Pioneer ThoughtZ™

[RichZ]

1. I've got to assume there was some reason for Akok to jump center, but it wasn't a good one. He may have a measurably higher reach than Josh, but he was totally out of his element doing that, and never had a shot at it. I hope Hurley just puts that one in the failed experiment file.
2. Rebounding. Needs work. Lots of work. Bring back JC's rebounding drill, please!
3. Our offense did not look good early. 'Rique kept driving inside and getting into trouble. He became a non-factor for a while, then adjusted and started dishing the ball before he got swallowed up.
4. Similarly, they seemed to be able to get the ball in to Josh easily, but except for one pretty spin move, he wasn't finishing. Later in the game, especially the 2nd half, was a different story. SHU's D changed after a couple threes fell, and the middle became a lot less crowded.
5. Our bench shot 13 of 23 (56.5%), as opposed to the starters 21 of 52 (40.3%). If you take out Vital's 66.6%, the remaining starters shot <35%. That ain't good.
6. Not sure we win this game without the play of Sid and Brendan.
7. If I didn't see it in the box score, I would never have guessed that Adams played considerably more minutes (26) than Sid (17). Both played way above their 18/19 performance, but Sid was all over the place, and basically kept us competitive in the 1st half.
8. That kid on SHU with the name that sounded like whatever Laverne and Shirley used to sing must've been their designated enforcer for the night. "Hey, you -- Falaffelfleefer. You make sure they know we're not afraid to mix it up." "Coach, it's, Plaffenberger." Yeah, whatever, Hassenfeffer. Don't worry about the fouls, just make sure they know we're not going to be pushed around like we were the other night." When he tried to make Vital blink following their little kerfuffle, he kind of lost the stare down contest, and it got into his head a lot more than Christian's.
9. SHU had 3 players foul out, but we were whistled for more total fouls (24) than them (21).
10. SHU shot phenomenally well from the FT line. (25 of 26!) If they're ever ahead late this season, they're gonna be tough to beat with that kind of FT shooting. Of course they've got to get ahead of someone first, so it may never happen.
11. I didn't expect a lot out of Gaffney tonight, but got even less than that. Don't think he's ready.
12. Alterique did not have his best outing. He shot terribly (2 of 9, 1 of 5) from the field, and had only one board and one steal. A 5/0 assist to turnover ratio does help though, especially with a few of those assists falling into the sleight of hand category.
13. Whaley didn't seem to be on his game. He wan't bad, but didn't seem engaged and involved. 6 points on 2/4 and 2/2, with 4 boards, a dime and a block. Yeah, scratch whatever concern I had. If that's this year's Whaley in 10 minutes on an off night, he should be fine.
14. Polley seems to have responded well to coaching, and is definitely trying to capitalize on his height more than last year, rather than being almost exclusively a spot up 3 point shooter. He tied with Gilbert for most minutes, so Hurley may have been rewarding him for the adjustments. His shot was definitely not on (1 for 5 from three!) but he filled the stat sheet with 10 points, 3 assists a steal and a block, in addition to a four board effort that might be bordering on a career high in rebounds for the man (his career avg coming into this season was 1.6). His decent night was kind of spoiled by that violently blown dunk on the break, but overall, his contributions were definitely on the positive side of the ledger.
15. I know that Josh will be getting the heavy props for last night, but my PoG would be split between Sid in the first half and CV in the second.
16. CV last night gave us 1/2 of CV at his worst and one half of CV at his absolute best. I know that 3 of CV's 7 steals came in the first half, but so did all three of his turnovers and both of his missed 3 pointers, and only 1 of his dimes and 1 board. He did not score in the first half until two free throws with 37 seconds left in the half. On the other hand, 15 of his 17 points came in highlight reel fashion in the 2nd half, along with a couple assists including a 3/4 court assist to Josh that should be on every highlight video of this season come next spring, plus 6 boards.

 

[pj]

8. That kid on SHU with the name that sounded like whatever Laverne and Shirley used to sing must've been their designated enforcer for the night. "Hey, you -- Falaffelfleefer. You make sure they know we're not afraid to mix it up." "Coach, it's, Plaffenberger." Yeah, whatever, Hassenfeffer. Don't worry about the fouls, just make sure they know we're not going to be pushed around like we were the other night." When he tried to make Vital blink following their little kerfuffle, he kind of lost the stare down contest, and it got into his head a lot more than Christian's.

Heh. They only played 8 guys, 7 played 20+ minutes and then Pfaffenberger played 4 minutes to collect 5 fouls and a bunch of zeroes on the stat line. I think you're exactly right about his role. Against Providence the whole team only committed 12 fouls and it didn't go well for them. They definitely tried to be more physically disruptive against us.

 

[Sphinx]

Better a long list of negatives in an ugly win than a long list of positives in an aesthetic loss. I suspect there will be many ugly wins this year, the ugliness a strong contributing factor to the win. This team isn't going to out-finesse many opponents. The key to things going UConn's way will be the color man saying, "It hasn't been pretty." Befits a team, btw, that has the legacy of winning the consensus all-time ugly NCAA title game ever played in 2011. This team will go as far in the post-season as ugly will take them.

 

[donyell34]

That championship game in 2011 was beautiful to me, could care less about it being ugly.

 

[ctchamps]

Better a long list of negatives in an ugly win than a long list of positives in an aesthetic loss. I suspect there will be many ugly wins this year, the ugliness a strong contributing factor to the win. This team isn't going to out-finesse many opponents. The key to things going UConn's way will be the color man saying, "It hasn't been pretty." Befits a team, btw, that has the legacy of winning the consensus all-time ugly NCAA title game ever played in 2011. This team will go as far in the post-season as ugly will take them.

That quote was for the first half. And a good part of that ugliness was the amount of whistle blowing by the refs that took away any sort of rhythm.

The biggest negative was allowing 11 offensive rebounds in that half. Part of that was playing tight perimeter defense. I felt this entire game guys were switching off and covering the perimeter really well with some exceptions. WTS four players have at least one year under their belt playing together and they will need to greatly improve that weakness to avoid another bad season. They had a lot of blocks but blocks are negated if opposing teams score on second or third chances. At least they imposed their will with blocking or deflecting shots. That interior intimidation does not show up in the stat sheet but it impacts how opposing players react driving to the basket.

Second biggest negative was missing too many bunnies. Besides box out drills the coaches should work on teaching kids how to shoot and make floaters.