Providence post game thread | Page 3 | The Boneyard

Providence post game thread

Only 1 team in history of Big East has failed to get a bid going into the Big East tournament with 21 wins.

That was 2024 St. John’s.

The Huskies must win 1 out of the last 2 home games against Marquette and Seton Hall to get to 21. I suggest if it is indeed only 1 win of the final 2 it be the latter.
They didn’t have 21 wins going into the BET last year.
 
Tarris is a dominant big and I hope this is the final nail in the coffin on the even split nonsense with Samson and Reed. Hurley keeps saying he goes with the hot hand between them. That needs to be over. 24/18/6 for the beast.

Best Hass, Solo, Liam, AK, and Tarris looked together. All their jobs are easier with the big man in there.

The bench is a major problem, I'm not including Tarris because we all know he should be the starter. Going to have to ride our core 5.
As I said in the chat, you called for this long ago. That was quite a performance. If Dan Hurley wants to use Samson ala Tyler Olander I’m fine with that. But barring foul trouble the minutes need to be 30/10
 
Yes! Except that our offense would suffer at the 4.
Samson is pretty good at scoring. he shoots a high percentage FG. Offense is better with him at 4 vs Ross. Neither Ross nor Stewart are good at dribbling or passing. SJ is atleast on par with them for running sets. SJ is also decent on defense, he just can’t rebound or hold his own against a brawny center.

They could run sets where one or both of the bigs are setting screens on perimeter and roll to basket.
 
Fun game to watch. They were clicking on offense with Diarra's 10 assists many to Reed. When Diarra left the game in the first half, Tarris dropped off a bit. Tarris set the tone with a great early rebound.

AK looked much better especially on his 3-pointers and that nice reverse layup. He did have a turnover due to traveling and I actually thought he had 1 more turnover but that might have been on the passer. He also had some nice rebounds and put backs which energized the bench.

I was surprised that Mahaney didn't get more playing time especially with Ball leaving the game after 4 minutes or so and the fact that Mahaney had his best game against in the first Providence game.

Ball has such a nice stroke which Wally Szczerbiak compared to Chris Mullin's. But he missed that dunk badly which resulted in a rebound for Reed 40 feet away.

I thought that Diarra's quickness looked improved. He was able to get by a few guys on offense. And their inbounds plays showed some improvement as well. They had that nice play to Liam for a dunk. They seem to run the baseline more and throw it to someone running the court.
 
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Games in Providence are always a bit wonky especially a noon game, but have no complaints overall, Reed is an absolute beast, Hassan and AK were their ole reliable selves.

The basket to end the half was huge to put us up 8 because it kind of took their crowd out of it, with the halftime break and the season PC is having, a lot of PC students were playing on their phones in the 2nd half, they didn't really get into it until their walk on had their moment that was cool to see.
 
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Beast game by Reed and Diarra looks healthy with 10 assists and great game management. The thing I'm worried about is we are getting next to nothing from our bench. Stewart plays 16 minutes and only 1 block? Not even 1 rebound. I think Hurley has to ignite a fire under him. He needs to play better as our 1-4 positions are going to get in foul trouble and he will have to play more meaningful minutes. He seems to have no fire and just sits on the Perimeter too much. He needs to be more mobile especially since Hurley said he is letting the team play a little looser and not always in refined sets.
 
The 5 spot is now golden for the rest of the year. Karaban will show up in March. As will Ball and McNeeley. The only concern now is PG. We need Diarra to get healthy.
He seems healthy. With 10 assists and greet game management. He just needs to stay healthy.
 
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And the bench to consistently give something, anything. I didn't watch the game and I will be going to sleep real soon, but looking at the box score I am pleased with the win, but really disappointed in Ross, Stewart, and Mahaney.
Ross didn't play.
 
And he still looked better than Nowell.
This hyper critical thing you do with Nowell after every game is strange. He’s a freshman playing his first real minutes of his career in the heart of Big East play. Shouldn’t the junior with major experience look clearly better if you’re going to suggest he play over our more talented freshman?

Theres no upside in playing Mahaney. You play Nowell because he might get better with the experience. Neither is bringing anything besides shaky ball handling at the moment, but giving up on Nowell means more to lose:
 
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Samson's two early fouls worked out, forcing Reed into the game.

Considering Providence actually has some decent size in Essandoko and Erhunmwunse, Reed's performance was especially impressive.
He nay had one when he left the first time
 
Let's hope he stays out of his slump and the law of averages kicks in and makes up for that slump.
There is no “law of averages” that says you will shoot better after you’ve been in a slump.
Thinking that there is such such a law that could “kick in“ leads to the gambler’s fallacy
 
Both Nowell & Mahaney are justifiably in ‘One mistake and you are out’ status which is totally justified as we’ve seen their mistakes multiply and create opponent runs. It was darkly humorous when Mahaney was about to be pulled, then as announced pointed out drew the foul which led Hurley to delay bringing back Hassan, but then Mahaney missed the front end of the 1-&-1 = Hassan back to scorers table. I do think Aidan has more offensive upside this season esp against non BE teams, yet also especially due to long term I’d rather see more Nowell.

Super hard to make the needed positive plays when they are each so worried about mistakes but that’s the mental toughness hurdle they need to get over to become viable UConn level players. Nowell almost had one with open court loose ball, yet somehow ended up PC ball and a layup. Hopefully next opportunity he makes that play.
 
The calendar has turned to March and UConn has now looked much better for 2 games in a row, which is something that's always happened with Dan Hurley coached teams.

I know the competition hasn't been great the last 2 games, but these are decent teams and games we would have eked out a 6 point win a few weeks ago
 
We win, we get a handful of pages of posts. We lose, and War and Peace looks like a micro-novel compared to our post game threads.

Gotta love the Boneyard.

My game thoughts, PC is just not a good team. Reed Jr was a Kodiak Bear today. UConn played well. Solid contributions from most of our starters.

Let's keep on winning.
 
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