Sans-Larrier Game planning

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

How do you think the team should look without Terry? I’d love to see what Polley and Diarra can do. These guys have had a non existent leash but have shown flashes and without Larrier I think they should see extended run especially considering its time to play for the future anyways.

Let’s try to play through Carlton a bit. He’s been just about the only bright spot the last couple games. Feeding him the ball should help open up lanes for Vital and Adams. He’s shown a little bit of an ability to pass out of the post. Having a viable post man always makes things easier for everyone else.


As always Go Dogs.

 

[Matrim55]

My guess is Anderson gets Larrier's minutes. Once he gets into foul trouble, Polley will start playing a little bit.

What really matters though is that it'll all look the same as it's looked for the past season-and-a-half: Spread the floor, have Jalen drive 1-v-5, hope he creates something. Give up a ton of offensive boards and 3-pointers, commit bad turnovers, lose.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

I'd love to see KO play a 2-guard offense with a lot of Carlton-Diarra-Whaley-Polley.

But I'm sure what we'll see is more minutes for AA and DO.

 

[jibsey]

I don’t want to see Anderson on the floor. He’s a tiny bad player who can’t shoot. We’re going nowhere so there’s no reason for younger players not to have his minutes.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

I actually typed a whole paragraph about how I’d rather see Noyes on the court than than Anderson but deleted it because I thought it was poor taste. I should have read the room better!

 

[UC990411]

Does this mean Ollie gets another year?

 

[Husk1881]

Anyone have an idea about eric Cobb coming back? Might need his inside presence without larrier

 

[August_West]

I don’t want to see Anderson on the floor. He’s a tiny bad player who can’t shoot. We’re going nowhere so there’s no reason for younger players not to have his minutes.

There is when you see what happens with Jalen as the only handler. Teams will blitz him and we will start our offense at 1/2 court . Unfortunately we don't have a person who can bounce a ball outside of Anderson besides Jalen. And yeah he's bad.

 

[Stinger92860]

Polley needs to play and he needs to shoot. His one stroke from the corner looked the best on the team.

 

[Blaneylover]

Is Polley just not showing anything in practice? He certainly was embarrassed on that drive to the hoop yesterday. He's got to be better than Anderson.

If you were Polley or Diarra, why would you stay? With Larrier out now, I'd like to see Polley take his minutes...ALL OF THEM.

 

[djct1999]

Cancel the games.................blame it on the gov't shutdown.

 

[8893]

Hard liquor is my plan.

 

[Fishy]

The postseason is a vague fantasy right now, so I don’t know why we wouldn’t play the kids as much as possible.

 

[UConnDad]

I'd love to see KO play a 2-guard offense with a lot of Carlton-Diarra-Whaley-Polley.

But I'm sure what we'll see is more minutes for AA and DO.

The more I see Diarra he reminds me of Tacko. His legs don't allow any lateral fluid movement. He's likely to wind up on his Butt.

 

[Cheddie]

The postseason is a vague fantasy right now, so I don’t know why we wouldn’t play the kids as much as possible.

That would mean conceding the season; Ollie will cling to the hope of turning things around, winning the conference tournament, etc. until it's time to shut the doors @ Gampel for the summer.

 

[Blaneylover]

The postseason is a vague fantasy right now, so I don’t know why we wouldn’t play the kids as much as possible.

Agreed. What is the aversion to Polley and Diarra which leaves us with DO and Anderson?

 

[FfldCntyFan]

One reality is that even though he was on the court for most of it, we were without Larrier for the first half of yesterday's game as well.

For openers, for the 80 minutes per game at the four & five spots, I would give Carlton, Whalley & Diarra ~25 minutes each and let Onuorah fill in the remainder. They all do some nice things and each needs considerable experience and two could add some muscle.

Some on this board (who may have far more inside info than I) have claimed there was far more to it than this but a large part of why we lost Enoch and Durham was that instead of giving them minutes, to take their lumps, to work through mistakes, KO kept Brimah and Facey on the court for the bulk of the big minutes (my guess is that it was in an attempt to pull out a winning record for the season).

I'm not absolving KO of the mess that we are in. I do however realize that we are where we are and regardless of who is in charge next year, the best thing that can be done in season, for the remainder of this season is to give those three kids (Carlton, Whalley & Diarra) enough run to learn and develop.

 

[WestHartHusk]

Just for a baseline, what was our "avec Larrier" game plan?

 

[UConnDan97]

I agree about playing through Carlton a bit on the offensive side. We need any inside presence we can muster to take pressure off of Jalen.

On the defensive side, we've got to take Shake Milton out of his game. Easier said than done. The dude is a 6'6" guard, so I don't know if Anderson is going to draw the defensive assignment in man-to-man defense. In the 2-3 zone, Jalen has been playing the wing spot recently so maybe we'll try to put some length at the top.

Hoping for the best on Thursday...

 

[Jaker]

Play everyone including the walk-ons, heck maybe one of the walk-ons can throw it in the ocean

 

[Danzz]

Polley needs to play and he needs to shoot. His one stroke from the corner looked the best on the team.

I have been saying all year that Polly has a nice stroke. Unfortunately he hasn't made many yet and his PT hasn't been much. The kid needs to get PT and allowed to play through some mistakes. He also gets us out of a 3 guard lineup which has killed us on the boards.
We still need to play Anderson some to allow Jalen to play off the ball. We are asking Jalen to do too much and that has to change. Also like the idea of getting Carlton more touches to open up the outside. It is as simple as taking better outside shots to improve our shooting.

 

[Dogdeacon]

IF the kids play and the win now mentality goes away it could mean Ollie feels secure in his job.

Although I don't think anyone involved in UConn basketball has recently done anything more than trying to put out fires so forward looking decision making might be a pipe dream regardless of coaching status.

 

[UConnStats]

SMU shoots a ton of 3s and hits them at a great clip. UConn gives up a ton of 3PA and isn’t great at stopping teams from hitting them. SMU is a matchup nightmare not too unlike Nova.

Like others have said, play the kids. Let Polley, Whaley, Vital and Carlton get as much burn as possible.