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Miserable awful thoughts

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dogpause said:
Call me a pom-pom wearer, but I came away from this game with a lot of optimism. WV plays a style that is tough to be prepared for so early in the year, especially when you're replacing 60% of your starting lineup from last season. Better shooting would have changed everything. Our shooting has not been good so far this season

DHam had 8 of our 21 turnovers, mostly on being too aggressive with his passes. However, he also looked like he could win games singlehandedly.

Our passing wasn't all that bad, and at times it was beautiful. WV is going to get TO's.

We're going to be a tough out come March.
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This. This is exactly what I took away.
 
This game was made and broken with the pressure.
We didn't handle the pressure.
Most of what went wrong came from not handling the pressure.

Completely disagree about perimeter jumpers - Go back and read the BY through about Jan 1 last year. Guys were calling for DD to stop shooting 3s because he wasn't hitting them consistently. They kept arguing he should go inside. DD continuing to shoot 3s, and eventually making them at a high rate, may have been the single most important change in our game that resulted in our dominance.

If not one of Purvis/Cassel/TSam can even threaten the 3, and Omar doesn't find his way back (and he seems completely lost at this point), then you can put a fork in this season, because the crash-the-rim-every-play from these guys with Boat and DHam the only legit 3 shoots, and Boat too occupied running the O to get many 3s and not exactly a dagger chucker anyway, is a fantastic strategy for losing.

Just like DD did last year - gotta shoot the 3 early to have it as a weapon later.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
I think we were ok with the press, bur because we can't shoot, we end up having to attack very loose defenses that are packed in tight in the paint, which will result in turnovers.
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Did we watch the same game? Boat picked up his dribble deep in the back court and was forced to take a TO, multiple turnovers on the inbounds under the basket leading to buckets, multiple hail mary passes that flew over the receivers head, and at one point I think it was TSAM who got the ball just before half court AHEAD OF THE DEFENSE, stopped, let the D catch up and then passed back to Boat to let him try to get it past the press.

There were many things to take away from last night's game. The most obvious was that we collapsed under the press.
 
Flash back to last year---we struggled with full court pressure then as well. Albeit- Louisville who does a better job that WVU with full court pressure kick our rear ends three times last year. Even with Napier, Daniels and Giffey (three experienced players) we had trouble breaking and dealing with good full court pressure. Now you bring in a couple first year players (Hamilton and Cassell) throw in a transfer and a seldom used guard (Samuel) and the results are not that much different yet we are somehow surprised.
 
I have watched a great deal of City HS basketball teams press like West Virginia did last night. You can do it in lots of cases. And, frankly, WVU will do this all year (and Louisville is frankly better & more sophisticated). WVU caught us with several guys that had not played together and did not know some basic principles. And that target is on Daniel Hamilton ... and Rodney/TSam/Cassell etc.

This can & will be coached. We will not look like this the next time we get pressed (the Puerto Rican Quatro won't be the only ones watching FILM). We will get far better as a Team at this by February. We looked awful ... like a bunch of guys who had never ever seen this. And, frankly, it's all around us. We can't simulate this in practice. The Power Guards needs to be disciplined (plus Dan Hurley). And the Facey Brimah twosone should have 10 dunks in this environment.

WVU? You simply cannot tell me anything about Staten or others. I don't know. That defense makes 10 guys indistinguishable. And, I usually would think that they are not going to get away with this as the year goes on; however, you might note that Huggins has 5 pretty solid guard types harassing & some good talls.
 
mauconnfan said:
Fishy's on this one.

19 TO's and 9 assists won't win a lot of games. 3-17 from 3 tells me you shot too many 3's and maybe you don't do that all too well.

Kids were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, it was downright scary what that "basic" press did to them. While I agree Boat's been great he's not the calming force vs that press either. It's not Bazz or Kemba in this case and he needs to improve as well. But DHam didn't help him, wow he was rattled for a kid who can handle and pass th e ball so well. Live and learn right?

TSam - I said this 2 games ago. He needs to be who we saw last year late and in the tourney. If he tries to be more he shouldn't be on the court because he's not more, he's a piece. His 3 TO's seemed to be 10. Catch the ball, find an open player or dribble it out. Then get a rebound or get back to the other end and defend like mad. 10 shots from him isn't going to bring us a lot of wins unless they are lay ups!

Facey - definitely interesting. He got 10 and 8 what more can you ask. If he improves his ball handling and passing he can become quite a catch.

Texas is going to have a blast watching this tape - an absolute party!
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Bazz was not good at all against a press, what we saw out of Boat was no different than the two of them together the last 3 years, Louisville made him melt. For whatever reason UConn has been bad against presses since it seems like AJ's group walked out the door. Kemba had the game against Mizzou in his back pocket but he had issues at time handling it as well.
 
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Boat/Bazz type guards will struggle against a physical press like WVU's just because of their size. Hamilton is they type of guy you need to break that press, and he hadn't seen anything like it before. I suspect if we were to see a similar press in 2 months we wouldn't have any issue with it.
 
It wasn't just the press... we turned the ball over under the basket a startling number of times in the first half... our bigs just have to be better at being bigs. Grab a rebound hang on to it... and throw the outlet pass... also maybe if our guards weren't trying to pad their rebounding stats by stealing rebounds from their own players so much we'd get down the court better. Seriously our guards HAD TO rebound over the last couple of years.. but they need to stop trying to grab every defensive rebound and get out on the break.
 
Fishy said:
If you're typing with poms-poms on, stop reading. I don't want to hear your whining.

1) The board seems to entering the bargaining phase of grief, but that performance stunk out loud. They were completely undone by West Virginia's pressure and if you ever had the sense UConn was going to win, I'm not sure what you were watching. UConn rattled by a press....sun might rise in the west tomorrow.

2) Too many guys are happy to hoist perimeter jumpers. Too few guys are capable of making them. We have three power guards - if they're standing still, they're no longer power guards. They're potted plants.

3) Cassell cannot become the guy who just takes eight threes a game and leaves the heavy lifting to someone else - if that's the case, I'd rather see Terrence out there running over things. Five assists in four games? I'll put another chair in the doghouse I built for Nolan if that keeps up.

4)

5) Until the train crash that is the offense gets back on the rails, the defense needs to stop taking the first half off. (On the season, we're -12 in the first half.)

6) Coaching Terrence Samuel must be like a Civil War soldier firing a cannon. You're sure that you're about to do a great deal of damage somewhere downstream, but as to where, what or who that damage will visit, heaven knows. He plays so hard, but half the time the damage he does is friendly fire. Growing pains, I 'spose.

7) Do not look up the AAC's power numbers. We need to beat Texas.

8) I do not want to be Rakim Lubim, Omar Calhoun, Dan Guest or Marcel Lewis right now. Between the four of them, they haven't scored a single point and they're the ones who get pegged....I don't think this week is going to go well for the Puerto Rico Four. Some deeper thoughts there, but this isn't the place.

9) Kentan Facey. Four games in....25.0 minutes per game, .500 FG%, six points, seven rebounds. Whatever we thought we might get out of Nolan and Lubin, we're getting it from Facey. He's becoming a very interesting player.
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For some reason none of this bothered me last night. Maybe its because I lived through the horrific losses we had to Louisville last year but everything looks correctable to me.
 
I think Fishy has the right idea. Some additional observations.

1. Boatright is not Shabazz. He's a darned good PG, but the press exposed him and his shooting, even FTs, was awful. He isn't a guy who can carry a team, he's a really good complimentary piece.

2. Facey can play. I don't know why this is a surprise. He's a superb rebounder. He can get 8-10 on put-backs alone. You need those guys. His post defense needs to be better, but it is still better than what we can get from Hamilton at that spot.

3. Brimah is better than last year, but I have not seen the huge leap we heard about, just incremental improvement.

4. Hamilton will be a star, but facing a tough, aggressive defense with strong athletes, he looked like the freshman he is. Good learning experience. Ollie needs to stop playing him at the 4.

5. Cassell Jr. and Purvis are enigmas. Both guys look to me like they are used to being "the guy" and are struggling to adapt to the team concept. I really don't like having both of them on the court at the same time as they both suffer from "Jerome Dyson syndrome".
 
Ollie should have suspended more guys but knew he couldn't. :cool:

Only Boat gave us any hope for a comeback but when we need a bigger boat we just have to endure the growing pains.
 
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The difference between 2011, last year and this year to date? Boat doesn't have a running mate like he was to Bazz and Bazz was to Kemba.
The Ferrari has a bad axle but I don't see him as the press breaker type. SC Jr. isn't the athlete to fill the role. TSam is the closest but in reality his handle is questionable if he is not going to the hoop.
KO needs another "point guard" pure and simple. He needs one now and needs one more next year to go with JA.
I am still very optimistic about this year - WVA was a big, physical and LONG team. Not blaming the officiating but I feel that the lack of the normal touch fouls, bad screens and slapping on our drives to the hoop didn't help.
Beyond that, UConn cannot shoot as badly from the three or the free throw line and expect to beat anyone.
While he was a turnover machine yesterday (KO will change this), I would love to see D Ham as the 2 guard next to Boat, move Facey to the 3 - if we had another effective big.
This team has the making of a very good team. It needs to put this in the learning catagory, gain a sense of composure, work on rebounding position. The shots will fall soon.
 
HuskyHawk said:
I think Fishy has the right idea. Some additional observations.

1. Boatright is not Shabazz. He's a darned good PG, but the press exposed him and his shooting, even FTs, was awful. He isn't a guy who can carry a team, he's a really good complimentary piece.

2. Facey can play. I don't know why this is a surprise. He's a superb rebounder. He can get 8-10 on put-backs alone. You need those guys. His post defense needs to be better, but it is still better than what we can get from Hamilton at that spot.

3. Brimah is better than last year, but I have not seen the huge leap we heard about, just incremental improvement.

4. Hamilton will be a star, but facing a tough, aggressive defense with strong athletes, he looked like the freshman he is. Good learning experience. Ollie needs to stop playing him at the 4.

5. Cassell Jr. and Purvis are enigmas. Both guys look to me like they are used to being "the guy" and are struggling to adapt to the team concept. I really don't like having both of them on the court at the same time as they both suffer from "Jerome Dyson syndrome".
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I agree with 1-4 with the caveat that Brimah's offensive game has improved significantly, but the needle has barely moved in defense and rebounding. None of these should be a surprise, outside of maybe Facey.

On #5, I don't think you can draw any conclusion on Purvis in a game where he was clearly hurt and unable to move. He looks to be a taller, stronger version of Jerome Dyson. But he was clearly limited after the first 90 seconds last night. Cassell is going to struggle against quicker defenders.
 
Cheeky said:
This game was made and broken with the pressure.
We didn't handle the pressure.
Most of what went wrong came from not handling the pressure.

Completely disagree about perimeter jumpers - Go back and read the BY through about Jan 1 last year. Guys were calling for DD to stop shooting 3s because he wasn't hitting them consistently. They kept arguing he should go inside. DD continuing to shoot 3s, and eventually making them at a high rate, may have been the single most important change in our game that resulted in our dominance.

If not one of Purvis/Cassel/TSam can even threaten the 3, and Omar doesn't find his way back (and he seems completely lost at this point), then you can put a fork in this season, because the crash-the-rim-every-play from these guys with Boat and DHam the only legit 3 shoots, and Boat too occupied running the O to get many 3s and not exactly a dagger chucker anyway, is a fantastic strategy for losing.

Just like DD did last year - gotta shoot the 3 early to have it as a weapon later.
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I like this new incarnation, @Cheeky

Most of the 3s they missed were open. If you are a 1, 2, or 3, and you are wide open yet won't take a 3, we are in trouble, so they needed to take most of them, I thought (they did get a little 3 happy, SCII in particular), but generally I thought they were reasonable shots.

Purvis looked terrible yesterday, but was injured and 2-4 against Dayton. I think we'll have some 3 point threats, just none as good as Bazz or Giffey. We don't need them to be that good, but they need to be guarded.
 
Fishy said:
If you're typing with poms-poms on, stop reading. I don't want to hear your whining.

1) The board seems to entering the bargaining phase of grief, but that performance stunk out loud. They were completely undone by West Virginia's pressure and if you ever had the sense UConn was going to win, I'm not sure what you were watching.

9) Kentan Facey. Four games in....25.0 minutes per game, .500 FG%, six points, seven rebounds. Whatever we thought we might get out of Nolan and Lubin, we're getting it from Facey. He's becoming a very interesting player.
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Huskybass said:
West Virginia punched UConn in the mouth early and UConn never recovered.
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I'm not signing up to that. But I think all "punch them in the mouth" analysis is silly. UConn didn't back down, they kept fighting. The stretch that finally killed them was when they cut it to six and couldn't get over that hump despite several stops on D. That was due poor shooting and selection than any after-effects from being punched in the mouth.
 
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Boatright absolutely CAN carry & lead this bunch. I'm not concerned with the Kemba or Shabazz comparable. He's a solid heady Senior guard; fully prepped for this leader role. He'll have his day.

Facey is good. I like that he's incrementally grown. We can expect more & more from him. Brimah has a lot of growth needed to get to a high ceiling. Need just more play.

As for the "Jerome Dyson" syndrome ... WTF? Hell if I'd guess what that is. Rodney & Cassell & Hamilton ALL will understand their role in UConn's way.
 
tzznandrew said:
I like this new incarnation, @Cheeky

Most of the 3s they missed were open. If you are a 1, 2, or 3, and you are wide open yet won't take a 3, we are in trouble, so they needed to take most of them, I thought (they did get a little 3 happy, SCII in particular), but generally I thought they were reasonable shots.

Purvis looked terrible yesterday, but was injured and 2-4 against Dayton. I think we'll have some 3 point threats, just none as good as Bazz or Giffey. We don't need them to be that good, but they need to be guarded.
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No conclusion. I think Purvis will be excellent, and possibly a star. I merely don't like him on the court with Cassell Jr., as they both have a reckless streak. Cassell needs to calm down and play a little more like a PG, even when he is playing SG. That's why we saw so much of Samuel yesterday.
 
I must be in the minority. I thought the game was lost to a very good team. We learned a lot yesterday and if we get to play them late in the year the outcome will be different.

As far as the PR4' I see lots of stairs in their future followed by heads in garbage cans.
 
I think I've said it before but with the all the guards we're playing we need to be able to make threes. There will never be enough space to drive if the other team isn't guarding the perimeter honestly. Second failing being able to score threes we need to defend well and currently the defense is not very good.

Now the good news is some of our guys do look like they can shoot, but they need time to adjust and be consistent. In addition to growth there is a fair chance that any given game boatright can go bonkers and carry the team. On the defense a fair bit of it is freshman mistakes: defending without playing team defense/fouling, you'll see guys just forget to follow their man. By the end of the season i think we could have something good but it might be a rough ride. The unfortunate thing is conference play isn't going to solidify our tournament resume and we need to make hay with our early non-conference games.
 
I'm going to ignore how they played against the press, because quite frankly( I'm starting to sound like Chief) there are only a handful of teams in the country that can pull that off for large stretches of a game, and I'm surprised that West Virginia is one of them. That's not going to be what undoes this team.

In order for UConn to be successful this season I think two things need to happen:

1) The defense needs to get better. I'm pretty confident this will happen. They've looked really bad for stretches. I think that Facey is still lost a little bit on rotations and help defense, and collectively they are not as in-sync as last year, although I think they'll get there. Brimah and Boatright are two really good building blocks to start with, and everyone else has the tools to be a good individual defender.

2) Boatright, Purvis, and Hamilton need to be on offensively every night. I'm not sure this is likely, but it's important. They're the three best individual offensive players on the team. To HuskyHawk, Boatright is absolutely good enough to carry a team. Hundreds of coaches in the country would kill to have Ryan Boatright on their team. So he's not Napier, but that's not exactly an insult. Napier is arguably the greatest UConn player of all time. Purvis was hurt last night, so it's hard to take anything from that, but he's been inconsistent throughout the early part of the season. He needs to figure out his part in the offense. Hamilton is a monster talent, and I'm not too worried about the turnovers. About half of those were against the press, and like I said above, I don't think that's something they'll be seeing too much this season. He's been lights out shooting the ball and he's a really good playmaker. I think a team can go far with him as a second or third option.
 
johnhuskies95 said:
I'm going to ignore how they played against the press, because quite frankly( I'm starting to sound like Chief) there are only a handful of teams in the country that can pull that off for large stretches of a game, and I'm surprised that West Virginia is one of them. That's not going to be what undoes this team.

In order for UConn to be successful this season I think two things need to happen:

1) The defense needs to get better. I'm pretty confident this will happen. They've looked really bad for stretches. I think that Facey is still lost a little bit on rotations and help defense, and collectively they are not as in-sync as last year, although I think they'll get there. Brimah and Boatright are two really good building blocks to start with, and everyone else has the tools to be a good individual defender.

2) Boatright, Purvis, and Hamilton need to be on offensively every night. I'm not sure this is likely, but it's important. They're the three best individual offensive players on the team. To HuskyHawk, Boatright is absolutely good enough to carry a team. Hundreds of coaches in the country would kill to have Ryan Boatright on their team. So he's not Napier, but that's not exactly an insult. Napier is arguably the greatest UConn player of all time. Purvis was hurt last night, so it's hard to take anything from that, but he's been inconsistent throughout the early part of the season. He needs to figure out his part in the offense. Hamilton is a monster talent, and I'm not too worried about the turnovers. About half of those were against the press, and like I said above, I don't think that's something they'll be seeing too much this season. He's been lights out shooting the ball and he's a really good playmaker. I think a team can go far with him as a second or third option.
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I think it is far easier to press in the first 5-8 games of a new season than well into the year. A conference game? You can prepare and build towards breaking the press. This can be coached. Louisville, though, is an outlier in my mind. I do give Rick Pitino tons of credit here. He recruits many many kids that can play this. His press is more sophisticated (certainly than Huggins) and always has good solid Bigs. Huggins may have put together a group of guards that will serve him great this year. I like what I saw of WVU - I give them props for their play. But ... this is not an easy way to win through February and into March Madness; good teams will prepare and guys will learn their roles.

Yes, once upon a time, Calhoun did play this way.
 
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I don't care enough to look it up but does anyone know if Kentucky's starting 5 is older or younger than our's? Just curious.
 
Pudge said:
Boatright absolutely CAN carry & lead this bunch. I'm not concerned with the Kemba or Shabazz comparable. He's a solid heady Senior guard; fully prepped for this leader role. He'll have his day.

Facey is good. I like that he's incrementally grown. We can expect more & more from him. Brimah has a lot of growth needed to get to a high ceiling. Need just more play.

As for the "Jerome Dyson" syndrome ... WTF? Hell if I'd guess what that is. Rodney & Cassell & Hamilton ALL will understand their role in UConn's way.
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Boatright can only carry & lead this bunch if he checks his emotions at the table. There is a fine line between playing with a chip on your shoulder (and being productive) and being too me against the world. In my opinion, I saw a little too much of the latter last night. There were a couple of times where he tried to calm down a few of the players, but what he needs to realize is that you lead by example. I hope we get there, but I'm not sure I would call him heady yet, at least in a good way.

PS - I am a Boat fan and supporter, just calling it how I see it.
 
Paesano said:
I don't care enough to look it up but does anyone know if Kentucky's starting 5 is older or younger than our's? Just curious.
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2 juniors, 2 sophs who started every game last year, and a freshman. If you're going to go down the path of "UK isn't that experienced", I'm not really sure what you're point is. When you're roster is littered with top 20 players(and several top 5 players), you get less of a pass for your lack of experience. Its more ready made and instant impact talent.
 
Every guard on this team seen that press before. Its a very common, 2-2-1 press. It forces the ball to the sides of the court by the centerline and you get double teamed, forcing a bad pass. You learn how to break that in low level AAU, and apparently TSam is the only one who got that learning experience when he was younger.
 
From just about anyone else this would be a mystifying observation. From you it sounds about right.


[QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 1140312, member: 833"I disagree about the press handling comment from Fish. I bet most of the 19 turnovers occurred in or near the paint. I think we were ok with the press[/QUOTE]
 
All of the above and whatever someone needs derive angst from.

There will a few more losses, there will be a lot more wins.

Loosen up the sphincter, the bowels have to work or it will poison your mind.
 
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