Post Game Thoughts

[huskymagic]

Well this was definetely not a good game by us at all. The blame starts with Blaney who was outcoached yesterday big time. He did not call time outs when he should of and ran some awful isolation plays the whole game that it made everyone else not named Lamb look awful out there. Thankfully Calhoun is coming back to right the ship.

Lamb- he was good throughout the whole game and pretty much the only bright spot,

Napier- Absoluely atrocious. He looked slow and weak. He was making shots, could not penetrate on Theodore who was manhandling him and a bad job running the offense in general. He is the not guy to break the zone for our team like Kemba was last year.

Boatright- Although I am a big fan of his, he was bad last night. He couldn't penetrate and his shots werent falling for him. His lack of size hurt him against Theodore and Fuquan Edwin. He needs to hit the gym harder and get tougher and stronger with the ball as well.

Drummond- was a no show yesterday and once again did not show any toughness against a weak Seton Hall frontcourt. There is no reason why Drummond should not be dominating and overpowering Herb Pope and Auda of Seton Hall. He needs to start banging down low and getting more physical as does this whole team.

Oriakhi- He looked the same as usual which is a no- show on offense or defense. He is not playing well and needs to be a lot tougher down low as well.

Daniels- I thought looked good out here for the minutes he played and should have played more minutes.

Roscoe-I liked his energy and rebounding, but his offensive game looks like its regressed from last year. I also want to see Roscoe rebound and play better defense like he did last year which I am not seeing alot of this year.

Overall this team needs a leader, and toughness. If we want to replicate last year's team we need the toughness of last year's team which we don;t seem to have this year. This year's team is more of a finesse team shooting threes. Everyone from Napier to Drummond needs to play much better defense and being more physical in order for this team to reach their full potential.

 

[dogpause]

Great post. I agree completely.

 

[bobbygt]

I agree with most of your points.

But I will say that there is no reason to think that AD should dominate against a seasoned Big east center, who is playing very well this year and who is a senior. As we've seen thus far in the season, AD is not a polished big man yet.

I will also add that Olander and Giffey played pretty well, both of whom should be playing more.

 

[huskymagic]

True I didnt even mention those two.

I agree with most of your points.

But I will say that there is no reason to think that AD should dominate against a seasoned Big east center, who is playing very well this year and who is a senior. As we've seen thus far in the season, AD is not a polished big man yet.

I will also add that Olander and Giffey played pretty well, both of whom should be playing more.

True Olander and Giffey played well and showed heart something the rest of the team excluding Lamb lacked last night. Giffey I think has been playing the best at the 3 position. He has been playing better than Roscoe or Daniels. He plays great defense the best on the team really this year (even better than Roscoe who doesnt bring it this year like he did last year) and can make the open shot. Giffey also very good athleticism which I like. Giffey should get more minutes. Olander was solid but he is a hybrid 3/4 sort of like a Terrence Jones just not as athletic. Olander cannot bang ddown low with the big guys of the Big east, Oriakhi can and is not showing much but he is our best option at the 4.

Giffey definitely deserves a shout out from the boneyard for his performance and solid defense. Giffey should be getting 8-10 minutes more a game then he does right now, and he would help our team a lot I believe in the long run.

 

[cohenzone]

This was a game when I think not having JC on the sideline hurt. But even he has had more experienced teams get punched around on occasion. People tend to overlook the fact that UConn last year limped into the BE tournament after finishing 9th in the league even with KW. The team's youth showed up last night against a pretty decent team in a hostile environment. Unfortunately, the guy who had the worst offensive game is the guy you can't afford to have a really bad game, SN. He took a lot of shots and was way off. That allowed SH to stay in a zone and made it tough to get the ball to the bigs. AO seems lost and confused. He will never be a terrific scorer, but he has to be much more aggressive rebounding and take some pressure off of AD as well. I think TO right now is the most aggressive of all of our bigs on O, and easily the most assertive on the offensive glass. NG looks like a really good player and I hope he sees more time as the year goes along.

 

[Yonick]

Probably UConn's worst loss since last years game at Louisville. Everytime this UConn team walks into someone else's arena, they walk into a hornets nest. We are the National champs. Every team will be more than up for us.
This young team needs to realize this and come to play hard. Especially on the road. Hopefully, JC is "pleasantly" reminding them of this at todays practice. We had better be ready to play vs Rutgers or we can have a repeat loss, and Rutgersal will proclaim RU as the second coming of the Chicago Bulls, cirica 1990's.......

 

[pete8122]

I thought the whole team looked very lethargic. When Olander and Giffey are the 2 guys that gave the most effort we're gonna be in trouble. The last 10 minutes of the first half when they could barely even get a shot up and were turning it over what seemed like on every possession that's where the game was lost. During that stretch there was no adjustments or even attempts at adjusting. I agree that last night you can really feel the difference of not having Calhoun but overall the team was just out hustled all night long.

The 2 biggest issues I see so far with this team is running the half court offense especially against zones. There's too much standing around and dribbling along the perimeter with no plan as to how to attack the defense. The other issue is 3 point defense. Every game it seems the other team is getting a ton of open looks from 3. South FLA exploited this as well.

Finally I'm at a lost as to what's going on with AO. His confidence seems to be at an all time low right now and his inability to finish around the basket seems to have turned into a big mental block. That leads to him getting out hustled on rebounds and being a step slow to loose balls as we saw last night. I'm not sure what can be done but they need him to play like he did in last years NCAAs.

 

[UofCT]

For some reason I am not nearly as disappointed as I have been in recent years after a loss. UConn had a terrible game and Seton Hall had their best game probably in the past 8 years. It happens.