Providence Post Game Thread

[SwingDog]

Well, there is a couple ways to look at it. Is it UConn is not fouling (they are). And are opponents fouling or not? Check this out UConn is the worst major conference team in FTA/FGA ratio. They are 343 in the country. PC is 34th. Xavier is top 50 I believe and gulp, Creighton is #1. This is an indicator of a team ability to draw fouls. UConn is not good in that area. I don’t know the solution to this btw.

A solution is to make teams foul you by mucking things up, driving to the basket for layups and dishing off to Sanogo and Clingan. Make teams play ugly.

 

[Hungryhusky99]

Well, there is a couple ways to look at it. Is it UConn is not fouling (they are). And are opponents fouling or not? Check this out UConn is the worst major conference team in FTA/FGA ratio. They are 343 in the country. PC is 34th. Xavier is top 50 I believe and gulp, Creighton is #1. This is an indicator of a team ability to draw fouls. UConn is not good in that area. I don’t know the solution to this btw.

No, they are 343 in defensive FTA/FGA which just means they foul a lot. On offense they are 139 which is not great but much better obviously.

 

[navery12]

Well, there is a couple ways to look at it. Is it UConn is not fouling (they are). And are opponents fouling or not? Check this out UConn is the worst major conference team in FTA/FGA ratio. They are 343 in the country. PC is 34th. Xavier is top 50 I believe and gulp, Creighton is #1. This is an indicator of a team ability to draw fouls. UConn is not good in that area. I don’t know the solution to this btw.

A solution is to make teams foul you by mucking things up, driving to the basket for layups and dishing off to Sanogo and Clingan. Make teams play ugly.

This is a defensive statistic so it's saying we foul opponents a lot. We're much better (albeit still average) at drawing fouls on offense and are 139th in the country

 

[evmore]

My biggest worry is that this will cause us to just work harder than address the true issues. Hurley loves "brutal practices" but its clear those dont translate. We need to develop a new offensive identity and stop running the same sets. They are easy to guard and predictable. We to continue to develop an identity. It was defense, but with the recent foul trend, that has been erased. I really think Luke Murray can help the most with this but Hurley is who he is and has run the same offense since he stepped on campus.

An outlet for alot of our sets is for our big to slip the high screen, but this hasn't been happening as much or so it seems. Missing shots is part of the game, but we seem to press when we are missing shots, leading to poor ball movement. Too much dribbling, head down stuff. We just need to move the ball faster & make the defense rotate so we can find the soft spot. The good news is that the answers are on the roster. This is fixable .

 

[FriarJ]

This is a defensive statistic so it's saying we foul opponents a lot. We're much better (albeit still average) at drawing fouls on offense and are 139th in the country

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys. I always fail with this metrics crap. Carry on, nothing to see here.

 

[CheshireCat]

Putting aside Goodman's public comments about Hurley, maybe the Big East officiating is not just a UConn problem. Biased and poor officiating is often homecourt based. Conventional wisdom is that poor officials either consciously or subconsciously hand the home team more than its share of 50/50 calls. An easy way to test this (without watching hours of game film) is to look at home records in a conference. Less biased officiating should result in a less extreme home court W/L record within conference games, particularly of games between teams of similar caliber.

The Big East home record is 16-10, which is not great, not terrible, and could simply be a function of better teams winning on the road. But when you break the Big East into tiers, it looks a little different:

1) UConn, PC, Xavier, Marquette, Creighton - Home record of 11-0
2) Villanova, Butler, Seton Hall, SJU - home record of 4-6
3) Depaul, GTown - Home record of 1-4

The two uncompetitive teams are 40% of the home losses for the entire conference.

There is not a single road win over a higher or same tier team so far this season. In games within the same tier, the home team is 7-0. Of those 7 games (PC/UConn, PC/Marq, Xav/UConn, Marq/Creighton, Vill/SJU, SHU/SJU, Dep/GTown), only 2 of them (PC/Marq and Dep/Gtown) were decided by less than 10 points. Basically, if you go on the road in the Big East, you aren't just going to lose, but you are going to lose big, even against a similar level of competition.

It is early in the season, but that is an interesting record of dominance by the home team in games that should be 50/50, or maybe 60/40 (providing for some home court advantage beyond the officiating). But 100/0? That could be a sign that the conference has an officiating problem. This weekend, there are two games that fall into this category: UConn/Creighton and SHU/Butler. Next week, there is Butler/SJU, UConn/Marq, Creighton/Xavier, Villanova/Butler, Prov/Creighton, Marq/Xavier. Will the Big East revert to the mean, or will the home team continue to dominate what should be competitive games? Let's see what happens over the next week or so and revisit.

If you want to do a quick test of this theory, look at the Big 12. It is hard to tier that conference since there have only been 10 conference games played and all the teams except maybe Kansas seem really close, but the home teams' record is 5-5 in those games and almost every game has been competitive. The two games decided by 10+ points were Kansas State at Texas and Baylor at Iowa State, and in one case (Kstate at Texas) the road team won comfortably. I think there is some evidence that the Big 12's officiating is better and less biased than the Big East's.

Interesting take, but your sample size is way too small and there are other factors that play into the advantage a home team has over the road team in college basketball. Those upper tier schools have way better home crowds that make the environment more difficult, and probably have a little more impact on the game (and yes, I understand that would be true in the Big 12 - but the home court environment is impacted by the presence of students, lack thereof, etc). This is a subjective point too, but you're making a statement based on a season that isn't even 1/3 of the way over. Night and day the crowd impact of a St Johns home game vs. a Xavier or a Providence.

You gotta love the conspiracy theories. Can we just accept our losses, admit we got outplayed and just move on vs. it HAVING to be something that wasn't the team or coaching staff's fault? It's obnoxious.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Interesting take, but your sample size is way too small and there are other factors that play into the advantage a home team has over the road team in college basketball. Those upper tier schools have way better home crowds that make the environment more difficult, and probably have a little more impact on the game (and yes, I understand that would be true in the Big 12 - but the home court environment is impacted by the presence of students, lack thereof, etc). This is a subjective point too, but you're making a statement based on a season that isn't even 1/3 of the way over. Night and day the crowd impact of a St Johns home game vs. a Xavier or a Providence.

You gotta love the conspiracy theories. Can we just accept our losses, admit we got outplayed and just move on vs. it HAVING to be something that wasn't the team or coaching staff's fault? It's obnoxious.

Your opinion > facts

Got it.

 

[FriarJ]

Your opinion > facts

Got it.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Your opinion > facts

Got it.

You think everything you say is absolute truth. You’re the least flexible poster on here.

 

[gsmooth]

Interesting take, but your sample size is way too small and there are other factors that play into the advantage a home team has over the road team in college basketball. Those upper tier schools have way better home crowds that make the environment more difficult, and probably have a little more impact on the game (and yes, I understand that would be true in the Big 12 - but the home court environment is impacted by the presence of students, lack thereof, etc). This is a subjective point too, but you're making a statement based on a season that isn't even 1/3 of the way over. Night and day the crowd impact of a St Johns home game vs. a Xavier or a Providence.

You gotta love the conspiracy theories. Can we just accept our losses, admit we got outplayed and just move on vs. it HAVING to be something that wasn't the team or coaching staff's fault? It's obnoxious.

Both things can be true. The officiating was very, I mean very, favorable for Providence but UConn still has to play better. The officiating didn't force UConn to miss open 3s and their FTs or make adjustments to defending Bryce Hopkins.

The coaching staff can't operate practices with the premise that the officiating cost them the game. They need to clean up things on their end and scheme better even though they have done a good job up to this point.

 

[CheshireCat]

Your opinion > facts

Got it.

Nope - my point just doesn't fit your agenda and challenges your conclusions with other factors. Go compile all the data you want and bring it to the commissioner. You should hook up with the spreadsheet guy collecting data on drawing fouls. Then, bring your stuff to the commissioner and I'm sure a pardon will be granted and they will change our record to 16-0 and all will be right in the world again. Might be easier to just accept the fact we didn't play very well in the 2 losses, and honestly were not playing all that well overall since conference play began, but whatever makes you sleep better at night.

 

[Deepster]

The FT disparity in a game like last night is coaching.

When the other team knows what you're going to do, they plan to exploit it. PC was in the bonus w 14 minutes left and their game plan attached that chink in the armor. We're too predictable.

 

[CheshireCat]

You think everything you say is absolute truth. You’re the least flexible poster on here.

Couldn’t agree more.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

You think everything you say is absolute truth. You’re the least flexible poster on here.

You have it exactly backwards. Cheshire is being inflexible, and I am trying to prove the officiating question with facts. There are some very thoughtful posters on this board that come bearing facts and analysis, and I am always willing to consider those kind of positions.

I posited a thesis, and proposed a way to test the thesis including games that hadn’t been played yet. Cheshire’s post is literally that he doesn’t care what the facts are now or in the future, his opinion is more important. While not a unique position on this board, it is the very definition of inflexibility.

 

[HuskyinWRNY]

What is there to say? 5-22 from 3, 10-44 shooting from non-bigs, 35-19 FT difference (they had 31 when we started intentionally fouling, and we had 7 FTA in the last 2 minutes of garbage time so the disparity doesn't look as bad as it actually was)

Easy to blame the refs, because the entire first half and 10-12 minutes of the second half was some of the worst officiating I've ever seen. Someone has got to talk to BE leadership about that, especially after what Goodman said. It was clear from the start that UConn was not going to get a fair whistle. But you'll never consistently win games when you shoot 5-22 from 3, your starting backcourt shoots 9-32, and your spark plugs off the bench score 2 points on 1-8

In crunch time, Providence won EVERY 50/50 ball. Yeah there were foul calls missed to help, but we didn't even pretend to box out or go for rebounds. We got outworked and outhustled.

Honestly not many good things to say about this game. We know exactly what Creighton is going to throw at us, because they threw it at us twice last year. We have a few days to prepare and pull out a statement win on Saturday.

creighton is going to pack it in just like xavier and providence. we need to figure out how to beat that defense. the ball has to come out if that happens, then our guards can drive and dish.

 

[REB1094]

creighton is going to pack it in just like xavier and providence. we need to figure out how to beat that defense. the ball has to come out if that happens, then our guards can drive and dish.

Andre did a great job early in the Xavier game. They left him wide open to double Sanogo, he missed his first few but he was 3-6 at one point. Very respectable.

Then he started chucking them. The key is to make enough so that the defense has to guard it, and then get the ball back inside with improved spacing. If Creighton leaves him wide open all game, then he should take them all game. If they step out on him, no step backs, pull-ups, etc..gotta stay disciplined

If they pack the paint and he misses all of his shots, Newton or Hawkins have to find a way to score

 

[gsmooth]

Andre did a great job early in the Xavier game. They left him wide open to double Sanogo, he missed his first few but he was 3-6 at one point. Very respectable.

Then he started chucking them. The key is to make enough so that the defense has to guard it, and then get the ball back inside with improved spacing. If Creighton leaves him wide open all game, then he should take them all game. If they step out on him, no step backs, pull-ups, etc..gotta stay disciplined

If they pack the paint and he misses all of his shots, Newton or Hawkins have to find a way to score

That is what I stated in another post. I had no issue with AJax in the Xavier game when he was 3-6 from 3 point land. If teams leave him that wide open and he takes those 3s by taking his time and shooting with confidence, meaning he follows through and doesn't short arm or rush the shot, that is a good thing (i.e. the clutch 3 pt shot he made against Nova was nice).

In retrospect, even though we all loved his step back 3 he made early in the second half vs Xavier it did more harm than good in the long run-obviously it's good in the moment making shots is better than missing them. But I think he got massively overconfident after than and started shooting way more 3s that were not of the wide open variety in the Xavier game and in the PC game-none of them were close to being on target. Calcaterra and Hawkins should have that level of green light from 3, but not AJax.

Newton definitely needs to step up. He needs to think about scoring a lot more, but not overcorrect to the point where he is neglecting passing altogether either-it's a balancing act.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Putting aside Goodman's public comments about Hurley, maybe the Big East officiating is not just a UConn problem. Biased and poor officiating is often homecourt based. Conventional wisdom is that poor officials either consciously or subconsciously hand the home team more than its share of 50/50 calls. An easy way to test this (without watching hours of game film) is to look at home records in a conference. Less biased officiating should result in a less extreme home court W/L record within conference games, particularly of games between teams of similar caliber.

The Big East home record is 16-10, which is not great, not terrible, and could simply be a function of better teams winning on the road. But when you break the Big East into tiers, it looks a little different:

1) UConn, PC, Xavier, Marquette, Creighton - Home record of 11-0
2) Villanova, Butler, Seton Hall, SJU - home record of 4-6
3) Depaul, GTown - Home record of 1-4

The two uncompetitive teams are 40% of the home losses for the entire conference.

There is not a single road win over a higher or same tier team so far this season. In games within the same tier, the home team is 7-0. Of those 7 games (PC/UConn, PC/Marq, Xav/UConn, Marq/Creighton, Vill/SJU, SHU/SJU, Dep/GTown), only 2 of them (PC/Marq and Dep/Gtown) were decided by less than 10 points. Basically, if you go on the road in the Big East, you aren't just going to lose, but you are going to lose big, even against a similar level of competition.

It is early in the season, but that is an interesting record of dominance by the home team in games that should be 50/50, or maybe 60/40 (providing for some home court advantage beyond the officiating). But 100/0? That could be a sign that the conference has an officiating problem. This weekend, there are two games that fall into this category: UConn/Creighton and SHU/Butler. Next week, there is Butler/SJU, UConn/Marq, Creighton/Xavier, Villanova/Butler, Prov/Creighton, Marq/Xavier. Will the Big East revert to the mean, or will the home team continue to dominate what should be competitive games? Let's see what happens over the next week or so and revisit.

If you want to do a quick test of this theory, look at the Big 12. It is hard to tier that conference since there have only been 10 conference games played and all the teams except maybe Kansas seem really close, but the home teams' record is 5-5 in those games and almost every game has been competitive. The two games decided by 10+ points were Kansas State at Texas and Baylor at Iowa State, and in one case (Kstate at Texas) the road team won comfortably. I think there is some evidence that the Big 12's officiating is better and less biased than the Big East's.

Updating the numbers:

1) UConn, PC, Xavier, Marquette, Creighton - Home record of 14-0
2) Villanova, Butler, Seton Hall, SJU - home record of 5-7
3) Depaul, GTown - home record of 1-4

The league is now up to 9 intra-tier games, and the home team is 9-0 with only 2 decided by less than 9 points. There are some signs that the Big East has a homecourt officiating problem.

 

[UConnSwag11]

Was there a Technical on Croswell?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Updating the numbers:

1) UConn, PC, Xavier, Marquette, Creighton - Home record of 14-0
2) Villanova, Butler, Seton Hall, SJU - home record of 5-7
3) Depaul, GTown - home record of 1-4

The league is now up to 9 intra-tier games, and the home team is 9-0 with only 2 decided by less than 9 points. There are some signs that the Big East has a homecourt officiating problem.

1) UConn, PC, Xavier, Marquette, Creighton - Home record of 16-0
2) Villanova, Butler, Seton Hall, SJU - Home Record of 6-7
3) Depaul, GTown - Home record of 2-5

There are 12 intra-tier games, and the home team is 12-0 in those games.

It is weird how few upsets the league has had, and how dominant the home court has been. Take Georgetown, which has 4 of the home losses, out of the equation, and the home team is 24-8.

The good news for UConn is that they have played 3 of their 4 hardest games already, with the road games at Xavier, Marquette, and Providence already played.