UMES Post Game Thread

[AntG168]

No excuses. They were sloppy and the defense was soft as lambskin. And when they had the lead at the end of games.......

Not an excuse. Just an observation I think Hurley made. These tournaments can tank your season if you have a bad few days. Probably not ideal with an inexperienced group. Especially if it’s their first time being tested as a group. One off games gives you the opportunity to learn the same lessons as a group while not taking 3 losses in less than 72 hrs. He probably doesn’t think the risk is worth the reward. Especially once you add in all the expenses spent on traveling.

 

[1999GoodSon]

At the game, team had glimpses of being UCONN, stretches of what the hell are they doing. If we were hoping for that "hell yes there's our team", it didn't happen. Maybe they were as bored as the crowd. The only good thing is it wasn't a loss.

The only thing that matters is Wednesday.

 

[RuffRuff]

Unfortunately that may be the case. More so because the BE teams OOC play won't allow a gelling UConn team to overcome the poor start. This is your cue to rag about the BE.

I will refrain myself! I know it’s annoying. Let’s just say I’m going into the changing landscape with eyes wide open.

 

[HooperScooper]

Unfortunately that may be the case. More so because the BE teams OOC play won't allow a gelling UConn team to overcome the poor start. This is your cue to rag about the BE.

@ctchamps, I just noticed your avatar. Isn't it time to change the words? You're cheating yourself of another championship.

 

[superjohn]

Not an excuse. Just an observation I think Hurley made. These tournaments can tank your season if you have a bad few days. Probably not ideal with an inexperienced group. Especially if it’s their first time being tested as a group. One off games gives you the opportunity to learn the same lessons as a group while not taking 3 losses in less than 72 hrs. He probably doesn’t think the risk is worth the reward. Especially once you add in all the expenses spent on traveling.

I would've rathered he kept it to himself.

 

[ctchamps]

I will refrain myself! I know it’s annoying. Let’s just say I’m going into the changing landscape with eyes wide open.

I've kept quiet about it because why bring up something negative when people are still basking in the glow of the past two seasons. But I quietly agreed with you about the concerns of the BE.

Additionally I felt this UConn team needed most of this season before the sophomores made the leap necessary for success. Those two concerns may come true. That technical loss to Memphis would have been less critical if one of these two concerns didn't happen.

 

[ctchamps]

@ctchamps, I just noticed your avatar. Isn't it time to change the words? You're cheating yourself of another championship.

This is hilarious. I haven't posted much recently. Today I decided to offer my 1/10 of a cent. I listed a lot of players in my few posts. The entire time I had this nagging feeling I ought to make sure to proofread the spelling of their names because you would come down on me if I misspelled any.

Just weird you would notice I didn't update the championships and point it out to me at this moment. I guess fate had me on a collision course with you. I just didn't know what it was going to be about.

 

[Scoe]

Now some of you are just fishing for something to get upset about every time Hurley talks.

 

[Scoe]

I would've rathered he kept it to himself.

So lie to the media instead, I'm sure that would go over well. It was already rumored this was gonna be the last year in Maui, prior to the tournament.

 

[housekeys]

The UMES game did not say a whole lot about how good UConn is. The game that did say how good/bad UConn is, was the Memphis game.

Now, Auburn is the best. Auburn and UConn have one common opponent, Memphis. That is the game that says a lot about UConn and their potential. I invite everyone to do a box score comparison and come up with your own conclusion.

Here is mine. UConn did not play particularly well and had it not been for the late surge, deserved to lose the Memphis game. But only because of the FTA disparity. If Memphis had the same disparity against Auburn, they may have won that game. So if the disparity was "earned" due to poor UConn defense and lack of discipline, then UConn must correct this to attain their full potential. It is also possible that the disparity was not earned by their performance on the floor, but due to poor officials( likely ) and other speculative reasons( less likely ). Either way, if I was Dan Hurley, I would not dwell on the speculative and instead, stick to his original script, get better and deal with the things he can control.

 

[Edward Sargent]

Yeah tonight wasn't good. Not to make excuses for him but as someone above said it looks like that hip he injured in Maui was bothering him.

He reached for it a couple of times last night so I am certain is was bothering him

 

[superjohn]

So lie to the media instead, I'm sure that would go over well. It was already rumored this was gonna be the last year in Maui, prior to the tournament.

Lie to the media?

I didn't even here him asked if UConn would ever play in an MTE again.

 

[HooperScooper]

This is hilarious. I haven't posted much recently. Today I decided to offer my 1/10 of a cent. I listed a lot of players in my few posts. The entire time I had this nagging feeling I ought to make sure to proofread the spelling of their names because you would come down on me if I misspelled any.

Just weird you would notice I didn't update the championships and point it out to me at this moment. I guess fate had me on a collision course with you. I just didn't know what it was going to be about.

I just don't want you cheated out of a championship.

Was it a bad thing I noticed that?

 

[ctchamps]

I just don't want you cheated out of a championship.

Was it a bad thing I noticed that?

Good thing.

 

[Icehawk]

Regarding MTEs, I think Maui was kind of the perfect storm this year - this setup just seems to stack the cards a bit (travel, time zones, etc), and with our team this year, maybe too far.


As for the MDES game? I agree, hard to judge vs a cupcake but I think there are some things to see nonetheless.

Nowell is tough/strong, did you catch the play early where he was D'd up against #24 and was able to bump him into passing the ball instead of trying to make a bucket? That dude probably has like 8+" on him!

Our centers hit free throws, it was my only complaint about DC and he more than made up for his ~55% rate everywhere else. This could come up big over the season. Very happy to see 0 fouls for Johnson, that's important and we saw DC was able to clean it up after early struggles last year so I'm hoping to see Johnson follow that.

Still too much standing in the corners but that might be better than running into each other I saw at the end when the "junk time" team was in. This should work itself out as they get better flow/experience and the rotation tightens to just a handful off the bench consistently.

Some extra passes leading to a couple turnovers/bad plays - if you have a good shot, take it. Still, rather have this than hero ball. Experience and play time will fix this.

I hope Stewart has dug himself out of whatever bizarre doghouse he's been in since the 1st half of Memphis because he looks to be the best guy off the bench other than Diarra.

Was glad to see Mahaney on an upward swing, if he had another poor game, especially against this level of comp, I think he'd be in trouble.

I see Abraham's potential, but I think if we're looking at him needing to play real minutes we're not in a good spot this year - just too many guys to play them all, either him or Ross are going to be riding pine the rest of the season I would think just due to how rotations tighten. Honestly, both of them may end up sitting if Stewart keeps it up IMO. I don't think it's realistic to expect to go more than 8-9 deep regularly as we get into the heart of the season.

Overall, I thought the effort was there and D looked improved, let's see how they do Wednesday.

 

[UConniki]

I think the board is toeing the line of becoming overly critical. We won by 50 without Alex. Not perfect and nothing to boast about. But also not much to complain about tonight. Enjoy the win and your evening

Absolutely…. This team isn’t going to be winning championships this year but it does have the potential to be good enough to at least get to the second weekend come March and anything beyond that is pure gold.

Losing 4 STARTERS and not just some good college players who went to Europe or got jobs in the private sector but 4 great college players who are currently earning a paycheck in the NBA.

No college team can lose that kind of talent and be even close to the level the last team was at and our last team had one more advantage, they had DC as a carryover from the year before and having only him back on this team would make all of the difference in the world in so far as all of the obvious problems we seem to be having.

The team concept requires a dominant center for Dan Hurley’s defensive schemes to be highly successful and we just don’t have that this year and unless they can come up with a different approach to playing defense this year could be considered a success in most years but not if people were/are still talking about “3 peat”.

There’s a reason nobody has back to back championships including the teams that dominate recruiting every year ( Duke, Kansas Kentucky etc). We had an incredible 2 year run with a team that dominated college basketball in a fashion that hasn’t been seen since UNLV ( 1season ) and maybe Duke, Florida won back to back championships and had no roster turnover during their run and fell off of the planet after that.

We have become a spoiled fan base ( which I’m thoroughly enjoying) with unrealistic expectations which was encouraged by Dan Hurley’s constant talk of a 3peat.

Everyone needs to calm down and appreciate what the last 2 years brought us in terms of absolute bliss and the ability to be the envy of every other fan base and enjoy the experience with the full confidence that Dan Hurley will have us back there not soon enough for everyone but he will get us there.