Mississippi Valley Post Game Thread

[caw]

Ball is playing decently well. He’ll get better as the season progresses. Thinking a Hawkins like progression for him with ups and downs his freshman year.

Stewart has showed flashes. He’s a player but may struggle to get up to speed without getting steady early season minutes.

Ross will see limited minutes all season but his shot is nice. Won’t be a major contributor this year but a three ball here and there off the bench would be a nice boost.

Stewart, Ross, Diarra only need to provide 5-10 productive minutes a game. Ball more like 10-15.

Agree with almost all of this. I do think Ross has showed some pretty decent defense. Also Diarra may see a bit more than 10 a game but that is quibbling.

 

[superjohn]

give me a break. We are talking tonight and the reaction to it. Castle, a freshman is a starter. He was N.A. tonight. Ball had to start. Game 3 for him. And people are saying Ross and Stewart need to step up. Game 3 for them. Clingan is the main man for the first time. You seriously think at this point in this season this team should be that advanced? Wonderland.

Yikes

 

[CL82]

Clingan's Free Throws are going to be a huge problem. He cannot be a 50% FT shooter if we want to win another title

Well we're in luck, because he wasn't one today.

 

[caw]

The guts of the team is the starting 5. It's two 5th year seniors, one of which was the starting point guard on the national title team, two national title winning sophomores and a freshman. I wouldn't exactly call them so young. That's a lot of experience and a lot of big game experience.

Just to play devil's advocate.

Newton - no comment but he's also been pretty good so far.
Spencer - TBF he played at Rutgers last year, so was that really D1? Kidding, but seriously he is still stepping into a new team and system and doing well with it I think.
Freshman - Castle or Ball either are freshmen and they have ups and downs as starters
Karaban - has been (barring his fouls this game) really good so far with the new responsibilities.
Clingan - has been limited (minutes) because of his foot but has been absolutely dominant when he plays

It is not a young starting five but it has a lot of room for growth.

The bench is the opposite. Diarra has the most game experience by a ton, the other four have very limited minutes.

Ball already has almost as many minutes (61) in three games as Samson had as a freshman (68) and way more than Samson had as a sophomore (47). Ross (39) and (31) are also getting more minutes than most Freshmen do. Clingan only had 49 minutes in his first three games. The bench last year was much older (Clingan aside) in real game experience.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Didn’t catch much of the second half, went to see KOTFM. Like others, wasn’t a huge fan of the game we played. Cam was great offensively when I watched. I didn’t like our defense in general and ball movement seemed slow. Clingan should 100% grab more than 5 rebounds playing against a team that size and of that ability.

 

[Huskyforlife]

I think Ball actually was dencent this last game and was the only Freshman who looks like he can contribute now. Shot will come.

Ball is playing decently well. He’ll get better as the season progresses. Thinking a Hawkins like progression for him with ups and downs his freshman year.

Stewart has showed flashes. He’s a player but may struggle to get up to speed without getting steady early season minutes.

Ross will see limited minutes all season but his shot is nice. Won’t be a major contributor this year but a three ball here and there off the bench would be a nice boost.

Stewart, Ross, Diarra only need to provide 5-10 productive minutes a game. Ball more like 10-15.

Gonna be honest, I’m not seeing this decent play from Ball. He’s consistently toast on D, making layups much harder than they should be, and the shot isn’t falling yet.

I see the vision with him, but I think it’s fair to call this his wake-up call to D1 college hoops. He’s gonna have to be better than this if we’re gonna have any depth.

 

[HuskyHawk]

We are a flawed team. Love these guys, but we don’t have the defensive stopper or the slump buster we had last year.

Every team is flawed at this stage. Let’s be patient.

 

[cohenzone]

Yikes

Great answer.

Gonna be honest, I’m not seeing this decent play from Ball. He’s consistently toast on D, making layups much harder than they should be, and the shot isn’t falling yet.

I see the vision with him, but I think it’s fair to call this his wake-up call to D1 college hoops. He’s gonna have to be better than this if we’re gonna have any depth.

Seriously. The kid just played with in his 3rd college game.

 

[Edward Sargent]

Well, we're a different team without Castle. We're good. We're just not as good. One of the bummers about a one and done is if he misses a game it, we lose the opportunity to see him play.

Clingan needs those minutes. Needs to feel what it's like to shoot foul shots feeling spent.

The game is too fast for Solo right now. You can see the talent. But he is rushing everything. When it slows down he will be very good.

Solo was rushing early but then settled down. Clingan missed free throws early too. He will continue to get beaten up as it ight be the best defense

 

[SoFla Steve]

FWIW, Samson's one-handed dunk was No. 7 on this morning's Top Ten Plays.

 

[cohenzone]

Just to play devil's advocate.

Newton - no comment but he's also been pretty good so far.
Spencer - TBF he played at Rutgers last year, so was that really D1? Kidding, but seriously he is still stepping into a new team and system and doing well with it I think.
Freshman - Castle or Ball either are freshmen and they have ups and downs as starters
Karaban - has been (barring his fouls this game) really good so far with the new responsibilities.
Clingan - has been limited (minutes) because of his foot but has been absolutely dominant when he plays

It is not a young starting five but it has a lot of room for growth.

The bench is the opposite. Diarra has the most game experience by a ton, the other four have very limited minutes.

Ball already has almost as many minutes (61) in three games as Samson had as a freshman (68) and way more than Samson had as a sophomore (47). Ross (39) and (31) are also getting more minutes than most Freshmen do. Clingan only had 49 minutes in his first three games. The bench last year was much older (Clingan aside) in real game experience.

Exactly. But @superjohn can’t get his mind around that. Absent Newton and Spencer, this is a very young team. And they beat the crap as we hoped UConn should out of the 3 first teams with our best freshman missing yesterday and Ball having to make his first start.

 

[Luckyhusky81]

I’m glad we have Spencer and not Timberlake

 

[BGesus4]

anyone else worried clingan aggravated his foot?

 

[GlastonTim]

No

 

[uconnfan68]

anyone else worried clingan aggravated his foot?

Yes. He looked like he was in pain for a bit. Stayed in though. Needs to stop trying to block impossible shots though.

 

[Dove]

I’m glad we have Spencer and not Timberlake

I searched "Nick Timberlake" on Twitter last night and he was getting torched by people.

Staff did good.

 

[mauconnfan]

Minus Cam this game was mostly ugly let’s be honest. I get Castle was out but injuries happen you need to adjust accordingly. Third game yeah but they’ve been blessed with extra time together let’s remember that. As I saw it:

Cam was very good thank God his best overall. I know he gets beat off the dribble on D but he makes great plays off the ball as well on that end, just a real good basketball player.

Alex just can’t make those fouls needs to be much smarter. Of course Dan needs to be a bit smarter too. If you let him come back in the game with 2 fouls first half please don’t put him on their best scorer (Brown in this case) as he will score at ease. Tristen was solid but a bit nonchalant on both ends. Not worried about him when the lights come on. Donovan was ok but really disappointed on the defensive end. Lots of swinging and missing and not rebounding. Would prefer him to pick and choose, move your feet more keep your hands up and stay by the rim to rebound the misses. His FT shooting is a major issue to think otherwise is if ignorant. Ball was crapping his pants until the first timeout that’s ok. He’s talented but a long way to go. It’s not HS, so while I like his idea on dunking everything please just finish when the opportunity is there. Samson needs to rebound as well, one time great job cutting off baseline keeping his hands up not fouling but never turning around to get a rebound isn’t good. Boxing out is an issue throughout and on FTs from the other team as well. Stewart sat immediately once because he didn’t box out on a rebound and lost it to MVSU.

Yeah they won by 35 and it’s early but there was more not to like than to like. Quit reading the paper and get focused on UConn basketball. I’m sure Dan will let them know how they performed last night during the next few practices.

The bench is a question mark, especially defensively. Let’s see what happens but the good news is they’re young and play hard. Indiana is a much bigger test than most believe.

 

[Stew Crew]

Yes. He looked like he was in pain for a bit. Stayed in though. Needs to stop trying to block impossible shots though.

I did not see that he was in pain but I did see that he took a shot to the mouth at one point in the second half.

 

[husky429]

I searched "Nick Timberlake" on Twitter last night and he was getting torched by people.

Staff did good.

Pretty crazy the donors paid 250k for what they're getting. NIL is gonna have a reckoning at some point soon.

 

[aburks41]

I searched "Nick Timberlake" on Twitter last night and he was getting torched by people.

Staff did good.

He is rightfully so buried on the bench at KU. We lucked out big time by missing on him and getting Spencer instead.

 

[aburks41]

All in all I thought Ball played pretty good last night for his 3rd college game. You can very easily see the potential. His shot also looks great but he’s probably just mentally a bit sped up which is causing the misses. He’ll be very very good for us by March

 

[husky429]

His shot also looks great but he’s probably just mentally a bit sped up which is causing the misses. He’ll be very very good for us by March

I said in the chat yesterday I think I could predict makes/missee from distance with 80% accuracy. Looks like young Andre rushing everything. When he's relaxed and sets his feet, his shot has more arc and is less stiff.

Bigger concern to me is his lack of handle and finishing at his size. It will be a limitimg factor like Hawkins year 1. He'll develop but I'm not sure we can expect much ballhandling from him this season.

 

[jake14mw]

Interesting game last night. It definitely brought me back down to earth with my assessment of the team. We of course still have a great team, I was just getting a little ahead of myself after 2 games I think. I thought MVSU's zone was pretty effective early. Too much passing around the perimeter. We really missed Castle in the middle against it.

Stark difference between the starters and bench last night. Nobody off the bench really had a good night. I'm a little underwhelmed by the freshman other than Castle so far. I've seen flashes with Ball, but not much from the others. That's okay, that's typical freshmen stuff, I'm sure they will be fine.

I think Indiana is the perfect next game for us right now.

 

[Hunt for 7]

anyone else worried clingan aggravated his foot?

Not sure how you can’t be worried. Something made him mad. But when it happened he did hop on one foot. But something happened. He kept looking at the bench like he wanted to come out…..I guess we will have to wait and see with him and Castle.

 

[GlastonTim]

I was impressed with the crowd size for a Tuesday night against a cupcake. Both venues will rock for the BE games this season.