Rip up the Rotations and Game Plans

[Chief00]

I've been very critical of Hurley in the past, but I think this was more of a look-ahead game to Villanova. For that reason, I'm not sweating the loss too much. They'll come out firing against Nova I bet.

Also, I would love if Whaley got moved to the bench as a sixth man. The bench unit desperately needs some juice and he could bring it. I'm not sure why Gaffney plays, at all, at this point. He only played six minutes, so far from the reason why we lost but I can't think of a single thing he does well besides dribble the ball across half-court. Surely Diggins could do that too.

Excellent post. Danny needs to get a strategy fast and it starts with transition basketball. We simply cannot produce in a set offense with poor outside shooting, and minimal ball and player rotation. We need to get numbers and press up the floor. The extended man to man D has an innate weakness. It can invert player positions with your backcourt getting sucked down to the baseline, and big men being pulled away from the glass - none of which is conducive is creating quick release outlets and getting number advantages up the floor. Creating easy scoring opportunities near the rim is key to building momentum and confidence. The problem I see with Danny is he doesn't realize he's heading for trouble until he's deep in it, and his adjustments are confined to a limited bag of movements based on the same philosophical schemes.

I agree and in the post game press conference he seemed to break the team down between starters and bench. He needs to look more strategically and wholistically at things in search of solutions.

 

[Chief00]

So in your first discrete argument you mention 3 starters as integral and then say we need to shake up the starting lineup. That leaves Martin & Jackson who prior to yesterday evening were both playing extremely well. Martin's toughness has bailed us out of plenty of jams including going HAM against butler. Jackson has been stuffing the stat sheet.


I don't think we can say with certainty whether we would have been better defensively with Adama on the floor against the small lineup, but I would have liked to take my chances with him outscoring them on O on the other side of the floor.

These are the guys you want to put in the starting line up above.

We were running Polley off screens all game. O Connell was all over him. He was beating him around the curls and denying him the ball or not giving him enough space to shoot. Credit McDermott there.

I think we universally see him as someone who may cost us the game. He's been turnover prone and lets his first good or bad play dictate the rest of his performance for the game. His miss of the backboard last night from three was one of the worst bricks we've seen all year. He hasn't earned any sort of trust in the lineup. None of this is to put the kid down, hes a freshman and working hard and he'll be great for us one day. He's not ready yet.


We should have exploited this until they changed up their gameplan.

It's been great all year and why we remain in ALL games.

I don't think we do. We had a coach sell out to take away our 1 and 2 options and beg our 5th offensive option to beat them. It was sufficiently, we didn't hammer it every possession, we should have.

Remember that every option you want to switch up on the offensive end has a corresponding impact to the defensive end keeping us a top 25 team. Polley was getting attacked every possession on ISO when he was in the game. Hawkins get's lost a lot and is foul prone.

Gaffney is the closet thing we have to a change of pace option and god knows he's had his struggles too.


This is subjective and unfair.

What you seem to struggle with, is that offensive is about chemistry and confidence. The starting lineup has not produced in terms of getting us off to transition basketball, instead we get these games no one is in the flow and shoots well. While you don’t acknowledge this, Danny did in his presser by saying the refs should have called more fouls against both teams. I think that comment may haunt Danny down the road - be careful what you ask for!
If you think Tyler was working hard to get open and we had hard screens and cuts executed to do that, we were watching a very different game. I did not see that consistently.

 

[Sonova]

in 2010 JC lost 6 of 7 games decided by 4 points or less. I believe that season ended with all 5 starters on the bench.
in 2005 JC lost 4 of 5 games decided by 4 points or less.

That’s not really the point that the poster was making…I believe both of those teams were young and followed Final Four seasons. Young teams have to learn to win close games. And by the way, they did in later seasons. This is a very veteran squad that hasn’t been able to close the deal consistently for a couple of seasons…

 

[OkaForPrez]

What you seem to struggle with, is that offensive is about chemistry and confidence. The starting lineup has not produced in terms of getting us off to transition basketball, instead we get these games no one is in the flow and shoots well.

I understand the limitations of the offense, but I believe that based on its defensive importance, its our best lineup. I also trust Hurley sees this too. I don't trust most Boneyarders to.

While you don’t acknowledge this, Danny did in his presser by saying the refs should have called more fouls against both teams. I think that comment may haunt Danny down the road - be careful what you ask for!

I do believe that had a lot to do with the game being in the 50s. After Kalkbrenner rolled his ankle there was 5 min of whistles on every paint touch. That era ended when we had 3 offensive rebounds in the paint (martin, Sanogo) and nothing was called.

If you think Tyler was working hard to get open and we had hard screens and cuts executed to do that, we were watching a very different game. I did not see that consistently.

I was watching specifically for it, particularly in the stretch when they were ISO'ing him on D. Encourage you to look again.

 

[OkaForPrez]

That’s not really the point that the poster was making…I believe both of those teams were young and followed Final Four seasons. Young teams have to learn to win close games. And by the way, they did in later seasons. This is a very veteran squad that hasn’t been able to close the deal consistently for a couple of seasons…

Fair. The spirit of the post was that JC with this team would likely do better. I agree. He's a hall of famer and one of the best coaches to ever do it.

Should we have those expectations for Danny?

The Richmond affair, SJU last year and McDermott this year all felt like poor in game coaching. I think we could have done better. We were also two divine intervention 3 pointers away from winning this game. We're 15-5. We've got some quality wins.

I will take the good with the bad.

 

[MexicoHusky]

Fine idea, but i don't think DH has the moves available that you think he does.

He could sit upperclassmen more. Play the young kids more. Which has been discussed a lot. Mostly back in December. But we've seen more of them at this point. They haven't exactly lit it up either. Also, that move would signal an abandonment of the current team and signal that we are now playing to develop next year's squad.

I'm not sure we are there.

 

[GHSWolverines]

I would like to see Polley starting with either Martin or Jackson on the bench. I don't see Hurley not starting Whaley as he is such a big part of our defense, but we need to get more offense early out of our starters. Bringing in Polley and Hawk as a combo for our first subs as is now the case does not help Hawkins. He and Polley should be put in the game at different times. How does RJ ever get a break? Well that question was not answered in the offseason unfortunately.

I am assuming advice.

 

[auror]

What happened to Akok? What did he play, 2 minutes yesterday? If Polly isn't getting open and hitting shots he's not bringing much to the game yet is getting a ton of minutes. I believe his line on the board last night was 2, 1, 1. Why isn't Akok getting more minutes, surely he could produce more than that. The biggest need is a 2nd point guard. Gaffney seems to have regressed. Granted he didn't play alot yesterday but in his few minutes he didn't bring anything on offense. One last question I have is why does Jackson get a pass (no pun intended) for some of the worst passes you will ever see in an organized basketball game. I would love to see the Calhoun quick hook after some of them. There was 1 in particular yesterday where he jumped, got caught in the air, then threw it to the 3rd row on the sideline.

Their Hawkins plays almost exclusively on the perimeter, so there's no reason to use Akok since he'd be away from the basket when he's at the 4. And their other most frequent lineup yesterday had Kaluma at the 4, and he's a mobile strong athlete who likes to face up and drive, and that's not a good matchup for Akok either.

I think we're learning this year that Akok is a 5 and doesn't have a lot of good defensive matchups at the 4. And unfortunately we have 2 better 5s on the roster.

 

[VAHuskyFan]

agreed. aj is the worse 3 pt shooter of the two so it's gotta be him that moves to the bench in favor of polley.

3 Pt Shooting Percentages (2022 Season):

Jackson: 46.9%
Akok: 46.4%
Martin: 42.2%
Cole: 32.7%
Polley: 32.7%
Hawkins: 32.1%
Gaffney: 31.3%
Whaley: 30.3%

 

[bendm]

3 Pt Shooting Percentages (2022 Season):

Jackson: 46.9%
Akok: 46.4%
Martin: 42.2%
Cole: 32.7%
Polley: 32.7%
Hawkins: 32.1%
Gaffney: 31.3%
Whaley: 30.3%

dont throw stats at me. if you watch them play youd rather martin take a 3 over Aj every.single.time.

would you rather akok take a 3 to win the game over cole or polley too lol

 

[Edward Sargent]

I totally agree that even though Sanogo makes the occasional pass out of the post he is still holding the ball too long there and trying to create for himself instead of others. There was one play that he was being triple teamed and Martin was wide open just under the basket and he refused to pass to him for a layup and took an contested shot and missed. We just need him to be smarter with the ball when teams are sagging on him with 2 to 3 guys.

Sanogo has great footwork but it takes time to put that in play. Meanwhile he doesn’t seem to focus on passing out

 

[VAHuskyFan]

dont throw stats at me. if you watch them play youd rather martin take a 3 over Aj every.single.time.

would you rather akok take a 3 to win the game over cole or polley too lol

My point is about Polley. He’s taken 98 threes this year. At this point, he is what his stats say he is. An average at best three-point shooter.

In fact, our TEAM 3-point point percentage is better than Polley’s individual percentage this year. 200+ other D1 teams are also shooting better from three (as teams!) than Polley is.

So, no, I don’t think Polley’s 3-point shooting is a good reason to play him over Jackson.

I think the hope is that, any game now, Polley will “find it” and become a 40% 3-point shooter. But he’s under 35% across the last two seasons on 200+ shots, so we’re way past small sample size time.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Great post Chief00
I feel that Cole, Martin, Hawkins, Whaley and Sanogo should be the starters and/or the go to line-up.
Thats the kind of line up UConn used to dominate with - reminds me a little like that 99 championship team in physical make-up. Hawkins could easily be molded into a Rip type of player. The one big difference is that you don't have a shutdown defensive guard. Martin needs to demand the ball more because he can drive against the bigger guys.
The hedging BS has to stop - UConn gave up at least four 3 pt shots by leaving shooters open in the corner - it also puts our bigs out of position to grab rebounds
Why do you recruit top ranked kids to keep them tied to the bench? This is not a good look for recruitment. All this talk about depth is just that talk - I am sure that kids like Hawkins, Sool and Johnson/Springs would be much more ready to contribute if they had received appreciable playing time earlier in the season rather than watching the starters blow cupcakes out by 40 plus points.
Bad night, bad look, bad karma all around - thank you IW for showing up

Glad I'm not the only one. Guys in chat were blasting Martin and others for giving those up, but the hedge caused it. I would also add, that it adds to our fatigue, needlessly increasing the effort required to defend in this system. It has to go.

I'm not sure what Hurley expects from a bench when guys come in and immediately sit back down. Meanwhile other guys come in, like Polley last night, score no points in extended minutes, don't rebound and don't play defense. Why is that ok, and whatever Hawkins provides isn't ok? Gaffney has actually been playing better, and I wish he would shoot. We could use it. Akok's inability to get in perplexes me given that he doesn't seem to make any mistakes and does the little fundamental things better than most of the team.

 

[OkaForPrez]

Glad I'm not the only one. Guys in chat were blasting Martin and others for giving those up, but the hedge caused it. I would also add, that it adds to our fatigue, needlessly increasing the effort required to defend in this system. It has to go.

I'm not sure what Hurley expects from a bench when guys come in and immediately sit back down. Meanwhile other guys come in, like Polley last night, score no points in extended minutes, don't rebound and don't play defense. Why is that ok, and whatever Hawkins provides isn't ok? Gaffney has actually been playing better, and I wish he would shoot. We could use it. Akok's inability to get in perplexes me given that he doesn't seem to make any mistakes and does the little fundamental things better than most of the team.

The hedge is the reason we have the 3rd best 2pt defense % in the country. We keep the ball out of the paint. Those 4 open threes are the price we pay for that.

 

[F101Voodoo]

in 2010 JC lost 6 of 7 games decided by 4 points or less. I believe that season ended with all 5 starters on the bench.
in 2005 JC lost 4 of 5 games decided by 4 points or less.

Right. It is foolish to claim that this or that would never have happened with Calhoun. I did not recall the years as you did butt I remember those years when UCON was almost good but lost by a few points. That does not make it ok but Calhoun coached during the best of times , the worst of times, and times of close losses.

 

[navery12]

The hedge is the reason we have the 3rd best 2pt defense % in the country. We keep the ball out of the paint. Those 4 open threes are the price we pay for that.

It's insane to me that people don't understand this. And it's the usually smart posters who keep complaining about us hedging too

 

[Rocktheworld]

Shot creation/selection was the absolute worst part of the game. By the end of the first half I thought to myself there hasn’t been one missed shot where I’m like “well at least it was a good/open look”. Jackson was the worst offender but Cole contributed as did Martin.

We got in a little track meet early in that first half and got gassed and I feel like that’s what took our starters out and their bench, who obviously outplayed ours, extended the lead. Then, yes, confidence was low in the second half despite us coming all the way back with great defense.

We normally destroy everyone on the boards (I think a lot of us have been underrating this as to how important it is for our success) and we’re outboarded by like 10; namely we had much fewer second chances despite all the misses.

Those were the three big factors for me

 

[auror]

Glad I'm not the only one. Guys in chat were blasting Martin and others for giving those up, but the hedge caused it. I would also add, that it adds to our fatigue, needlessly increasing the effort required to defend in this system. It has to go.

We gave up 0.92 ppp in a game where the opponents shot >40% from 3. The hedge works. No defense is foolproof and will lead to some advantages or disadvantages, but the hedge does what it does very effectively on the majority of possessions.

 

[Chief00]

Sanogo has great footwork but it takes time to put that in play. Meanwhile he doesn’t seem to focus on passing out

With Sanogo the difference between being 5 feet out or 10 feet out, makes all the difference in the World. I would love to see his shooting statistics between the two zip codes.
There so many schemes or techniques he can use to re-position to get better position without just using just bull like power. Some of that is passing back out and repositioning for another pass to the post. Teammates need to think and trust to execute that.
When he starts at 10 feet, he seems to fall away on his shot too.

 

[businesslawyer]

I don't think I have ever seen a team of players, that one game they can be red hot, and the next 4-5 games ice cold, where they can't even make easy lay ups or simple put backs.
IMO, this team is going nowhere with this type of play...and the new strategy should be to develop the highy touted freshman, because they will be sophmores soon and need some run.

We had a five game winning streak broken last night. Would it really be too much of an imposition on you if we asked nicely if it was o.k. to FOCUS ON WINNING AS MANY DAMN GAMES AS WE CAN THIS YEAR? And worry about next year when our season ends in March?

Thank you for your consideration. You see, as much as we sucked offensively last night, some of us are actually big enough fans where we're not willing to throw a season away on February 2d while we're nationally ranked.

 

[Chief00]

The hedge is the reason we have the 3rd best 2pt defense % in the country. We keep the ball out of the paint. Those 4 open threes are the price we pay for that.

The hedge has led to unnecessary bench time for Sanogo for fouling guards 25 feet from the basket. You keep whistling pass the graveyard - the time for adjustments is now.
True,we will have a winning record but Chief and Danny want UConn MBB level success. The close loses should motivate all involved with the team to find that additional 3-5 points a game. It might mean Tyler driving and being fouled. Andre making the simple pass rather than the risky one or Sanogo passing back out, reposting down lower and getting a second pass for a 3 foot jump hook.

 

[Chief00]

Great post Chief00
I feel that Cole, Martin, Hawkins, Whaley and Sanogo should be the starters and/or the go to line-up.
Thats the kind of line up UConn used to dominate with - reminds me a little like that 99 championship team in physical make-up. Hawkins could easily be molded into a Rip type of player. The one big difference is that you don't have a shutdown defensive guard. Martin needs to demand the ball more because he can drive against the bigger guys.
The hedging BS has to stop - UConn gave up at least four 3 pt shots by leaving shooters open in the corner - it also puts our bigs out of position to grab rebounds
Why do you recruit top ranked kids to keep them tied to the bench? This is not a good look for recruitment. All this talk about depth is just that talk - I am sure that kids like Hawkins, Sool and Johnson/Springs would be much more ready to contribute if they had received appreciable playing time earlier in the season rather than watching the starters blow cupcakes out by 40 plus points.
Bad night, bad look, bad karma all around - thank you IW for showing up

How many coaches say the passed ball travels faster than your feet. Against good teams, with ball movement, the hedging will be exploited for open looks or mismatches. The offense gets the match-ups they want rather than the defense getting their desired match-ups.

 

[OkaForPrez]

Shot creation/selection was the absolute worst part of the game. By the end of the first half I thought to myself there hasn’t been one missed shot where I’m like “well at least it was a good/open look”. Jackson was the worst offender but Cole contributed as did Martin.

We got in a little track meet early in that first half and got gassed and I feel like that’s what took our starters out and their bench, who obviously outplayed ours, extended the lead. Then, yes, confidence was low in the second half despite us coming all the way back with great defense.

We normally destroy everyone on the boards (I think a lot of us have been underrating this as to how important it is for our success) and we’re outboarded by like 10; namely we had much fewer second chances despite all the misses.

Those were the three big factors for me

I agree. We did not respond well when they took away our core action and Jackson was one of the worst offenders. He should never be taking a step back three

The hedge has led to unnecessary bench time for Sanogo for fouling guards 25 feet from the basket. You keep whistling pass the graveyard - the time for adjustments is now.
True,we will have a winning record but Chief and Danny want UConn MBB level success. The close loses should motivate all involved with the team to find that additional 3-5 points a game. It might mean Tyler driving and being fouled. Andre making the simple pass rather than the risky one or Sanogo passing back out, reposting down lower and getting a second pass for a 3 foot jump hook.

I don’t think Sanogo has fouled out of a game this year. On some occasions we’ve lost the last few min of the first half. I agree he’s prone to the cheap one, I disagree it’s come on hedge action.

I also disagree that by stopping that well protect him. If a guard gets down hill and creates contact in the paint he’s still get fouls called on him.

 

[my2cents]

We had a five game winning streak broken last night. Would it really be too much of an imposition on you if we asked nicely if it was o.k. to FOCUS ON WINNING AS MANY DAMN GAMES AS WE CAN THIS YEAR? And worry about next year when our season ends in March?

Thank you for your consideration. You see, as much as we sucked offensively last night, some of us are actually big enough fans where we're not willing to throw a season away on February 2d while we're nationally ranked.

Our bench shot 0% from the floor, and didn't make a basket. Could the recruits sitting there with no playing time have done worse? NOPE...if you think playing the same players with the same issues for the last few years is a winning formula moving forward...so be it.

 

[Ronobro]

Basketball can be a tough game if your team can’t shoot, every other mistake you make gets magnified and your margin for error is small. Too often this UConn team has that problem.

Having said that we really screwed up in that thin margin for error territory. If we didn’t have Cole/Sanogo all season or IW last night, I can’t imagine how disappointing we would be.

Our starting line-up just doesn’t work for us and is responsible for a long list of slow starts. Although, they played terrible today, I would try Polley, Gaffney or Hawkins in the starting line-up, in an effort to shake up rotations that’s have failed us. Pick one and change things up. It is clear that teams are packing the paint and giving us open 3 looks.

Of the starters, Sanogo, our best player, played the least minutes (29). Whatever crazy match-up mythology our staff was seeking backfired. Twice when he was out in the second half they scored on lay-up drives with an unprotected rim. When you let your opponent dictate the match-ups, you generally lose, as we did last night.

Our bench went 0-8 with 2 points from the line. As a team. we shot 29% from the field and 23% from the 3 line. Lots of guys are not in the gym enough. What’s enough? When you have confidence your shot is going in and it does. Until then it’s not enough.

As for Tyler Polley, standing in one corner so that your defender has an opportunity to rest before going on offense - doesn't work. Tyler needs to run off screens, go corner to corner and around loop double screens to the top of the key. Most of all he needs to take the ball to the basket or go for intermediate shots. At 6-9 he can get the ball off but as importantly get to the foul line where he’s actually been consistent. It’s also a way to gain confidence.

Hawkins is in a confidence crisis. Don’t underestimate the extent of the crisis. He is a good, talented kid who wants to do well. But, we need to figure his role out ASAP. Right now Danny obviously views him as someone who will cost you the game rather than win it. Evidence was the abscence of late gane playing time last night.

Whaley had a great game, and whoever did Creighton’s scouting report on UConn, IW should thank too.

What worked well last night? Our on ball defense was actually pretty good and we did not reach in, we played defense with our feet.

We have the best dressed assistant coaches in the Big East. Yet, far too often Chief looks up at the scoreboard half way through the first half and we have something like 13 points. Time to change things, and hope it works. Given our poor shooting everything has a handicap to it, but we need to change the offensive chemistry. I though Tom was very engaged with the players last night sensing defeat as we came out after halftime. I did not detect a sense of urgency across the board. Maybe this is subjective and unfair but that was Chief’s observation.

Whaley definitely had a great game (love IW btw) but I actually thought that was a brilliant move by McDermott. Essentially it allowed them to defend our other 4 guys with 5 people. In the post game interview McDermott conceded that Whaley made them pay, but he still felt like strategy prevented more points than it allowed. I’d agree.