If...
- RJ can continue to perform at this level against high major talent trying to take him away
- AJ does more rebounding and pushing tempo and less forcing passes that aren’t there and takes the shots the defense gives him.
- Adama learns to read a double team early and find the open man
- Akok becomes more aggressive with his offense while on the floor.
- Gaffney plays tougher with the ball in his hands and stops turning the ball over.
- Polley can be more 37% nightly and less 10%, 50%, 10%, 50%.
- Hawk starts playing like an almost sophomore and with confidence.
- Martin can eliminate his yips around the rim.
- Zay can stay out of foul trouble while staying aggressive and making the open 3.
Then...this can be a final four team. Watching the IFs is what makes it fun.
Vs SHU:
RJ-fail. A good game, but to reach our ceiling he has to be consistently great. He was inefficient, but still played smart and tough. We need all 3.
AJ-Pass+. AJ is the brightest spot on the season so far. He’s getting better and better. I’d like to see him look to finish more if he gets within 5 feet of the basket. The refs were whistle happy during the Kadary one man run. I thought AJ driving was the antedote. Surprised he didn’t get the whistle when the Big O got him down the stretch.
Adama- incomplete. We worked around his issue by running more pick and roll with RJ. I would have liked to force the issue with him more in the post. His two cheap ones changed the game.
Akok-pass. He took the shots when they were there, I want to run more sets with him as the extra pass.
Gaff-capital F fail. Concerning.
Polley-certainly a good Polley game but this is about consistency, let’s see what he does next. We rarely lose good polley games, that’s why this one stings so much. Kadary eating our lunch for 25% of the game erased great shooting.
Hawk-fail. starting to feel like he won’t be ready until next year.
Martin-1 yip. Surprised we didn’t see more of him. Fail for lack of attempts.
Zay-tough matchup for him. Did not play his best.
The bottom line: individually there’s still a lot of potential in this team and with most of the question marks not going our way we took the best shot of a top 25 team on the road and almost won. I know were all sick of moral victories but this result reflects what we are: a 20-30 team in the country.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of doubt now that we’ll fix our issue at reserve PG which makes us a fundamentally flawed team. I was a diggins must play guy early in the season but watching hawk struggle makes me think sool isn’t ready either. Our best option right now is to let AJ initiate the offense off the dribble when Gaff is in.
@UConnStats you got a +/- on Gaff yesterday?
