amare back in the day when STAT displayed the greatest defensive court awareness I have ever seen.

Big Steve certainly has a ways to go on D but he gives us a dimension that none of our other Centers can - strength. When we run into bigger bodied players we can use him to bang down low for short stretches.

Who cares if he gets into foul trouble, he's a bench big man, not like we are asking him to play a full game out there where he needs to stay out of foul trouble - I'll give him a pass on the fouls/minute last night, those zebras were in rare form