Point Guard Situaton | Page 7 | The Boneyard

Point Guard Situaton

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jibsey said:
Hurley is betting that just getting healthy gives him enough ammunition to be dominant but we have seen early in the season that was not the case. Mahaney was not capable and Diarra wasn’t enough. He’s gonna have to reach into his magic bag of tricks. The 3 peat fans here are wizzing in the wind.
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The team hasn't been dominant once this season. Foolish if he thinks this team can ever be dominant. The pieces haven't gelled, still tinkering with the lineup as March approaches, and there are glaring deficiencies. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. If people accept that this is lost season, they'll have a happier life the next two months.
 
DOZE860 said:
Been having this convo with buddies of mine. I really think Hurley should have went after Kardary Richmond. I know he was a "all about the bag" guy, but dam, he is exactly what this team needs.
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I made that same point in another post. Big, athletic and can get to the hoop. My guess is Hurley didn’t want to go after someone at his alma mater…

There must have been other athletic PG in the portal. Hopefully he learns that he can’t mold everyone to what he thinks they can be. By soph year, you kind of are what u are as an athlete. How u are used can change, but I doubt your skill change that much
 
05Alum said:
I think Solo is a better starting PG then a hobbled, limited Diarra right now. Play Ball, Stew, McNeeley, Karaban, Johnson. Limit Diarra's PT to help manage his injury better, or even sit him down a couple weeks.
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What is everyone's thought about going small. Diarra, Ball, Stew, AK, and McNeeley?
 
05Alum said:
I think Solo is a better starting PG then a hobbled, limited Diarra right now. Play Ball, Stew, McNeeley, Karaban, Johnson. Limit Diarra's PT to help manage his injury better, or even sit him down a couple weeks.
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Love that if Reed, Jr. started in place of Johnson. - we need 5 guys the defense can take seriously and with Reed, Jr., AK, Ball, McNeeley, and Stewart they cannot slack off any of them.
 
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AllHusky said:
Pass
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Problem is unlike the last 2 years, our guards cant effectively create their own shots off the dribble or attack the zone. So, it allows an athletic team like St. Johns to cheat and play aggressive perimeter defense with a small ball lineup. I think we're most effective with Reed/Sampson in the game to space things out more for our perimeter game by playing more high-low. BTW, our women's team has a very similar problem, despite the "great" perimeter shooters.
 
05Alum said:
I think Solo is a better starting PG then a hobbled, limited Diarra right now. Play Ball, Stew, McNeeley, Karaban, Johnson. Limit Diarra's PT to help manage his injury better, or even sit him down a couple weeks.
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Ugh, then you literally have one competent ballhandler and he's a freshman coming off a month-long injury.
 
05Alum said:
I think Solo is a better starting PG then a hobbled, limited Diarra right now. Play Ball, Stew, McNeeley, Karaban, Johnson. Limit Diarra's PT to help manage his injury better, or even sit him down a couple weeks.
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Agreed. I think it’s got to be Solo, let Diarra recover, give Mahaney 5 min each game to see if he’s serviceable based on that matchup (otherwise keep him at the 2 for the rest of his minutes), and start getting Nowell more reps once he’s healthy.
 
Hoophound said:
Nowell has to come back and play well this season or we are gonna be a quick out. That’s a big ask as he’s always hurt and he hasn’t played well yet. The talent is there, need to acclimate him asap. 6-7 solid minutes per game would even help.
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Nowell is a 5-11 point guard. He will be eaten alive by the bigger guys unless he is MUCH better than he has looked. We need to be looking for a bigger guy who can take over as the primary ball handler.

There is a reason that nobody has won 3 in a row in college in 60 years. Teams change year to year. Players come and go. Sometimes the new ones don’t quite work out. Key guys get hurt. This feels like one of those years when the replacements didn’t fit and guys got hurt.

Assuming we don’t fall apart the rest of the way, we will probably make the tournament with a 7-10 ish seed. I originally thought 5-8 but have RE-thought that. We have 7 games left. We will be underdogs in 3 and Villanova already beat us so that’s a concern too. We have little depth and our top guys are playing with injuries. It will be tough to do much.
 
Milo65 said:
What is everyone's thought about going small. Diarra, Ball, Stew, AK, and McNeeley?
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Diarra needs rest, but assuming he was close to 100% going small against Creighton is not a good idea. They would be giving up 2s to Kalkbrenner as he would back down and score against anyone in that lineup unless UConn double teams him on the catch and that would mean leaving open 3 point shooters. Plus, going small would mean UConn would have to outscore Creighton by hitting 3s and they would have more pressure to do so as Creighton would score with ease. It basically would boil down to, can UConn score with more ease than Creighton would if UConn goes small. I don't think so.

Reed needs to put his big boy pants on and play well. He did nothing in the first game at Gampel. He has to do something on offense and force Kalk to play defense. Reed's defense on the pick and roll is terrible and that is what Ashworth and Kalkbrenner love to run.
 
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freescooter said:
Nowell is a 5-11 point guard. He will be eaten alive by the bigger guys unless he is MUCH better than he has looked. We need to be looking for a bigger guy who can take over as the primary ball handler.

There is a reason that nobody has won 3 in a row in college in 60 years. Teams change year to year. Players come and go. Sometimes the new ones don’t quite work out. Key guys get hurt. This feels like one of those years when the replacements didn’t fit and guys got hurt.

Assuming we don’t fall apart the rest of the way, we will probably make the tournament with a 7-10 ish seed. I originally thought 5-8 but have RE-thought that. We have 7 games left. We will be underdogs in 3 and Villanova already beat us so that’s a concern too. We have little depth and our top guys are playing with injuries. It will be tough to do much.
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Nowell is at least listed at 6'0" but what matters is 195 lbs and he's a tank. Would bet he benches more than Stewart can.

If he's 100% he can handle bigger guys with speed and strength - just needs minutes at the college game.

Wins - let's say 3-4 is likely, and 3 would be home - Seton Hall, Villanova, Georgetown. We could pick up 1 @ Seton Hall (they are last in the Big East). Then the 'ifs' are home vs Marquette, @St. Johns (really @MSG), and this game.
 
The miss on Mahaney as a PG was big, but I feel like the injuries to Diarra and Nowell have really exasperated the PG issue. Post Maui the team was really finding it's groove, Mahaney was showing some flashes playing off ball a little bit more, Nowell was shaky but showing flashes too. And Diarra was playing unbelievable.

Now Diarra is fighting through his injury and still playing 30+ minutes a night, Nowell hasn't gotten any consistent playing time because of his injuries, and Mahaney has been forced to go back to his pure PG spot because of the above.

That said, I still see a world where Nowell gets enough confidence over the next month to let Diarra move to a 25 minute role and we're rolling come Big East tourney time. There's a March run hiding in this team
 
aceboon said:
sucks that HD's last season had to go like this

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Solo possibly being forced to play PG for the rest of the year while also developing and prepping him for next year would be such an accidentally fortunate development.
 
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navery12 said:
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Great minds... I've been thinking this for about a week now/when Hurley said Hass was going to have to fight through this all season. Gotta reduce his minutes so he can at least give us 15 minutes a night down the stretch. Liam provides the Tristen/Steph ability to penetrate and see over the defense. And with Liam pushing with pace in half court sets and having physical mismatches in his favor, he should be able to live at the free throw line. And that will get us back to even/close to even FT-wise against more opponents. (My dream scenario?).
 
navery12 said:
The miss on Mahaney as a PG was big, but I feel like the injuries to Diarra and Nowell have really exasperated the PG issue. Post Maui the team was really finding it's groove, Mahaney was showing some flashes playing off ball a little bit more, Nowell was shaky but showing flashes too. And Diarra was playing unbelievable.

Now Diarra is fighting through his injury and still playing 30+ minutes a night, Nowell hasn't gotten any consistent playing time because of his injuries, and Mahaney has been forced to go back to his pure PG spot because of the above.

That said, I still see a world where Nowell gets enough confidence over the next month to let Diarra move to a 25 minute role and we're rolling come Big East tourney time. There's a March run hiding in this team
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Even the 25 min role for Diarra may be too much. I would think 20 min would be better, with some time for Nowell and the remaining time positionless with Liam.

As with many technical, engineering and software jobs, you have to consider failures of systems and hardware and how to effectively minimize down time and improve recovery. Hurley needs to consider himself as the engineer of the UConn team more so going forward. Injuries stink, but his plan has to consider how injuries to players should not put the team into a bad state where they cannot figure out what to do next. Players can be replaceable only if there are adequate backups.
 
Some mixed news. I'd expect we see a lot of Aiden and even Liam effectively as the facilitator with Stewart/Ross/Ball.

 
If this team wants to have a real chance at making noise Hurley needs to change things up. Hass is badly limited for the rest of the season. His minutes need to be significantly reduced. Liam and Solo have to be on the ball, Ahmad needs real minutes, and Tarris needs to be the primary center. Minutes between Tarris and Samson shouldn't be an even split. Tarris is clearly a significantly better player (has been from day 1) than Samson with significant untapped upside. He needs more minutes and we need to get him the ball to keep him engaged.
 
aceboon said:
sucks that HD's last season had to go like this

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Damn. That’s sad to hear and I feel for Hassan. He’s the heart of the team

So now it’s no longer a choice. One of Mahaney, Nowell, or Solo HAS to step up and play PG effectively. The season depends on it. Wildcards Liam or Ross here?

Liam and Solo HAVE to be able to make something happen 1v1 consistently. Again, not really a choice anymore..

Karaban HAS to get out of this funk. Tarris HAS to be engaged every game. Stewart HAS to be more consistent. Broken record but not really a choice anymore

I’m strangely excited. It’s time to see what these guys are really made of
 
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DOZE860 said:
Been having this convo with buddies of mine. I really think Hurley should have went after Kardary Richmond. I know he was a "all about the bag" guy, but dam, he is exactly what this team needs.
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I don't know if he is exactly what the team needs, but I think he probably would be under Hurley. I remember thinking we should grab the kid when he was at that Canadian University. I think we ended up with Newton instead. He was pretty good.
 
05Alum said:
I think Solo is a better starting PG then a hobbled, limited Diarra right now. Play Ball, Stew, McNeeley, Karaban, Johnson. Limit Diarra's PT to help manage his injury better, or even sit him down a couple weeks.
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I think you're probably right, but I'm worried about it limiting his offense, which is absolutely critical to us right now.
 
freescooter said:
Nowell is a 5-11 point guard. He will be eaten alive by the bigger guys unless he is MUCH better than he has looked. We need to be looking for a bigger guy who can take over as the primary ball handler.

There is a reason that nobody has won 3 in a row in college in 60 years. Teams change year to year. Players come and go. Sometimes the new ones don’t quite work out. Key guys get hurt. This feels like one of those years when the replacements didn’t fit and guys got hurt.

Assuming we don’t fall apart the rest of the way, we will probably make the tournament with a 7-10 ish seed. I originally thought 5-8 but have RE-thought that. We have 7 games left. We will be underdogs in 3 and Villanova already beat us so that’s a concern too. We have little depth and our top guys are playing with injuries. It will be tough to do much.
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Nowell has made dumb turnovers. He can stay in front of his man and he’s very, very strong. I still think acclimating him and making him serviceable is critical. He can help us if he comes in and takes care of the ball. Anything else would be gravy.

I am absolutely on board with finding a great pg in the portal, but I’m concerned with this season right now.
 
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CL82 said:
I think you're probably right, but I'm worried about it limiting his offense, which is absolutely critical to us right now.
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That and we had like 80 turnovers the other day. We need actual pg play.
 
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