Mid-season update vs. expectations

[REB1094]

We’re about halfway through the regular season. How has everything turned out so far compared to your preseason expectation?

Record: 14-2 (3-2)
AP Rank: 4
Highest Rank: 2
Lowest Rank: NR

Big 3:

1. Sanogo: 17.4 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 1.1 SPG on 50/39/76
2. Hawkins: 14.6 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 1.6 APG on 40/39/77
3. Andre: 6.4 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 5.0 APG on 36/29/71

Other major contributors:

• Karaban: 9.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 1.7 APG on 46/38/81
• Newton: 9.4 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 4.6 APG on 34/34/82
• Clingan: 8.9 PPG, 6.4 RPG, 2.0 BPG on 75/0/55
• Calcaterra: 7.6 POG, 2.4 RPG, 1.6 APG on 49/47/83
• Alleyne: 5.4 PPG, 1.3 RPG, 0.9 APG on 37/31/89
• Diarra: 3.2 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 2.4 APG on 30/21/50

 

[Gburyhusky]

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this site.

 

[mussels]

Lots of unknowns coming into the season. I wasn’t expecting much from Clingan his first year, and was hoping we would be top 15-20 with realistic sweet sixteen possibilities.

Was concerned that we’d have no one to replace that Tyrese junk yard dog element and concerned about point guard position.

Given the performance of Clingan and marked evolution of Hawkins, really looks like my original expectations are our absolute floor. I think Jackson give us our junk yard dog toughness, so my biggest concern is the point, end of game floor general. Overall, I’m really psyched.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

We go as far as the guards take us. So far, especially in conference play, they’ve been pretty dang bad.

Newton needs a wake up call.

 

[GotNets?]

It’s hard to say at this point… the OOC was phenomenal, but with conference play just starting, ask me again in a week.

Their goal and talk has been about winning the big east. You’re bound to lose a couple road games, even as champs, but we’ve already lost two… depending on the next few games, we could be headed in a tough direction.

Finally, midway doesn’t matter in college hoops. There’s only one goal to my way of thinking

 

[Hey Adrien!]

I'll keep it simple.

Right now, the team is vastly exceeding my expectations.

My pre-season expectations? Making the tournament, hovering around the top-25 all season and hopefully winning a game or two.

My expectations now? Making a run in March with realistic title expectations.

 

[REB1094]

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this site.

I promise it wasn’t intentional haha. No hidden agendas here, just honestly curious of where everyone’s head is at

 

[BugsyCT]

This conference is always a meat grinder. We were rolling up until Big East play, yet we were good enough to win our first 3 conference games which were reasonably tough battles (including Nova). Now we've just lost to two really good conference foes on the road. No reason to hit the panic button yet. Need to make adjustments to what teams are doing against us, but still optimistic we'll be good enough to finish near the top of the league.

 

[Gburyhusky]

While it's frustrating to see folks focus on the negative, I will say that my biggest takeaway so far is that the passion for UConn Men's Basketball is at it's highest in some time, which is a great thing and something everyone should be pleased with!

 

[bendm]

came into the season w/ BE contender and sweet 16 expectations. those grew into BE champs and final 4 expectations. i'm now at elite 8 expectations. still think we should win the BE.

 

[August_West]

We all would’ve signed up for 14-2 right now , no doubt. It’s a great start.

The negative trending in league is troubling though. Georgetown was a bad sign despite the win, we got a preview of our struggles with X and PC .

Going into this 5 game stretch I expected 2 losses. No problem there, but we put ourselves in a rough spot now with a renewed creighton coming in and then at Marquette.

We don’t want this to become a big slide. We cannot drop the next two, and I’m worried about that now.

 

[shizzle787]

We all would’ve signed up for 14-2 right now , no doubt. It’s a great start.

The negative trending in league is troubling though. Georgetown was a bad sign despite the win, we got a preview of our struggles with X and PC .

Going into this 5 game stretch I expected 2 losses. No problem there, but we put ourselves in a rough spot now with a renewed creighton coming in and then at Marquette.

We don’t want this to become a big slide. We cannot drop the next two, and I’m worried about that now.

I do think we hold home court, and we always seem to be a bad matchup for Marquette.

 

[August_West]

I do think we hold home court, and we always seem to be a bad matchup for Marquette.

Marquette plays way differently now. They are playing a point center.

 

[Umami Zen]

Being brutally honest.. Did not see 14-0 happening on Nov 6th.. Exceeded my expectations.. Not overly surprised at losing to X and Providence on their home courts because I believe they are Tournament teams that can make some noise in March. Among my biggest surprises are the following:
--Have been blown away by Clingan's ascension and his ability to not back down from the competition and in fact--frequently substantially impacts the game in the minutes he's given
--When the ball is in Jackson's hands..The offense and the ball movement dramatically changes--for the better.. Big surprise over last year.
--Was curious to see how portal guys would react to BE games/play style--Think they're still trying to figure that out.
--Hawkins has impressed me with his defense and being a better teammate re: sharing the ball.. Needs to continue to work on playing off screens/getting open.. Teams are 'keying" on him.

Still see our floor as a Sweet 16 team with FF potential and a few lucky bounces. If we're going to live by the three..Gotta start making them with more regularity and/or get to the hoop "for and ones" and FTs.

 

[jake14mw]

Way above my expectations. I did not know enough about the newcomers and was worried about generating offense. The freshman and transfers have been pleasant surprises.

 

[yungdowork]

As a team, we have definitely exceeded my expectations, but there's a lot of season left. We've had many games where we played far beyond what I would have guessed our ceiling was during the offseason.

It does seem like we're playing a bit of a different game since conference play started, but these are the teams who have played against guys like Sanogo and Hawkins 5-6 times at this point. They're throwing bodies at Sanogo and making Jordan run himself ragged if he wants to get a look. It feels like it's completely taken us out of our rhythm. Suddenly, the roleplayers have more pressure on them to create on offense.

I do think we could help Newton out a lot by running some on-ball screens for him. At ECU, he was the primary scorer and often the primary ballhandler, so everything ran through him. Right now, it seems like we set a lot of screens for our shooters to get open on the perimeter, and a few backscreens but that's about it. When you watch how teams play vs our defense, it looks, at least to me, like they're setting a lot more on-ball screens so the ballhandler can penetrate and either get a lay up or kick once the defense collapses. I'd love to see guys like Newton, Hawkins, even Andre get a few more of those opportunities, I don't think it's beyond their skillset.