Seriously...

[Walker11]

No one is celebrating this loss and no one is happy we lost by 18 but if you couldn't see signs of improvement today, find a new sport.

You don't go from being a bad team, which Uconn has been for a stretch, to a good team overnight. I don't know if this team will even end up being good by the end of the year but there were definitely positives from this game which give us fans some reason to look forward to the rest of the season.

The main weakness of this team is zone offense. Cuse has arguably the best zone in the country. Our offense at times looked very good today against this great D, better than it has looked against any other team who predominantly plays man and scrapes up some zone D a few days before our matchup (when was the last time a team played man against us, Cinci? I think that may be the only man we have seen in the BE). If the team can play well against a zone D like this, it bodes well for the future games against teams employing junk zones.

Shabazz has been in a coma for as long as I can remember and showed clear signs of life today. He played very smart (disregarding that horrendous bounce pass to Drummond) and for the team to make any damage in March, Bazz needs to be good. This is a positive.

Drummond seemed to finally realize that if he post up really hard close to the hoop he can simply catch and dunk. This is a positive.

Harp on D all you want - and this time has struggled all year to get key stops - but the team defense is still top 5 in the country in Field Goal % defense.

 

[champs99and04]

When you guys finally get through your head that uconn isnt good this year, then you wont have trouble with these loses. Get it through your heads. THEY ARE NOT A GOOD TEAM THIS YEAR. They played well today and hung with the #2 team in the country for 36 minutes. I'm proud of them.

Exactly. This game confirms what we knew going in: This is a bubble team.

It was a very deflating game, through and through. It really seemed like Cuse would just *k with UConn, and then whenever it got close, they would flip the switch and go on a 9-0 run. Really, it sucks to watch UConn put together a methodical 8-2, 6-1 run to get in it, and then in a matter of two minutes, Syracuse has stretched the lead back to double digits. On a good day UConn has four guys who can hurt you (Drummond, Boatright, Lamb, Napier) and usually at least one of them is off. Cuse has Melo, Joseph, Triche, Jardine, Fair, and Waiters who are all capable of getting you twenty points a night. There were clearly matchup problems all over the court, so although Cuse won't shoot 60% every game, I'm not sure they were playing out of their minds either.

UConn executed on offense for the most part, played hard, and they still lost by 20 points. Definitely deflating.

 

[champs99and04]

Anyone who is mad about this game is an idiot.

It would be just as easy to say anybody who is happy about this game is an idiot. Yeah, Cuse played well. Does that mean we shouldn't be upset with not finishing the job and allowing them to score whenever they needed a basket? This team has been attrocius guarding the three point line all year long.

 

[Walker11]

It was a very deflating game, through and through. It really seemed like Cuse would just *k with UConn, and then whenever it got close, they would flip the switch and go on a 9-0 run.

Today it wasn't so much of Cuse toying with us, it was basically that they answered every single run of ours with multiple daggers 3's, made by mediocre 3 point shooters which was really, really frustrating. Jardine, Joseph and Waiters are all very streaky shooters and they made every single attempt to stop a run of ours.

 

[Northbound]

SU is just better and deeper. It happens. Am I happy that the final was what it was, god no, but the fight from the team was what caused me to smile. I felt it would have been easy to fold up the tents any number of times and they didn't do it, they nutted up and pushed back. That alone is a big improvement.