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Was fortunate enough to be able to go to the Memphis game sitting close to the court. I love going to the home games and its always amazing how much more you see live on the court both when the game clock is running and when the play clock is stopped.
Thought I'd share some observations that may not have been captured on tv:
1) When Jalen had the ball with under a minute left and ended up turning the ball over, he was clearly upset with himself. I mean everyone was pretty disappointed, but one man who was not was KO. During the ensuing Memphis timeout, KO stormed to mid-court not to chastise him but to lend him support and encouragement, the rest of the players followed him out there too. Very much like a shepherd leading his flock. He met Jalen at mid-court and encouraged him, and Jalen put his arm around him to lean on him. Beautiful moment. The bond between the players and coaches is really based on love and loyalty, and that is pretty special...that is very UConn.
2) After Vital's break away dunk, Memphis had 20 + seconds to tie the game. The Memphis players brought up the ball, and the crowd got very loud, so loud that the Memphis players could not hear or see Tubby yelling for a timeout. The crowd helped take off nearly 10 seconds of game time before Memphis called timeout. Its moments like those that a home crowd really becomes a factor. Not a full house on Thursday but nonetheless an electric crowd.
3) This is not in chronological order, but late in the game Jalen was bringing the ball up to call a timeout, and was staring at the ref yelling "timeout, timeout" and for some reason the ref just would not blow his whistle. A Memphis player nearly stole the ball before the ref ultimately did call a timeout, but Jalen was pretty upset. The ref then tried to stare down Adams and walked after him, after Jalen was walking away from him, as though looking for a confrontation. Completely immature and unprofessional. The AAC/SEC pool of refs are arguably the worst. In the same game the refs didn't call an injury timeout when Adams and Vital were practically lying motionless on the floor for several seconds, they didn't call an injury timeout until KO had to yell at them for several seconds to make them realize his guys were injured.
Thought I'd share some observations that may not have been captured on tv:
1) When Jalen had the ball with under a minute left and ended up turning the ball over, he was clearly upset with himself. I mean everyone was pretty disappointed, but one man who was not was KO. During the ensuing Memphis timeout, KO stormed to mid-court not to chastise him but to lend him support and encouragement, the rest of the players followed him out there too. Very much like a shepherd leading his flock. He met Jalen at mid-court and encouraged him, and Jalen put his arm around him to lean on him. Beautiful moment. The bond between the players and coaches is really based on love and loyalty, and that is pretty special...that is very UConn.
2) After Vital's break away dunk, Memphis had 20 + seconds to tie the game. The Memphis players brought up the ball, and the crowd got very loud, so loud that the Memphis players could not hear or see Tubby yelling for a timeout. The crowd helped take off nearly 10 seconds of game time before Memphis called timeout. Its moments like those that a home crowd really becomes a factor. Not a full house on Thursday but nonetheless an electric crowd.
3) This is not in chronological order, but late in the game Jalen was bringing the ball up to call a timeout, and was staring at the ref yelling "timeout, timeout" and for some reason the ref just would not blow his whistle. A Memphis player nearly stole the ball before the ref ultimately did call a timeout, but Jalen was pretty upset. The ref then tried to stare down Adams and walked after him, after Jalen was walking away from him, as though looking for a confrontation. Completely immature and unprofessional. The AAC/SEC pool of refs are arguably the worst. In the same game the refs didn't call an injury timeout when Adams and Vital were practically lying motionless on the floor for several seconds, they didn't call an injury timeout until KO had to yell at them for several seconds to make them realize his guys were injured.
