Thoughts on the last three and what to expect this week | The Boneyard

Thoughts on the last three and what to expect this week

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I never in a million years would have anticipated typing these words, but first place will be on the line when UConn travels to Oklahoma Tuesday night for a match-up with – and it’s important we get this right – the Golden Hurricane of Tulsa. And believe it or not, I’m actually pretty excited. How will the team handle the challenge of playing a game in the middle of nowhere against an unglamorous program that will be treating this as their Super Bowl? And they’re not a bad team, either. They sit at #67 on Kenpom and rank 38th in RPI. It’s fair to expect UConn to be favored, but not by much; it’s the sort of game novice gamblers will look at and take UConn. That’s always dangerous.

But aside from Tulsa being a good litmus test for where this team currently stands, I’m more interested in trying to make sense of the previous three games. When Dorian Finney-Smith hit a three – the product of yet another botched ball screen coverage – to extend the Gator lead to 52-41 with just over 11 minutes remaining, Kevin Ollie called a timeout. Since that time, UConn has been a completely different team, outscoring opponents 142 to 107 over roughly 91 minutes of game action.

Most of this transformation has occurred on the defensive side of the ball. Over those 91 minutes, the Huskies have held opponents to just 36% shooting and 47 points per 40 minutes. This is admittedly a small sample, and given UConn has been stout defensively all season, it’s quite possible that this latest surge is just statistical variance. But there’s also a chance that this defense is decidedly better than it was two weeks ago, and my anecdotal observations confirm that, if nothing else, their general approach is a bit different.

As I said before the season and will continue to say until the day he takes off the jersey for the final time, everything on that end starts and finishes with Amida Brimah. The first half – really, the first 30 minutes – was evidence enough that when teams are able to negate his impact, the defense as a whole suffers tremendously. Credit Florida for involving Brimah in a lot of side ball screens and otherwise exploring whatever means possible to confuse him (when the ball did reach the middle of the floor, their guards were well-schooled enough to look for the drop-off pass). Watching live, I couldn’t tell whether Brimah was inadvertently angling himself out of the play or if our game plan was just bad, but I can’t imagine Ollie wanted Brimah awkwardly flailing around the perimeter like he was for most of that game.

Luckily, @tcf15 (I also should thank @gampelcrazies for always putting the full games up) has compiled a nine minute video of all of UConn’s defensive highlights in the second half, so you can see for yourself, in a time-convenient manner, how this begins to change. The schemes become noticeably more conservative, with Brimah dropping into the paint on ball screens rather than hedging at the top of the key and forcing them to give it up (this had been burning us earlier, because the rotations were off and Florida’s guards were finding wide open shooters). This adjustment, or if you prefer, an impassioned re-commitment to customary defensive principles, may prove to be a season-defining move, not only because it suits our personnel, but also because it works damn well at this level of basketball.



As you can see above, the guard defending the ball screen has been instructed by Ollie and his staff to fight over the screen and then chase the ball-handler down from behind. Essentially, this yields a brief 1 on 1 between the guard and Brimah, but most college guards simply aren’t equipped to handle those situations and panic (you can see this at the seven second mark as Eli Carter fires the ball out of bounds). Note that Hamilton has pinched down to take away the roll man, but is still close enough to close out on Frazier on the right wing. This can be exploited by guards who are composed enough to string perfect bounce passes to the roller, but there aren’t many of those guys around. The window is a very narrow one, and if Brimah wanted to take an additional step back and eliminate the roll man entirely, he could still probably retreat back to the shooter in time to block his shot. Calhoun does a great job of chasing down Devin Robinson about 2:44 into the video.

Why not just attack somebody else in the pick-and-roll instead of banging your head up against a wall? Well, teams have tried that, but it’s difficult to make headway with that strategy when UConn employs such a switch-friendly lineup, particularly at the end of games. People may have thought I was crazy at the beginning of the season when I compared Terrence Samuel to Chauncey Billups defensively, but here is why he’s so valuable: look at he and Hamilton defend a ball screen at about the 1:09 mark in the video. They switch the screen and Samuel denies Finney-Smith’s post-up and forces him to kick the ball back out (this possession doesn’t end well, but Samuel is not the culprit).

Obviously you don’t want Samuel guarding Finney-Smith on every possession, but he can do it in spurts at the end of the shot clock, and everybody else on the floor is similarly versatile. Facey has gotten much better defending in space, and the Purvis/Hamilton combo have proved quick enough to guard smaller players.
This defense is still imperfect, but most teams are simply going to have a bad time against them, especially those without a pick-and-pop option that can pull Brimah away from the basket (even then, Ollie has shown that he will attempt to shield Brimah from those sorts and allow him to roam). But for all of Brimah’s virtues, he’s still not a particularly good post defender, and conservative pick-and-roll principles that invite dribble penetration are prone to yielding put backs in higher frequency than I’m sure Ollie would like. Still: in a sport dominated by pick-and-rolls, UConn has a lot of guys who are good at defending it. That gives you a big head start, and I get the sense that our currently ranked 14th adjusted defense is only scratching the surface of its potential.

On the other end, things are looking up. They are still going to have stretches – and probably will for the rest of the season – like they did against South Florida where they score four points in eight minutes, but overall, the execution in the half-court has been much better, and I’d be willing to wager that Omar’s steady uptick in minutes has helped that a lot. Purvis and Calhoun have been giving opposing defenses headaches with their constant movement off the ball; they are both good three point shooters, but more than anything, I think we are setting better screens now than we were. The timing and execution is far better, to the point that screens are being set in perfect unison with the arrival of the ball.

I mentioned before that Brimah’s roll through the lane is an underrated component of our offense. You can see why in this video clip, at the 3:50 mark.



Purvis’s defender has to pinch down on Brimah, leaving Purvis wide open. This is more just an inexcusable breakdown by Cincinnati than a great play by UConn, but when you have a seven footer who is as athletic as Brimah is, those type of things are more likely to occur.

I have more to say but I’m just about at my word limit, so I’ll leave you with this thought: this team doesn’t yet score as well as last year’s squad, but they score easier than they did. This team has some self-destructive tendencies that need to be eradicated (15 turnovers the other day), but yet, they shot 42% from the field and 47% from three against what was the #6 defense in America, and on Saturday they shot 46% against another top 20 unit. Generating shots hasn’t really been a problem for this team, and now that everybody is healthy and growing into their roles, they’re going in a bit more. We still haven’t lost a game with our entire roster intact (yeah, Omar played a few minutes against Duke but I’m not counting that game because you can’t make me) and all of the foundation pieces of prior vintage UConn teams are in place (great defense, great point guard, great coach). If we are to belief Chief and his sources, Ollie was insisting to the team that they needed to win out to make the tournament. Hopefully they treat both games this week as win or go home propositions, because if they win @ Tulsa and @ Stanford we might even start to draw some top 25 votes again. I can’t wait to see how this plays out.
 
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Can't wait for this week, tomorrow will be very difficult i predict. they have an elite conference player on their team. One thing ive noticed is ollie really wanting brimah to get as many touches as possible. Brimah is turning into a destructive roller on pnr, either on dunks or offensive rebounds due to his length.
 

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@champs99and04 natic for Stanford strikes me as a pick and popper to give Brimah trouble. One thing that's changed of late is Amida has stayed relatively out of foul trouble. That could be all we needed.
 
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Can't wait for this week, tomorrow will be very difficult i predict. they have an elite conference player on their team. One thing ive noticed is ollie really wanting brimah to get as many touches as possible. Brimah is turning into a destructive roller on pnr, either on dunks or offensive rebounds due to his length.

I honestly haven't seen Tulsa play this season for more than a few minutes here and there and know very little about them, so I'm interested in seeing if they're for real. They have some bad losses on their resume but they've also beaten Creighton and Temple, so I imagine we'll have to bring at least our B game to leave with a win. I assume the all-conference guy you're referring to is Harrison?

@champs99and04 natic for Stanford strikes me as a pick and popper to give Brimah trouble. One thing that's changed of late is Amida has stayed relatively out of foul trouble. That could be all we needed.

I'm actually more concerned about Amida defending Nastic on the block, which ties into your point about him staying out of foul trouble. Nastic hasn't attempted a three all season, so I get the sense he's more of a physical presence down low than a guy who stretches the defense. Then again you could be right, I haven't seen him play all that much.
 
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I never in a million years would have anticipated typing these words, but first place will be on the line when UConn travels to Oklahoma Tuesday night for a match-up with – and it’s important we get this right – the Golden Hurricane of Tulsa. And believe it or not, I’m actually pretty excited. How will the team handle the challenge of playing a game in the middle of nowhere against an unglamorous program that will be treating this as their Super Bowl? And they’re not a bad team, either. They sit at #67 on Kenpom and rank 38th in RPI. It’s fair to expect UConn to be favored, but not by much; it’s the sort of game novice gamblers will look at and take UConn. That’s always dangerous.

I'm not as worried about them "handling the challenge of playing a game in the middle of nowhere" since we play a lot of games at Gample.
 
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Great write-up Champs. This kind of ties into defense, but I also think it's worth noting Brimah's improved rebounding the past few games. He's learning how to challenge shots while still getting into position for a rebound. Hopefully this continues the rest of the year. I see this being a key progression for Brimah and for the team.
 
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