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- Aug 26, 2011
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There are just so many things wrong. To need one stop at 70-69 to seize control of that game and give up an uncontested layup (and I don't care what your personnel was) is staggering. That's just the epitome of softness, be it mentally, physically, whatever. Any team with a pulse at least makes him to go the line to earn it.
The amazing part of that spectacle is that we are somehow going to be distracted from how bad Tulsa is. At least when we played them the first time, they played kind of well. But tonight, as another poster put it, was a pickup game. They basically won that game without extracting a shred of effort on the defensive side of the floor.
Worst defensive team I've ever seen at UConn and a big part of that is that we don't have anybody remotely competent in the front court. Carlton can look decent at times but he's such a liability on defense that he's a net negative. Whaley is good at playing defense but can't do anything else - can't rebound, can't shoot, can't dribble, can't screen...it's just bad.
I think Jalen has gotten a pass. I think he got a pass last season when everybody assumed the seniors were letting him down and I think he's gotten a pass this season. He's not much different now than he was as a freshman and that's a shame. I'm very reluctant to comment on work ethic but look at the trajectory Vital is on comparatively. He hasn't fixed the thing that is maybe the most fixable thing for a player and he's held the team back because of it. The box score might say he played 38 minutes on a given night but a lot of the time that means he played 19. He sat with foul trouble tonight in the first half and still didn't appear to have his legs in the second. Still clearly our best player, still capable of playing like an all-American at times...but for all the things you can pin on Ollie, I tend to hold Jalen responsible for Jalen. My evaluation of his game has little to do with our record. He could be playing for Kansas right now on a top five team and I think a lot of their fans would be saying the same thing. The kid Taplin for Tulsa went 10-12/7-8/3-4 - now I'm not entirely sure how much of that falls on Jalen, but you have to try really hard to give up 30 points to a dude on that level of efficiency. Our guards don't defend, our big's don't defend, the wing players don't typically know what to do. You're starting to see why the defense wasn't that good last year even when 60% of our starting lineup rated out as borderline elite on that end. There's no system, no semblance of any structure or repetitive motion, no coordination...it's a mess. And there is also hardly any talent save for some pieces in Whaley and Diarra who are incredibly raw.
Speaking of Diarra, tonight is basically what you can expect out of him for the remainder of the season. He'll give you something we don't have when he's out there but he's not going to be out there very long. Given Ollie's track record of developing these sorts, I suspect he'll need a new coach to ever amount to anything.
There is very little to be excited about right now with regards to this program, however believe it or not I still enjoy watching the games and I was pleasantly surprised by tonight's crowd. Gampel will always have a little more juice for big games simply because of how intimate the structure is and because of the students, but I think the last couple years has revealed that the true base of the hard-cores resides in Hartford. Perhaps it's a simple matter of it being easier for more people to get to games, but whatever the case I have come to prefer that atmosphere and feel like I associate more with that demographic.
The amazing part of that spectacle is that we are somehow going to be distracted from how bad Tulsa is. At least when we played them the first time, they played kind of well. But tonight, as another poster put it, was a pickup game. They basically won that game without extracting a shred of effort on the defensive side of the floor.
Worst defensive team I've ever seen at UConn and a big part of that is that we don't have anybody remotely competent in the front court. Carlton can look decent at times but he's such a liability on defense that he's a net negative. Whaley is good at playing defense but can't do anything else - can't rebound, can't shoot, can't dribble, can't screen...it's just bad.
I think Jalen has gotten a pass. I think he got a pass last season when everybody assumed the seniors were letting him down and I think he's gotten a pass this season. He's not much different now than he was as a freshman and that's a shame. I'm very reluctant to comment on work ethic but look at the trajectory Vital is on comparatively. He hasn't fixed the thing that is maybe the most fixable thing for a player and he's held the team back because of it. The box score might say he played 38 minutes on a given night but a lot of the time that means he played 19. He sat with foul trouble tonight in the first half and still didn't appear to have his legs in the second. Still clearly our best player, still capable of playing like an all-American at times...but for all the things you can pin on Ollie, I tend to hold Jalen responsible for Jalen. My evaluation of his game has little to do with our record. He could be playing for Kansas right now on a top five team and I think a lot of their fans would be saying the same thing. The kid Taplin for Tulsa went 10-12/7-8/3-4 - now I'm not entirely sure how much of that falls on Jalen, but you have to try really hard to give up 30 points to a dude on that level of efficiency. Our guards don't defend, our big's don't defend, the wing players don't typically know what to do. You're starting to see why the defense wasn't that good last year even when 60% of our starting lineup rated out as borderline elite on that end. There's no system, no semblance of any structure or repetitive motion, no coordination...it's a mess. And there is also hardly any talent save for some pieces in Whaley and Diarra who are incredibly raw.
Speaking of Diarra, tonight is basically what you can expect out of him for the remainder of the season. He'll give you something we don't have when he's out there but he's not going to be out there very long. Given Ollie's track record of developing these sorts, I suspect he'll need a new coach to ever amount to anything.
There is very little to be excited about right now with regards to this program, however believe it or not I still enjoy watching the games and I was pleasantly surprised by tonight's crowd. Gampel will always have a little more juice for big games simply because of how intimate the structure is and because of the students, but I think the last couple years has revealed that the true base of the hard-cores resides in Hartford. Perhaps it's a simple matter of it being easier for more people to get to games, but whatever the case I have come to prefer that atmosphere and feel like I associate more with that demographic.