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Message: [QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 3383289, member: 833"] Rather than screaming about benching this player or that player, let's get specific with what was wrong yesterday. UConn's Offense: Shot selection - UConn continues to take long, contested pull-up jumpers. These are bad shots and UConn misses almost all of them. Look at the shot chart: [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game?gameId=401169515[/URL] The Huskies are spraying the ball from all over the court, and taking a lot of deep 3's. Not surprisingly, these lower percentage shots are not going in. Open attempts - Worse, we are not getting a lot of open shots. I believe we waste a lot of the shot clock on unproductive activity. Half the board has pointed out how crazy it is to start the offense with Carlton getting the ball 25 feet from the hoop. But how many times did Gilbert or Vital dribble out the remaining shot clock to take a long pull-up jumper that clanged? How many times did Carlton not get the ball until 10 seconds left, and when he finally got it, he was 15 feet from the basket? A ton of our offense is 1-on-1 isolations. Gilbert, Gaffney or Vital breakdown, Carlton post up, etc. We had 50% assist rate, which is not great by today's standards. These type of shots are easier to defend, because the whole defense is following the ball. Post-analytics offenses are based on quick ball movement and reversals to get the defense facing away from the shooter and forced into recovery. Drives should be to pass, not hurl up prayers. I think Gilbert is a solid finisher, but those wild drives are such low percentage shots that he should be looking to distribute when he attacks, not shoot. More shot selection issues. Polley and Vital are very good 3 point shooter off the catch, and both suck shooting off the dribble, especially when the shot is contested. One crazy idea may be to get them more shots off the catch. Look at Butler's or Villanova's offense. That is how I want UConn to play. Even Memphis is trying that approach. Gilbert should only shoot jumpers if he is wide open. No one within 5 feet. Polley should get 5 shots a game on kick outs. If he is not open when he catches it, pass and relocate. No one curls behind Carlton on his post ups, so when he gets in trouble or double teamed, there is often no one to pass to and Carlton ends up forcing a shot. The result of all this bad offense is last night's debacle. We are taking a lot of bad shots which lowers our efficiency. UConn Defense: On a high level, Hurley had the right game plan going in last night. He was going to give Cincinnati the 3 point shot, and defend the paint and penetration. If you look at how UConn would set up on defense, after a token press they would drop below the 3 point line. Except on ball screens, where UConn, and especially Carlton, was inexplicably jumping out to hard hedge the screen. Why does UConn do that? If Cincinnati wants to take pull up 3's from 25 feet out off screens, I am inclined to let them. Cincinnati had 16 assists on 26 shots, and several of the other shots were putbacks. Cincinnati is getting better ball movement and easier shots, as evidenced by their higher shooting percentage. Cincinnati does the basics well. When a Cincinnati player's defender helps, that player cuts to the block. Cincinnati does a lot of give and go's, and UConn would occasionally lose contact with the cutter off the pass. High school defenders shouldn't make this mistake, and it is completely unacceptable at the D1 college level. The more common problem, and one I have brought up before, is that I don't think the players understand Hurley's secondary rotations in help defense. When the help defender flashes to the ball, someone from the weakside is supposed to drop down to the block to defend the open player, but we do not seem to do that, so that dump off pass is always available. Cincinnati has excellent rebounding technique. Watch the forwards off the ball, and they are using swim moves, and breaking contact with the box out, to get inside of UConn's more athletic front court, and especially Akok, while the ball is in the air. This is something that will get better for Akok with time, but Cincinnati was impressive on the boards last night. [/QUOTE]

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