Positives of game

[Candyman]

While the half-court offense is a trainwreck, what has gotten me more disturbed is how hideous our guards are defensively. Tremble and Suliamon got into the lane AT WILL all night. Gibbs has slow feet, Purvis overplays, and DHam is James Harden most of the time. You can't have that. Then to make matters worse, our bigs are extremely poor at rotating. If you blink hard enough Amida is leaving his feet for the block shot and Miller, while at times excellent defensively, has some pretty bad lapses as well. I don't want to talk about Facey here as defensive rotation is clearly a new concept for him.

In the half court O, I tell DHam that the triple double flirtation thing was really cool. But we are better team with DHam getting 18 and 4 assists as opposed to 12 and 6 assists. We need him to be our scorer as everyone else is just too streaky. DHam's unselfishness is very admirable, but it is an issue to my eyes that he gets into the lane to pass more often than not and isn't prepared to make a "scoring" move. That's why you get those awkward pump fake, jab step, no chance of going in bank shots that you got in the first half.

The second part of this has to be on KO. I said this in another thread, but Turgeon aggressively attacked our screen/roll game b/c he knows that our guards do not give the ball up to the screener. Why? B/c it's Amida screening 24 feet from the hoop. It took KO an entire half to get the screener to slip to create that opening and allow our offense to have some semblance of fluidity. The result? Turgeon had to have his bigs not be so aggressive on their hedges and we could actually get some openings. It was completely ridiculous watching us run the same, exact ineffective set every possession in the first half. And on top of that, it was completely ridiculous watching Gibbs and Purvis try to dribble around a double team.

Lastly, and sadly for me, I think last night completely exposed some major flaws. For one, Maryland was far more athletic and quicker than us. Maryland is very good, but I was shocked at the difference in athleticism in their guards and bigs and ours. Another thing is that our guards really do not handle the ball very well. Gibbs, Purvis, and Hamilton are all a little shaky with the ball. As a result, they are pretty wild going to the hoop. DHam can get away with it b/c he is more talented. Lastly, our defense, especially on the perimeter, was just awful. No ball pressure and any time we cut the lead to a manageable point, Trimble would just penetrate and dish for a layup or draw a foul. He did it whenever he wanted. It was like watching Kemba or Bazz when they knew that they were just better than everyone else.

Best assessment of the game I seen on the BY.

Ollie has run the same offensive sets for 4 years now. Anytime we ran a "screen and roll" play teams that doubled the guard almost were always successful against us. SMU does the same thing. They know our guards arent passing it to Nolan, Brimah or Facey so far out. DHam should be picking and rolling.

 

[gtcam]

we all talk about the Cuse's exclusivity with the zone BUT UConn is the same way with the man to man.
When the better teams have great guards who can beat you off the ball and you have 4 other guys who can't close in and narrow the lanes, you are going to get diced up like last night.
Now using the zone all the time is crazy but there were times last night that I think a zone could have cause MD some pain.
As far as DHam as the 1 - I am not convinced, I would rather see JA take that role.
Gibbs, so far, has proven he is no PG BUT I remember him being very capable last year - so does the BE suck that bad or WHAT GIVES?. He has been a huge under achiever in my eyes.
Candyman says KO runs an offensive set? When and where? Most every other team has movement off the ball, UConn has DHam moving with the ball and 4 spectators.
DHam is a STUD, JA is an up and coming star, KF has potential, RP is bipolar but can be a star and SE is a physical freak. That's all she wrote so far

 

[Glastonhusky]

First, forget pressing and trapping. The new rules make trapping problematic and if we truly commit to a press, Amida will foul out in 45 seconds of playing time.

Second, DH needs to be moved off the ball. We have him standing up top with the ball - he has zero chance of beating a guard off the dribble and the entire world is now cued in to the pump fake/half-step and pass that now summarizes our half-court offense.

Commit to playing Adams.

Let Gibbs go where he's comfortable and let DH head to the wing where he has a chance to be disruptive.

In the front court, throw a chair at Miller if he spends more than two seconds at a clip behind the arc. Glue a set of brass balls onto Amida and convince him that he has to play well against everyone, not just the Coppin States of the world. Keep using Facey and get Enoch on the floor when you can. Buy three extremely comfortable chairs for Nolan, Cassell and Calhoun. Regard them as you would a fire alarm. Break glass only in emergency.

KO should write a note to his future self and hand it to an assistant coach. The note should say, "Never play Nolan, Calhoun and Cassell together".

Tonight, Turgeon brought in Tremble and Carter. Ollie reacted by taking out Hamilton and Enoch and bringing in Nolan and Calhoun. It didn't work. He gave the trio of doom 12 minutes of playing time in the first half - we lost the half by 16. They got zero in the second. Against Gonzaga, they got 11 minutes in the first half which we lost by 14 - second half, zero.

Substitutions seem to be made on the basis that substitutions are something you do in basketball. Shorten the rotation - eight looks like it works, while 11 clearly doesn't.

Completely agree with everything, but where does Rodney fit in?