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Hurley’s teams always foul like crazy. Maybe give up the whistle for a portion of practice to see if an assistant can teach the kids to play defense with their feet better.
Not a Top 5 Team - So What Are We?
- Thread starter Tenspro2002
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My main concern is Dan Hurley still being outcoached in close games in the last 5 minutes.
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"The offense in general has looked disorganized in conference play and the beautiful ball movement we saw earlier this year has disappeared."
THIS
THIS
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That’s because the shots aren’t going in.
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A 2nd weekend NCAA team. An improvement from last year with more good recruits on the way.
If that's the way it works out ill be very happy.
If that's the way it works out ill be very happy.
.-.
nelsonmuntz
Point Center
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It doesn’t matter what we think UConn is in early January. At the end of the season there will be a chasm in terms of perception between a 5 loss team and an 8 loss team even though the actual difference is a handful of plays. UConn will be what its record says it is, so all UConn can do is focus on getting just enough positive plays to win its next game. And each game after that.
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just my opinion, but i think teams have figured out how to play us. they pack it in and dare us to make outside shots. we need AJ to crash the rim and not take 3pt shots. AS needs to get in the habit of sending the ball back out when he is being over covered. reality check is that if we dont figure out how to beat the under the rim defenses, we will end up a 5 or 6 seed with little to show for the season
August_West
Conscience do cost
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A loss here would be killer. Absolutely killer.
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Coaching.
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We are still #3 in Kenpom this board is an asylum. 2 “good” road conference losses. We lose the next 2 and then we can talk.
.-.
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I think we get back on track and do it quickly. We have ton of "winnable" games coming up.
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I agree. Historically, a 3 game losing streak isn't a usually good thing for UConn. In the last 30 years, these are the only UConn teams with a 3+ game losing streak during the season:
1992-93 (15-13)
1996-97 (18-15)
2000-01 (20-12)
2006-07 (17-14)
2009-10 (18-16)
2011-12 (20-14)
2012-13 (20-10)
2014-15 (20-15)
2016-17 (16-17)
2017-18 (14-18)
2018-19 (16-17)
2019-20 (19-12)
5 NIT teams, 1 NCAA team, and 4 teams that missed the tourney altogether.
August_West
Conscience do cost
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and the one NCAA team was bounced in 30 seconds.
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We’re already within 3 wins of the total win number of 5 of these 12 teams, with 15 games to go
If we win against Butler, GTown, and DePaul x2, and lose every other game (won’t happen), we would have as many or more wins than 8 of the 12 teams. I appreciate the data digging on the post, but not quite apples to apples here.
I expect a win Saturday and a loss would be very disappointing, but even if we do lose it would take a massive collapse to finish the year anywhere close to the best record you listed
With all the various threads, this kind of sums it up. I would include also, the defense has taken a step back and they need to learn how to defend the staggered screens and maybe change up the pick and roll defense to handle the slips and the rolls to the baskets off of these. Why? Because they will see plenty of this especially from Creighton.
Hurley built this roster with 3 pt shooting in mind to be excellent but it has been far from that in Big East play. In the Villanova game they shot 9/30 from 3 for 30%, but really they should've shot better than that considering how open those 3s were and that Nova sold out to deny the entry passes to the post. UConn has missed a lot of open 3s including the PC game. If 3s aren't falling there has to be a Plan B and Plan C. That is something Jim Calhoun emphasized in his book a Passion to Lead. It's common life advice from other sources as well, but rarely put into action, generally speaking.
Let's face it, they haven't played poorly in the Big East, but they really have not played all that well either. They were in a close game against Butler with 9 minutes remaining. For comparison, PC blew the doors off Butler and was up 20 in the first half and that game was never close. And UConn struggled with GTown at home being down by 8 with 10 minutes to go.
Here's hoping UConn breaks the hex against Creighton and turns around their underwhelming Big East play. It's only January 7th, and 14-2 is still a very good record.
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I stand by UConn is still a Top 5 team and a National Title contender. I could see if they were outscored by PC or X on the floor, but they weren't. Neither team completely outplayed UConn otherwise it would show up in the game scoring independent of FT. They were beaten by FT's and bias officiating IMO. I think its clear there's a campaign against Hurley inside the BE with the refs. They just have to weather the storm and get through league play. Once the NCAA's come, whole different ref situation and I think just like the OOC Games will be playing closer to that once again with a more balanced ref situation.
.-.
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These were two very good teams we played on their court and lost. The skies not falling. For two games we were chopped liver, but liver can heal itself. We are still the team we got giddy over and instead of getting caught up in the polls I will enjoy watching the best team we have had in a decade. It is going to be so much fun watching the peaks and valleys. Hopefully we will peak late and make a run at a national championship. I could care less what two losses make.
Sweet 16. Any less would be a total disappointment
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What does outcoached mean?
ATO play? Is it rotations?
Defense late or offense?
Or is it that guy hits a shot. Coach did good. If guy misses an open shot, coach did bad?
Here is truth about coaching. There is no play design that works. The games are won by the players who take the play design, and read the options correctly. You want to create plays with multiple options. Players on and off ball the ball to have to make correct read.
You can design a one-time hit to get Hawkins a shot. Such as those elevator screens. But, all these coaches know every play and how to defend first option.
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All of the above and not getting T`d up helps too.
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And 4 NCs in the same timeframe. Which one will we be?
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Based on our record, this is still one of the 3 best teams in the country up to this point in the season.
.-.
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A couple thoughts.
We are overrating our talent a little bit. Our shooting percentages other than our two bigs aren’t very good at all and we’re about at the midway point. Sanogo is certainly as skilled on the low block as anyone we’ve ever had when he’s isolated one on one, and Hawkins is as dangerous a scorer as there is in CBB when he gets some space. But Sanogo isn’t guaranteed to get isolated one on one, and Hawkins isn’t guaranteed to get any space. Other that that, it feels like we have limited offensive talent - guys who have to scrap, are limited to a role of just knocking down wide open looks, or who are 7-foot-2. Was hoping Newton could be that get a bucket or make a play guy, like RJ was last year, but that hasn’t happened and at this point, I’m not sure it will.
The thing about the Alabama and Iowa State wins isn’t even so much the scouting report as the lack of practice time. At those tournaments, you have no prep time between games and basically just do a short walk through to go over strategy and then roll out the balls and play. In the rest of the regular season, you have a full practice to implement a game plan going full speed and the walk through reinforces those things at slow speed. Both teams are in the same boat, of course, but those tournament games don’t always give you full insight as to what might happen with time to really get a game plan in place. By March, you play conference teams super familiar with you and then teams that have been scouting you for five days (even if you advance to the Round of 32, an assistant has been doing deep dives into you for five days while the rest of the staff was working on the opening round).
In order to get back to a legit contender, the team has to have its late-game identity. Winning big was a good problem, but it never forced us to develop our late game pecking order of options, and we’ve been perfectly dreadful the last two games. A year ago, it was a lot of Cole and Tyrese in iso/high screen situations, Sanogo postups, and Polley looking for catch and shoots. They had an idea what they wanted to do - maybe they didn’t always succeed, but they had a checklist of options. Tight games, this team has been night at the improv, often regressing to AJ threes or Hawkins forcing something.
We have to ask ourselves - tie game, two minutes left: what are we good at? What’s our bread and butter? Is it Hawkins running around like Rip and getting him quick trigger looks? Ball movement and good decision making from multiple players? Attacking the basket and crashing the boards? Playing our best defensive team and scrapping for points? Our plan can’t be to just dump it into Sanogo, since that’s too easy to take away - we can’t spread the floor with four shooters around him so he’ll always see a double.
Somebody has to take a step forward. Can Hawkins be force fed and evolve as a multi-dimensional scorer a little more? Can Newton become more competent with the ball in his hands and make plays late in the shot clock? Can Jackson do something offensively off the dribble when teams play him to pass? Could maybe Karaban or Alleyne add another layer to their offense and have the ball more?
There’s hope for at least one of those things to happen. In our last two two titles, we saw Lamb and Daniels take a big leap at the right time of year - Lamb became a go-to scorer in his own right, and Daniels became a guy who could make iso fadeaways, adding another layer to our offense. In ‘04, Ben was certainly established but became even better when forced to handle more burden with Okafor out. The ‘99 team didn’t really have a surprise leap (other than the short term surprise of Ricky’s 13) but had been playing together for two years (three for most of them with El-Amin added) and their strength was cohesion at both ends.
As we stand now, i don’t think we’re good enough. But the key is to not stand as we are now and evolve forward in some capacity.
We are overrating our talent a little bit. Our shooting percentages other than our two bigs aren’t very good at all and we’re about at the midway point. Sanogo is certainly as skilled on the low block as anyone we’ve ever had when he’s isolated one on one, and Hawkins is as dangerous a scorer as there is in CBB when he gets some space. But Sanogo isn’t guaranteed to get isolated one on one, and Hawkins isn’t guaranteed to get any space. Other that that, it feels like we have limited offensive talent - guys who have to scrap, are limited to a role of just knocking down wide open looks, or who are 7-foot-2. Was hoping Newton could be that get a bucket or make a play guy, like RJ was last year, but that hasn’t happened and at this point, I’m not sure it will.
The thing about the Alabama and Iowa State wins isn’t even so much the scouting report as the lack of practice time. At those tournaments, you have no prep time between games and basically just do a short walk through to go over strategy and then roll out the balls and play. In the rest of the regular season, you have a full practice to implement a game plan going full speed and the walk through reinforces those things at slow speed. Both teams are in the same boat, of course, but those tournament games don’t always give you full insight as to what might happen with time to really get a game plan in place. By March, you play conference teams super familiar with you and then teams that have been scouting you for five days (even if you advance to the Round of 32, an assistant has been doing deep dives into you for five days while the rest of the staff was working on the opening round).
In order to get back to a legit contender, the team has to have its late-game identity. Winning big was a good problem, but it never forced us to develop our late game pecking order of options, and we’ve been perfectly dreadful the last two games. A year ago, it was a lot of Cole and Tyrese in iso/high screen situations, Sanogo postups, and Polley looking for catch and shoots. They had an idea what they wanted to do - maybe they didn’t always succeed, but they had a checklist of options. Tight games, this team has been night at the improv, often regressing to AJ threes or Hawkins forcing something.
We have to ask ourselves - tie game, two minutes left: what are we good at? What’s our bread and butter? Is it Hawkins running around like Rip and getting him quick trigger looks? Ball movement and good decision making from multiple players? Attacking the basket and crashing the boards? Playing our best defensive team and scrapping for points? Our plan can’t be to just dump it into Sanogo, since that’s too easy to take away - we can’t spread the floor with four shooters around him so he’ll always see a double.
Somebody has to take a step forward. Can Hawkins be force fed and evolve as a multi-dimensional scorer a little more? Can Newton become more competent with the ball in his hands and make plays late in the shot clock? Can Jackson do something offensively off the dribble when teams play him to pass? Could maybe Karaban or Alleyne add another layer to their offense and have the ball more?
There’s hope for at least one of those things to happen. In our last two two titles, we saw Lamb and Daniels take a big leap at the right time of year - Lamb became a go-to scorer in his own right, and Daniels became a guy who could make iso fadeaways, adding another layer to our offense. In ‘04, Ben was certainly established but became even better when forced to handle more burden with Okafor out. The ‘99 team didn’t really have a surprise leap (other than the short term surprise of Ricky’s 13) but had been playing together for two years (three for most of them with El-Amin added) and their strength was cohesion at both ends.
As we stand now, i don’t think we’re good enough. But the key is to not stand as we are now and evolve forward in some capacity.
Really good post!
It’s pretty obvious. Team have adjusted to defending Sanago inside. Foul leg and triple coverage. We aren’t penetrating inside and settle for threes. Ex. Defenses are playing soft on the perimeter with certain UConn guards on the threes . We have the talent to go inside we aren’t taking advantage
Rico444
In the mix for six
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This is where I've landed on this team. I still think we're a top 10 team and can win a national championship. Like all great teams, we've gotten knocked down and have to make some adjustments. The biggest adjustment needs to be made by Hurley and how he treats the refs. You can call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don't think it's a coincidence that Goodman came out and said that he's heard from multiple Big East refs that they've had it with Hurley's abuse on the sidelines and immediately after that comes out, we face a combined 63 to 28 free throw differential? That's too much of a coincidence for me to write off. If he can get word to the refs that he's going to tone it down, and actually follow through on that, I expect the terrible whistle to end.
Now that that's out of the way, both games would have been very close or even wins if there was a decent whistle. We shot terribly against Providence, and Andre got into foul trouble almost immediately and only played about 20 minutes. I was also encouraged by Newton's play early, he showed much more willingness to drive the lane. I think we'll see him get more foul calls moving forward.
We actually got two of the three hardest games of the year out of the way (@Creighton being the third). After these next two games, our schedule really opens up and the majority of our games against the best teams in the conference will be at home.
Now that that's out of the way, both games would have been very close or even wins if there was a decent whistle. We shot terribly against Providence, and Andre got into foul trouble almost immediately and only played about 20 minutes. I was also encouraged by Newton's play early, he showed much more willingness to drive the lane. I think we'll see him get more foul calls moving forward.
We actually got two of the three hardest games of the year out of the way (@Creighton being the third). After these next two games, our schedule really opens up and the majority of our games against the best teams in the conference will be at home.
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Don’t you hate when that happens? Good comment.
.-.