Next Up - #11 Creighton | The Boneyard

Next Up - #11 Creighton

AuRevoirAAC

AuRevoirAAC

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Bad news: We had our “W T F” loss against SJU.
Good news: We have a chance to redeem ourselves against one of the top teams in the country.

We need to find a way to beat Creighton on Saturday. Even without Bouknight, I believe we have the pieces to do it. If we do so, we remain in the T25 and we keep our season reputation as positive.

If we play defense with the same tenacity we saw against Marquette, I like our chances against anyone in the country. Nobody hates losing more than Dan Hurley. We need to trust him, and I’m confident that he’s preparing a winning game plan for our trip to Nebraska.
 
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Just saw the Nova news. If Bouk were to somehow come back in the 2 week portion of his timeframe, he could theoretically be back on January 26th, in time for the Butler game. Unlikely probably, but maybe there's a chance. Like Jim Carey would say, "So you're saying there's a chance!"
 
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Creighton is beatable if they play like they did the other day against Butler. Zegerowski I assume will be back for this one. Would be huge if he wasn't. Really need to get back to rebounding the basketball. Cant allow 2nd chance opportunity's against them or it wont end well.
 
Has the big east or ncaa announced any changes to conference tournaments? Are they still happening?
 
If we avoid anymore "bad" loses, win some 50-50 games & hang in there until we get Bouk we'll be fine.

UConn is still ranked #27 in Kenpom & #25 in NET so we're a solid tourney team right now.

Losses we want to avoid are Georgetown, Butler & Johnnies rematches. We have many opportunities for good / ok wins...Seton Hall (2), Nova (2) , Xavier (2) , Providence (2) , Marquette (1)....besides @Creighton. We have 10 "quality" games left so would love to win them all but 5-5 will be good enough.
 
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Hi-Low said:
If we avoid anymore "bad" loses, win some 50-50 games & hang in there until we get Bouk we'll be fine.

UConn is still ranked #27 in Kenpom & #25 in NET so we're a solid tourney team right now.

Losses we want to avoid are Georgetown, Butler & Johnnies rematches. We have many opportunities for good / ok wins...Seton Hall (2), Nova (2) , Xavier (2) , Providence (2) , Marquette (1)....besides @Creighton. We have 10 "quality" games left so would love to win them all but 5-5 will be good enough.
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39 in NET. The 25 number wasn't updated yet. Can't afford another bad loss -- Most have us as a 8/9 seed right now
 
4xChamps said:
39 in NET. The 25 number wasn't updated yet. Can't afford another bad loss -- Most have us as a 8/9 seed right now
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Thanks for the update.

Agreed...let's hope the Johnnies pull off some more upsets so we have "space" for 1 more bad loss should it happen.
 
4xChamps said:
39 in NET. The 25 number wasn't updated yet. Can't afford another bad loss -- Most have us as a 8/9 seed right now
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I think the hard thing with any metrics this year, especially the NET, is the unbalance of how many games a team has played when comparing things. Uconn has now played 9 games. A team like Minnesota, who is currently 26th in the NET, has played 15. So they have more wins, but also more losses.

Nice thing going on our resume so far. 4-0 on road/neutral courts.

Also, in a year where a lot of teams didn't play anyone OOC because of cancellations or a soft schedule...that win against USC on a neutral court looks good. They are currently 11-2, and 5-1 in the PAC 12.
 
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BFieldHusky said:
I think the hard thing with any metrics this year, especially the NET, is the unbalance of how many games a team has played when comparing things. Uconn has now played 9 games. A team like Minnesota, who is currently 26th in the NET, has played 15. So they have more wins, but also more losses.

Nice thing going on our resume so far. 4-0 on road/neutral courts.

Also, in a year where a lot of teams didn't play anyone OOC because of cancellations or a soft schedule...that win against USC on a neutral court looks good. They are currently 11-2, and 5-1 in the PAC 12.
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Agreed, NET has always been a little wonky but especially so this year. Colgate is still somehow #22 as well.
In regards to USC, big week for them this week with 3 winnable road games. If they sweep they very well could be the ones to take our spot in the top 25 which is guess isn’t the worst thing in the world
 
Did the Coaches Poll come out after the sheeting of the bed yesterday? SJU fans owe UConn. They can say they beat a ranked team thanks to us.
 
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Kolumbo said:
Did the Coaches Poll come out after the sheeting of the bed yesterday? SJU fans owe UConn. They can say they beat a ranked team thanks to us.
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I lost so much sleep last night, I'm embarrassed to say. Kept saying to myself "this loss is not only horrible for UConn, but awful for the Big East."
 
4xChamps said:
39 in NET. The 25 number wasn't updated yet. Can't afford another bad loss -- Most have us as a 8/9 seed right now
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We are far from a comfortable position right now.

And I have zero confidence the Selection Committee will be forgiving of Bouk's absence.

I don't know how many games we're going to end up playing, but we need to get to something like 14-7. A game or two over .500 isn't cutting it.
 
I was a lot more confident yesterday than I am today. It's hard to unsee St John's dominating us and Hurley letting Mike Anderson impose his will on him
 
One thing that helps is we are in a great league. The American may be a 1-2 bid league this year. Same with the A-10. The smaller conferences aren't going to get more than 1 team in because of the lack of OOC games this year. This is not a normal year.
 
People have short memories. In the old BE St. John’s used to beat us at various times, as did Nova before they were good.
 
jibsey said:
People have short memories. In the old BE St. John’s used to beat us at various times, as did Nova before they were good.
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losing to any team in the BE w/o your best player is completely understandable. it just happened to Creighton against Butler. same difference. the fashion in which we lost is the irksome part.
 
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jibsey said:
People have short memories. In the old BE St. John’s used to beat us at various times, as did Nova before they were good.
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Unfortunately I distinctly remember watching our to be national champs get crushed by SJ at MSG in 2011. One of the few games I had to leave early with time remaining in the game. Even Kemba couldn't keep this one close.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
We are far from a comfortable position right now.

And I have zero confidence the Selection Committee will be forgiving of Bouk's absence.

I don't know how many games we're going to end up playing, but we need to get to something like 14-7. A game or two over .500 isn't cutting it.
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Which is exactly the reason for the visceral response after St. Johns. Our margin for error is really thin and we have 6-8 more games without Bouk. Even then, is he going to be the same right out of the gate? We sure could have used the W. Still pissed; the next bunch of games have me nervous.
 
Marat said:
Unfortunately I distinctly remember watching our to be national champs get crushed by SJ at MSG in 2011. One of the few games I had to leave early with time remaining in the game. Even Kemba couldn't keep this one close.
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I know Ive mentioned this in the past, but MSG was hostile that night. Ive been to road games before, but I just did not have a good feeling at that game. We had a good amount of fans like we always do at MSG, but some of the St John’s fans were nasty.
 
we're a top 20 team with Bouk. an NIT team without, unless our young guys are allowed to play, for better or worse..
 
jdb50 said:
The SJU coach took Polley out of the game and Hurley took Sanogo out of the game. Let's see what the Creighton coach does.
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The fact is, Bouk can create his own 3 or shoot quickly after receiving a pass. Polley can shoot quickly with a guy on him, and can move a bit and create space with his height and high release.

Every other 3 point shooter on the team - Cole, Gaff, Adams, Martin - need to have space to shoot an acceptable percentage.

That, in a a sentence, is the great weakness on our team, which St. John's exploited beautifully. Bouk is out, so they only had to worry about one guy hitting tough 3s - they took Polley out with some great defense.

For some odd reason, they gave Cole a bunch of clean looks early. Later? Not so much.

Further, only Martin has the ability to penetrate and get a shot off, but, as we've seen, he's just not a top-tier scorer who easily finishes at the rim (love the guy, though).

The result against a team that is dedicated to playing tough D and taking away Polley's open 3s?

2nd half of the St. John's game.

Not going to lie . . . I'm worried that St. John's laid down a pattern that future teams will copy. Not sure that other teams will have the intensity and D to pull it off, but the pattern is there, and I know that neither Cole, Gaffney, nor Adams is suddenly going to develop a great driving game.

Bouk would have eaten St. John's alive from the line.
sigh2.jpg
 
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