St. John's Post Game Thread | Page 22 | The Boneyard

St. John's Post Game Thread

Donyell 360 said:
SJU outscored UConn 13-1 during the 4 minutes that Malachi Smith played. Demary can't play 40 minutes and be effective late. We need someone to give him a rest.
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I'm rewatching the game now and very little was Malachi's fault during his first stint on the floor.

The first possession with him on the floor was a nice setup to Solo Ball who missed an open three.

The second trip on the floor was leading some solid offense where Karaban missed an open three from the top of the key.

The third possession, they set up Reed in the paint who made a nice move and missed a bank shot that he should have converted, but was sent to the line where he made just one of two.

The fourth position he made a nice drive through the paint and missed a layup that he should have converted. I realize that he has often done a nice job of getting to the basket where his layups have been erased before the ball even hits the backboard, but that wasn't the case this time. That did happen to him during the latter part of the game.

During the next possession, UConn had a nice defensive stop, but then Reed took forever to throw the outlet pass which he almost air mailed over Smith's head. He did a great job of catching and keeping it inbounds. He did get it knocked out from behind as he was about to drive the ball into the paint. I noticed Hurley was jumping up and down and yelling for them to push the ball up court. Maybe it would have been better for Smith to slow the game down and gather the team, but that's not what Hurley was asking.

Malachi, then prevented a sure layup resulting in a 2 shot foul.

If his teammates had done their jobs and if he had made his layup (it wasn't like any of his teammates were getting themselves to the basket as easily as he did) no one would be talking about him being unplayable. He actually did his part, but when you're a bench player where there are just a handful of trips up and down the floor, when things don't go right it just seems to look worse than it was. How many times have we seen some of our more reliable players or starters start a game off missing their first four to five shots but end up with the solid stat line in the end and we don't seem to make a big deal about any of their bad stretches on the floor.

When will the Boneyard spend more time rooting for all our players instead of wanting them benched for some other reserve player that would likely do worse, or wish they had not been recruited at all.

I realize the bench has struggled a lot, and they need to get more out of them on a consistent basis. One thing that might help is putting one or two at most bench players in the game with at least 3 to 4 starters instead of what looks like a wholesale line change. Too often Malachi is on the floor with not enough playmakers to support him. With that said, whoever's on the floor including Malachi need to execute, something that hasn't happened enough lately.
 
Ball can be too sticky with Malachi. It is what it is. He's our backup point guard and not responsible for what happened last night.

We do some fundamentally dumb stuff. The turnover rate is an issue. Fouls are a huge issue - forget complaining about the refs. We've taken 100 fewer free throws this year than our opponents which I am guessing in an outlier among top ten teams. (I have not checked.) It's not that the refs hate us, it's that we foul way, way too much. If you think the teams were playing are not being called often enough, I promise you that we're committing more than we're called for as well.

I'd like to see Hurley split up the AK-Ball-Braylon trio more often. Throw Ball into the mix with Malachi, etc., while Stewart gets a little more time with AK and Braylon.
 
Watching the game again, there was a stretch in the first half from the 7:21 (Pitino called a timely TO) - 3:08 mark where UConn could have blown the game open. They executed well on a few of the possessions but ended up turning the ball over (Reed & Stewart) or missing an off balanced shot (Reed), there were other empty trips, finally ending with that horrible strip on Silas that resulted in a layup.

I couldn't help wonder why Hurley didn't call a time out sometime within that stretch of the game, to give them some needed rest and draw up an offensive set since they were showing signs of the wheels starting to fall off.

Patino was masterful with how he used his timeouts. Hurley, not so much. There were so many things that UConn did poorly throughout the game (missing free throws, turning the ball over, giving up too many second chance opportunities, etc.) where the accumulation of all those things were too much to overcome. There's so much about that game that they are capable of cleaning up and turn the tables on St John's when they meet up again at the end of the month.
 
DogMania said:
Watching the game again, there was a stretch in the first half from the 7:21 (Pitino called a timely TO) - 3:08 mark where UConn could have blown the game open. They executed well on a few of the possessions but ended up turning the ball over (Reed & Stewart) or missing an off balanced shot (Reed), there were other empty trips, finally ending with that horrible strip on Silas that resulted in a layup.

I couldn't help wonder why Hurley didn't call a time out sometime within that stretch of the game, to give them some needed rest and draw up an offensive set since they were showing signs of the wheels starting to fall off.

Patino was masterful with how he used his timeouts. Hurley, not so much. There were so many things that UConn did poorly throughout the game (missing free throws, turning the ball over, giving up too many second chance opportunities, etc.) where the accumulation of all those things were too much to overcome. There's so much about that game that they are capable of cleaning up and turn the tables on St John's when they meet up again at the end of the month.
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Hurley is such a creature of habit that it winds up being a negative at times. Your point about when to use the first half timeout was spot on. Dan usually uses it under 2 minutes. He loves his mass substitutions and struggles to mix in subs with the starters. I like Reibe withe the other starters but he had those 2 early first half fouls and we had way more Tarris who was not playing well.
 
jdb50 said:
Hurley is such a creature of habit that it winds up being a negative at times. Your point about when to use the first half timeout was spot on. Dan usually uses it under 2 minutes. He loves his mass substitutions and struggles to mix in subs with the starters. I like Reibe withe the other starters but he had those 2 early first half fouls and we had way more Tarris who was not playing well.
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Creature of habit, superstition and emotions.

Only non negative nets last night were Tarris, Silas and Ross. Probably could have used more Ross last night.

Smith was a -12 in very limited minutes.
 
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Huskie5life said:
They've improved significantly IMO. Keep in mind, they only returned a single starter from last year (Zuby) it's a team full of transfers. Chemistry takes a while. Keep in mind, they also played Michigan in an exhibition game before the season and only lost by 2...in OT.
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Michigan lost to Cincinnati in an exhibition, they mean nothing
 
ucp990411 said:
Please stop. We had ONE turnover inbounding the ball. Did you watch the game?
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Might already been posted, but we had two inbounding turnovers, and I think they were both by Demary. One was on our defensive end of the court and the other was on the offensive end of the court, both from the baseline.
 
Drfla said:
How can Mullins go off. He starts hot and somehow nobody looks for him when he’s hot. 3-3 in the first half. We should have gotten him more shots. Our own team shuts him down more than the opponents.

And he has to get more aggressive. The little fade in the lane over Ejifor was beautiful. Why doesn’t he do that more. I think as a freshman, he is too concerned with fitting in.
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SJU did a very good job of not allowing Mullins get open. He was blanketed heavily after his hot start. Granted there was some grabbing going on, but I think Hurley can run more high screens between him, ball or Karavan. They did it once. I can't remember which of those three knocked down the 3 ptr. St John's has a lot of size on the perimeter and often switched on those players. But there were a few times where their switching didn't go smoothly and one of them got open. Mullins doesn't need a lot of room to get that three off, so I think they would benefit from practicing some simple two-player isolation to give him a little room to get more threes off. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my thought.
 
Drfla said:
How can Mullins go off. He starts hot and somehow nobody looks for him when he’s hot. 3-3 in the first half. We should have gotten him more shots. Our own team shuts him down more than the opponents.

And he has to get more aggressive. The little fade in the lane over Ejifor was beautiful. Why doesn’t he do that more. I think as a freshman, he is too concerned with fitting in.
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This is part of why I think they need to have some rotations where he and Solo are not on the floor together. Get another bigger body out there with them.
 
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I really don’t believe in player +\- as with Malachi three players missed shots he would have also had assists on. And who scored fo St. Johns when Smith was in?

Until they furthers the analysis for that stat everyone is collateral damage to one bad play.
 
Fishy said:
... forget complaining about the refs. We've taken 100 fewer free throws this year than our opponents which I am guessing in an outlier among top ten teams. (I have not checked.) It's not that the refs hate us, it's that we foul way, way too much. If you think the teams were playing are not being called often enough, I promise you that we're committing more than we're called for as well.
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Wait, the refs are not the problem? Yet they miss calling all the many extra fouls we commit. OK that makes sense.
 
sdglast said:
I think everyone is rooting for Solo, he is a good kid, but we have to face facts....All he has shown he can do is shoot the 3. Not a good ball handler, not a great passer, bad rebounder, struggles to defend, and refuses to put the ball on the deck and attack the rim. He's an average player right now and plays poorly in big games. He needs to get tougher and play tougher.
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He's hit some nice midrange shots this season and has also executed some nice entry passes. His block was big time. He's more versatile than he's given credit for. Though time and room to grow.
 
Duke losing helps with the race for the #1 seed in the East. If UConn keeps winning, it's there for the taking
 
sdglast said:
I think everyone is rooting for Solo, he is a good kid, but we have to face facts....All he has shown he can do is shoot the 3. Not a good ball handler, not a great passer, bad rebounder, struggles to defend, and refuses to put the ball on the deck and attack the rim. He's an average player right now and plays poorly in big games. He needs to get tougher and play tougher.
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I think he’s actually improved on a number of fronts.

Unfortunately, the three pointer has abandoned him. If he were merely shooting at the same rate as last season, he’d be average just under 18ppg and the conversation around him would be entirely different.
 
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Fishy said:
I think if we win the BET, and assuming nothing stupid happens, we get the one seed.
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It seems the tournament committee predetermines the #1 seeds prior to Sat finals. This means its important to get to BET final and need to beat SJU on 2-25. Not losing from now would be my path of choice.
 
jdb50 said:
Hurley is such a creature of habit that it winds up being a negative at times. Your point about when to use the first half timeout was spot on. Dan usually uses it under 2 minutes. He loves his mass substitutions and struggles to mix in subs with the starters. I like Reibe withe the other starters but he had those 2 early first half fouls and we had way more Tarris who was not playing well.
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Good point. Maybe too much time obsessed with the refs to think about other combinations/and tactics including personnel changes. He made a comment to a reporter in the aftergame presser about getting fined for commenting on officials. His response was "would you like to pay the fine if I do?"

He is trying to stand up for his team so I get that but when all of your vision is staring at refs, making faces and other antics you are preoccupied with that while the game is going on. He actually was a lot more calm last night. The enemy is the opposing team and staff, not the refs.

BTW, leave it to St John's to bring in those two air assisted distractions painted red normally used for street advertising (usually like for something such as car washes or tax return preparation). That is over the top when trying to shoot free throws. I hope the league does something about that.
 
Tyler2Rings said:
No way. I've never been a huge fan of Gus but last night was noticably bad. Wondering who an out of bounds was off when the call was a foul, saying Tarris had 3 fouls when it was 2, saying Alex had fouled out as he inbounds it. We didn't even get Raf who usually makes it tolerable
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Fanta sounds like a HS announcer. The voice, the corny/cliched lines. It’s painful. Donny, right now, is still talking about Seattle and himself to any person who will listen.

Gus is awful. Now. He was very good back in the day, imo.
 
WeAreUCONN said:
We aren’t a top 5 team. Can’t rebound, can’t hit free throws, can’t defend, can’t beat pressure. Smith was unplayable forcing Silas to get worn down by the end. We shot well but were terrible at everything else. The elite 8 is the ceiling for the team.
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Time for you to go back to your fav team Dook. Oh no! They lost to UNC tonight.
 
DogMania said:
Might already been posted, but we had two inbounding turnovers, and I think they were both by Demary. One was on our defensive end of the court and the other was on the offensive end of the court, both from the baseline.
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The turnover near the end of the game Silas grabbed the ball after the St Johns make and when he looked to inbound none of our players ran to him. It was like the team had a brainfart. He had almost no option to inbound to.
 
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Fishy said:
Ball can be too sticky with Malachi. It is what it is. He's our backup point guard and not responsible for what happened last night.

We do some fundamentally dumb stuff. The turnover rate is an issue. Fouls are a huge issue - forget complaining about the refs. We've taken 100 fewer free throws this year than our opponents which I am guessing in an outlier among top ten teams. (I have not checked.) It's not that the refs hate us, it's that we foul way, way too much. If you think the teams were playing are not being called often enough, I promise you that we're committing more than we're called for as well.

I'd like to see Hurley split up the AK-Ball-Braylon trio more often. Throw Ball into the mix with Malachi, etc., while Stewart gets a little more time with AK and Braylon.
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This makes a ton of sense for 2 reasons:
1) Ball is not competing with Braylon for open shots - different lines
2) Ball looks like he is capable of breaking the press and bringing the ball up the court when Malachi is pressured. Silas doesn't need such help but maybe Smitty does.

ok a third reason is Stewie brings some size and athleticism to the starting lineup.
 
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