Shabazz's defense in the Georgetown game.

[ctchamps]

I'm not sure I understand the criticism of Shabazz's defense in this game. Before Shabazz came into the game the primary scorer for Georgetown was Jason Clark. He scored 7 of the first 9 points for Georgetown and went 4-5 while Ryan was guarding him.

Shabazz took over the role of guarding Jason and the remainder of the game Jason went 1-4 and scored only 4 additional points.

The only player on UConn who played defense better than Shabazz was Roscoe in this game and that is even debatable. The rest of the team is where the problem existed.

NG, DD and JL were totally incapable of defending Hollis Thompson who went 7-15 on them. And AD and AO were poor defensively on Henry Sims who went 4-10 from the field but 5-6 from the foul line.

 

[freescooter]

Personally, I think Napier is getting a bit of a bad rap for lots of things. Yes he holds the ball too long sometimes, but often it looks like Drummond and Oriaki in particular are being held in place by some outside force. When nobody else moves, nobody sets hard picks, and nobody seems to even try to get open, it isn't exactly like the ball handler has lots of options. As far as defense, I agree that none of our bigs could handle their bigs. And this too has been an ongoing problem. and it looked like Lamb decided early on that he would simply take the night off from playing defense. didn't even seem like he was trying to cover Thompson. I htink napier has made some mistakes this year, and at times tried to be too aggressive going for steals, but Georgetown wasn't on eof those occassions.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

It's the lazy plays he makes frequently on defense. That reach around poke that only every ends in a foul or an easy drive to the basket. There were a number of times during the game he did that and either allowed a drive (a couple, one of the bigs stepped up and left someone wide open down low) or one where he fouled the guy. People are going to jump on him for that and because the offense looked competent when Boatright was running the show.

 

[UChusky916]

I feel like the opinions on the board could be similar to the opinions and feelings in the locker room. Everyone thinks that someone else is at fault. Everyone blames someone else, even though no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes.

There's probably frustration from AO thinking hes not getting the ball enough from Shabazz and that he's selfish. Shabazz is probably frustrated because he feels he can't get the leadership of the team and that the bigs are turning the ball over/not setting screens/etc. And the blame cycle goes on and on.

Fact is, the team needs to just put all of the emotions aside, go out, and have FUN and play basketball. I really think that's what's been missing the most from this team, no one seems to be having fun. Last year, all Kemba had to do was flash a smile and you knew how much he loved the game. Kemba's attitude was infectious with the rest of the team. We're lacking that presence on the team this year. I'm not ENJOYING games as much this year and the kids dont look like they're enjoying themselves either.

These kids have too much going on in their heads. Go out, have fun, play basketball, and everything else will work itself out.

 

[art4life]

I feel like the opinions on the board could be similar to the opinions and feelings in the locker room. Everyone thinks that someone else is at fault. Everyone blames someone else, even though no one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes.

There's probably frustration from AO thinking hes not getting the ball enough from Shabazz and that he's selfish. Shabazz is probably frustrated because he feels he can't get the leadership of the team and that the bigs are turning the ball over/not setting screens/etc. And the blame cycle goes on and on.

Fact is, the team needs to just put all of the emotions aside, go out, and have FUN and play basketball. I really think that's what's been missing the most from this team, no one seems to be having fun. Last year, all Kemba had to do was flash a smile and you knew how much he loved the game. Kemba's attitude was infectious with the rest of the team. We're lacking that presence on the team this year. I'm not ENJOYING games as much this year and the kids dont look like they're enjoying themselves either.

These kids have too much going on in their heads. Go out, have fun, play basketball, and everything else will work itself out.

I agree w/ this 100%. Too much finger pointing and passing the blame.
They need to stop over-thinking, just play the game and have some fun.

 

[champs99and04]

Anybody else think Lamb's defense has just been horrendous this season? Seems like the elephant in the room. I just feel like his man can take him off the dribble whenever he wants. NBA scouts have to be taking note of this.

 

[DogMania]

I agree w/ this 100%. Too much finger pointing and passing the blame.
They need to stop over-thinking, just play the game and have some fun.

This might be the wisest thing I've read on the Yard today. This team dosn't look like they're having much fun at all. They need to play with more passion, fun and more instinctively.

 

[Kitaman]

This might be the wisest thing I've read on the Yard today. This team dosn't look like they're having much fun at all. They need to play with more passion, fun and more instinctively.

I'd add a little confidence and cockiness too, same as that which was displayed in Maui and the Tourney last year. That may take some winning to get there but the vets (along with RB and AD) have it in them.

 

[huskyharry]

The Boneyard has to take some of the blame for SN's reach-in happiness...we took joy in proclaiming him the "reach-around bandit".
Unfortunately, as pointed out above. It is not just Shabazz. JLamb has also been very poor on the defensive end and AD has gotten into the bad habit as well of giving up good defensive position and reaching in for a stupid foul or allowing his opponent to drive by him to the basket. On multiple occasions in the last 4 games, one of these three will reach in or gamble foolishly for in an attempt to steal a pass, often near the end of the shot clock after the team has played good defense for 30 seconds on the shot clock....this led to backdoor layups against G'town and open threes against ND.

The thing that blows my mind, in interviews, the players seem to absolutely have no idea what is going wrong. I can't imagine that the coaching staff is not pointing out these egregious defensive errors...so why do the players have no idea what is going wrong?

 

[DogMania]

The Boneyard has to take some of the blame for SN's reach-in happiness...we took joy in proclaiming him the "reach-around bandit".
Unfortunately, as pointed out above. It is not just Shabazz. JLamb has also been very poor on the defensive end and AD has gotten into the bad habit as well of giving up good defensive position and reaching in for a stupid foul or allowing his opponent to drive by him to the basket. On multiple occasions in the last 4 games, one of these three will reach in or gamble foolishly for in an attempt to steal a pass, often near the end of the shot clock after the team has played good defense for 30 seconds on the shot clock....this led to backdoor layups against G'town and open threes against ND.

The thing that blows my mind, in interviews, the players seem to absolutely have no idea what is going wrong. I can't imagine that the coaching staff is not pointing out these egregious defensive errors...so why do the players have no idea what is going wrong?

You know they gave up just 50 and 58 points the past couple games and if the GU game didn't get out of hand, that 58 would have been smaller.

They've been overall very good defensively with some bad lapses at the worst moments. I do agree that Bazz in particular had a very strange/bad all around game, especially on D against GU. I was watching him closely and he looked very slow and weak. I realize he's not a big guy, but I still think somethings wrong with him. He looks more fatigued than injured, but it might be both. Part of it was he seemed to play too far off his man and get caught up in traffic and not able to battle through it to get back to his man.

This might sound like a contradiction, but the points don't tell the whole story. They are giving up a lot of offensive rebounds and 2nd chances mainly because our perimeter players are getting beat, forcing our bigs to step up and stop the ball. Now I don't know if part of the problem is our bigs over committing to stop the ball and not getting back into good rebounding or post defensive position. It's probably both.

I hadn't thought about this before, but I wonder if our bigs are going too far toward the foul line to help-out and stop the dribble penetration. Maybe they have to because that's where the screens are being set and/or the breakdowns are taking place, but I wonder if it would be better to close in on the drivers a tad closer to the basket so that they could either draw the charge or at least be in better defensive and rebounding position. Probably a stupid idea, but it just seems teams are able to pull AD and Alex out of position quite a bit and are getting a ton of offensive rebounds.

 

[Waquoit]

This might be the wisest thing I've read on the Yard today. This team dosn't look like they're having much fun at all. They need to play with more passion, fun and more instinctively.

Fun comes from winning. Fun comes from playing hard while your teammates are doing the same. I'm not seeing the effort I saw late last year. Let's pick-up the effort first and the fun will follow.

 

[champs99and04]

I find it funny that every time the team goes on a slump somebody proclaims that they need to "start having fun again", when the amount of "fun" likely depends on the win/loss column.