UConn - Florida post game thread

[awfuldan]

To be fair, Castleton was pretty good last night. Especially that stretch to start the second half. He was probably the third best player on the court. He was one of the main reasons our offense looked kind of weird at times, guards were afraid to drive into the paint, and he kept reading the lobs and picking them off. Their defense kept him on an island to stay on shooters though, and eventually we just had enough reps to get done. And he did struggle finishing over Clingan, but so has everyone else.

Yeah, that's definitely fair. I didn't mean to downplay Castleton too much, he's a player I have enjoyed watching in the past. Moreso just speaks to how good our guys are, and how well they played in that game in particular. It's no secret that Sanogo takes those sorts of big-time center matchups personally, so I'm not surprised he had a big game.

 

[awfuldan]

Also this was our fifth straight game against a Kareem Abdul Jabbar award preseason nominee.

Oregon - Kel'el Ware
Alabama - Charles Bediako
Iowa State - Osun Osunniyi
Oklahoma State - Moussa Cissé
Florida - Colin Castleton

Pretty wild run of quality teams with good big men. Sanogo should be well-prepared to go up against Kalkbrenner, Nunge, Soriano, and Dixon in the Big East.

 

[Husky25]

Castleton with real Charles De Mar energy:

Edgar Thompson
@osgators
Colin Castleton on UConn: 'They have a really good team. I've been in college for awhile. They have a really good group of guys.'

 

[HungryHu5ky]

To belabor the point I've already been making in this thread I believe the coaches are trying to transform Newton's game away from a scoring guard to a passing guard.

He's had to be the primary scorer on offensively challenged teams. The coaches want to expand his tool belt. The triple double was fools gold. The coaches and team were working on other aspects of of the teams play so Newton continued doing what he did best. Now they are working on driving and getting assists to our bigs.

You see it with Hawkins, Andre, Diarra and Joey C as well. Joey is the player who has demonstrated he's best at it currently. But the others will be there. I've noticed a lot of fans in this forum want Andre to drive to the basket. I think he's deliberately avoiding that to set an example for the other players working on this aspect of the game. Andre is a team first leader. Probably the first one since Rickey Moore who is less invested in his personal stats but does anything the coaches asks of him.

They could have pulled Newton or told him to revert to his style but they stuck with the game plan on national tv against an NCAA 8-9 seed. That's how good this team is. Most teams don't have that luxury to work out their kinks against above average opponents for the entire game.

 

[cap10dingus]

Well offensively we played like our C/C- game and we destroyed them.

Clingan was the best player on the court and player of the game and when he wasn't out there Sanogo was the best player on the floor along with Hawk. Hawk is becoming very Rip and Ray like with his constant movement/sprinting off off screens.

Our defense is always great and defense travels. Florida was totally demoralized with about 6 minutes left.

All of this happened with our point guards playing horribly and getting nothing from Karaban and Alleyne on offense. The point guard play was unacceptable and Hurley is going to be on them.

I just don't see many losses on the schedule this year, it's getting harder to envision losses when we can play that poorly on the offensive end and still mop up on the road.

Point guard play has to be better and Alleyne has to start giving us something on offense for us to really show how great we are. I know Hurley is all about defense but Joey gives us so much more than the other guys on offense. He was a gigantic pickup.

Florida was totally demoralized with about 6 minutes left.

Noticed this too. They tried to make that last run and we just hammered them. You could see the fight leave them.

 

[HungryHu5ky]

To belabor the point I've already been making in this thread I believe the coaches are trying to transform Newton's game away from a scoring guard to a passing guard.

He's had to be the primary scorer on offensively challenged teams. The coaches want to expand his tool belt. The triple double was fools gold. The coaches and team were working on other aspects of of the teams play so Newton continued doing what he did best. Now they are working on driving and getting assists to our bigs.

You see it with Hawkins, Andre, Diarra and Joey C as well. Joey is the player who has demonstrated he's best at it currently. But the others will be there. I've noticed a lot of fans in this forum want Andre to drive to the basket. I think he's deliberately avoiding that to set an example for the other players working on this aspect of the game. Andre is a team first leader. Probably the first one since Rickey Moore who is less invested in his personal stats but does anything the coaches asks of him.

They could have pulled Newton or told him to revert to his style but they stuck with the game plan on national tv against an NCAA 8-9 seed. That's how good this team is. Most teams don't have that luxury to work out their kinks against above average opponents for the entire game.

Don’t get me wrong I like the “get others involved scheme” but to be more effective he needs to attack the basket some not so in the “score 1st mentality” but to actually use himself to as a threat to even better his set up man ability especially with his knack for drawing fouls it would go a long way for this team

 

[superjohn]

Great defensive performance. By both teams. UConn wore Florida down. Sanogo best player. Jackson next best, owned the boards , started fast breaks. Clingan benefits from that but also does the job. He plays D. Ultimately that’s the ID of the team. 10 deep, no let up.

It's pretty simple. Clingan was clearly the player of the game. I pointed out how Clingan controlled everything in the paint. HuskyHawk and you decided to talk about the times he was "torched" defensively. Anyone paying attention could see that Clingan was more impactful down low than Sanogo was that game and Sanogo had a very good game.

 

[superjohn]

I said Clingan was the best player on the court. HuskyHawk later posted that Sanogo followed by Jackson were the best players on the court. I replied that they couldn't do anything near the basket when Clingan was in there and then HuskyHawk and you came in to talk about him getting torched. If you want a breakdown of who was the most impactful player in the game and who was shutting down the paint Auror created a great thread on it.

 

[HuskyHawk]

It's pretty simple. Clingan was clearly the player of the game. I pointed out how Clingan controlled everything in the paint. HuskyHawk and you decided to talk about the times he was "torched" defensively. Anyone paying attention could see that Clingan was more impactful down low than Sanogo was that game and Sanogo had a very good game.

The areas where Clingan was better are FG % and blocks. But the bigger question is why? Is he just better? Or does he benefit from following Sanogo, who stresses the opposing big, causes foul trouble etc.? I think it's the latter. Not that he hasn't been really good, better than expected, but the situation benefits him, and by extension, UConn. He comes in to face a big that probably needs a break or a sub, and he's just too much for them.

''Depth is the key to who we are,'' Hurley said. ''Obviously the identity is defense and to dominate the backboard. ... But we can play a slow-down game, an up-tempo game. We can play big. We can play small. And the depth is what makes this whole thing work.''

 

[HuskyHawk]

I said Clingan was the best player on the court. HuskyHawk later posted that Sanogo followed by Jackson were the best players on the court. I replied that they couldn't do anything near the basket when Clingan was in there and then HuskyHawk and you came in to talk about him getting torched. If you want a breakdown of who was the most impactful player in the game and who was shutting down the paint Auror created a great thread on it.

Castleton missed his first 5 (I think) shots against Sanogo. You can't pretend they are playing the same defense. Dan has Donovan playing exclusively drop coverage, and deeper drop coverage. So he's defending the lane and doesn't have to recover from the perimeter. Naturally he will get a lot of blocks. Sanogo is asked to go further out and cover more ground.

Also, Donovan spent many minutes vs #33 instead of Castleton. But Castleton was in for every minute vs Sanogo from what I can see.

It's working. That's all that matters.

 

[superjohn]

Castleton missed his first 5 (I think) shots against Sanogo. You can't pretend they are playing the same defense. Dan has Donovan playing exclusively drop coverage, and deeper drop coverage. So he's defending the lane and doesn't have to recover from the perimeter. Naturally he will get a lot of blocks. Sanogo is asked to go further out and cover more ground.

Also, Donovan spent many minutes vs #33 instead of Castleton. But Castleton was in for every minute vs Sanogo from what I can see.

It's working. That's all that matters.

I never said anything about them playing the same style of defense because they don't. I said Clingan shut down everything in the paint and was the best player on the court.

 

[superjohn]

You're incredibly boring, you can continue playing with yourself.

 

[Hurleyman216]

Some of you saying this team is better than 1999 should go back and watch that Championship game. We were balling on a very high level come March. This team may have more potential, but that team was firing on all cylinders.

 

[dogpause]

Andre really impressed with his rebounding. Whenever Sanogo or Clingan challenged a shooter, he would sneak in from the weak side and cleanup just about every missed shot.

 

[UConnSwag11]

Jackson's block was my favorite part of the game

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

You're incredibly boring, you can continue playing with yourself.

Very on-brand way of throwing in the towel, and probably the best way to close out this stalemate.

I remember a guy whose tag line was "No surrender." I'm guessing there's some history underpinning this pattern in you, which makes it hard-to-futile to imagine it'll ever change, but that doesn't mean it's not noticed.

I still commend you for your strengths, but man, you sure got some mule in you.