Villanova post game thread

[Icehawk]

Also, did I see a Nike promo with a UConn sneaker during a segment? It was like a banner on the top third of the screen.

 

[6Nattys4Us]

They did a great job on Dixon for the entire part, not the most part.

We locked down in the 2nd half. I agree we were getting beat too much in the 1st half.

In general, our perimeter defense is keyed at the top of the arc, not the wings or angles. In particular, Reed, Jr. or Sampson rushes to try to help then has to get back to defend the hoop. This is leaving Alex and Liam vulnerable to wing 3s as they are covering for the vacancy in the middle and have to hedge.

Solo is not a big guard, so even at 6'3" he has to fight to get around high screens and can barely manage a hand in the general vicinity of the shooter. He and Mahaney had an interesting night on defense, with Mahaney getting a few more individual (e.g., 1:1) wins (stole the ball and got an easy bucket, played immense 1:1 D on a drive and they missed).

Otherwise I thought the refs were much more even in our game than the DePaul vs Creighton game. We got Tarris Reed, Jr., tossing Dixon and not getting a whistle (and Tarris looked generally surprised), but some clean blocks were called fouls, and some out of bounds went against us. But DePaul got zero calls, and even if a replay showed they got screwed they got no benefits...none. Refs were in Creighton's pocket. I did not like the goaltending against us, as they never showed it again @ MSG and the refs reviewed and just went with the floor whistle against us. Not sure if on TV they showed it.

At least this Hurley Technical didn't cost us the game. We dominated from mid 2nd half on.

 

[HuskyNan]

Somebody needs to put that Popeye look that Samson flashed onto a t-shirt. It was perfect!

 

[gmc1055]

Agreed, I am hopeful he can continue playing like this. He doesn't seem to be in his head as much. This was his most confident game though this season.

Stew I think is almost there, he is in flow of the offense and defense recently. Make that dunk and don't make one silly foul and he'd be exactly what UConn wants from him this year. Even with those two missteps, great game from him.

Reed didn't play great on defense but his strength and rebounding helped a ton early.

As for the starters, not sure anyone but Karaban and Johnson really had great games. They were both fantastic tonight.

It depends in the type of team UConn is playing which center will have the greater impact. Reid against Creighton may be the guy.

 

[alphasigko]

I saw good/better defense last night, Nova coach thought it was exceptional and intimidating and suffocating.

“They were just intense,” Villanova coach Kyle Neptune said. “They made it hard for us to catch, made it hard for us to get to our sets. They just came after us."

It's about time!

 

[MilliniumPrince]

The key tonight was he wasn’t hesitant. He was confident with the ball knew what he wanted to do and did it. He also didn’t pass up shots when he was open.

He was pretty terrible in the 1st half. Got blown by on two straight drives before committing a dumb pass attempt to Reed for a turnover. He damn near fell over at half court from a simple bump......then.....he hit that corner 3 and the switch flipped. The AM that came out of the locker is someone who could be key for us.

 

[6Nattys4Us]

BIG bench contribution form Mahaney, Reed, and Ross!

Increasingly relevant is until 1 min left, we had a bench of 3 (Reed, Jr., Mahaney, Stewart) so functionally 8 played. Sorry, Ross got 1 min, it was Stewart who got the minutes.

3 in 3, we need to utilize more bench, especially starting extra late (DePaul, can you please win if you go to 2OT?) pushing this game an hour or so.

 

[6Nattys4Us]

Only thing we wrapped up was a move to the top of the 8s. NET up, etc. Above us? Bottom of the 7s = Creighton.

So simply, beat them and we move up to 7 and they slide down to 8. What we do vs. St. John's (or Marquette) won't hurt because so many other teams are done it's house money.

 

[6Nattys4Us]

It's about time!

But in the first half, Nova was in our shirt, face, shorts, playing their best St. John's defense against us. Funny their coach (ex-coach one would think soon) said that of us.

 

[superjohn]

Yeah, it was weird - rode him then moved off him, I'm sure he was spent as he carried them for most of the game. Then they naturally went to their best player, who couldn't hit anything and was taking awful threes. Dixon took one three from the corner which he was behind the backboard on, and then another so far out of the flow of the offense, rushed, from the wing at about 27 feet. Nova doesn't run anything. They were awful in the last 8 minutes, not sure how much we take credit for or not. I think they had 3 points from around the 8 minute mark till the end of game other than some junk points at the very end.

AK and Jaylin shut down Dixon and made him look stupid. Jaylin shut down Dixon and made him look stupid each time we played Nova this season. Our lineup with the three wings and 1 big looked very good defensively.

 

[David 76]

Have surgery today so only saw a few minutes into the 2nd half. Darn double OT lead in game. Heckuva 2nd half performance, though.

it looks like a lot of the team are gelling at the right time, and defense is improving. Absent the atrocious 3 point shooting in the first 15 minutes and some questionable work by the officials on hand check fouls by ‘Nova this could have been a 30 point blowout.

On to Creighton! (Who should be a bit leg weary)

Hope all goes well!

 

[jpeakin]

Have surgery today so only saw a few minutes into the 2nd half. Darn double OT lead in game. Heckuva 2nd half performance, though.

it looks like a lot of the team are gelling at the right time, and defense is improving. Absent the atrocious 3 point shooting in the first 15 minutes and some questionable work by the officials on hand check fouls by ‘Nova this could have been a 30 point blowout.

On to Creighton! (Who should be a bit leg weary)

post / handle

 

[RuffRuff]

AK and Jaylin shut down Dixon and made him look stupid. Jaylin shut down Dixon and made him look stupid each time we played Nova this season. Our lineup with the three wings and 1 big looked very good defensively.

Buddy and I were talking - pound for pound, Jaylen is the best looking athlete on Uconn. He just looks like a basketball player, when you consider length, frame, smoothness of movement. Anything that stops him from becoming great will be entirely upstairs. He does still feel very young, almost looks more like a freshman than a sophomore. Once the maturity kicks in and he flips into a man, he's going to be a really interesting player to watch.

He does play great D against Dixon.

 

[ctbro1999]

They did a great job on Dixon for the entire part, not the most part.

Seriously, locking down the nation's leading scorer to 2-15 shooting and just 8 points? What more could we have realistically done? Lol

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Yeah, it was weird - rode him then moved off him, I'm sure he was spent as he carried them for most of the game. Then they naturally went to their best player, who couldn't hit anything and was taking awful threes. Dixon took one three from the corner which he was behind the backboard on, and then another so far out of the flow of the offense, rushed, from the wing at about 27 feet. Nova doesn't run anything. They were awful in the last 8 minutes, not sure how much we take credit for or not. I think they had 3 points from around the 8 minute mark till the end of game other than some junk points at the very end.

Yea, some of it was on Nova, but we also did a much better job containing their drives into the lane, and when they did get there, we contained it much better.

Don't be afraid to give us some praise and credit, You don't have to always be 110% contrarian.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

That "In the Huddle" with Hurley in the 2nd half was prescient...

No panic, just hyping up the team, keeping them positive and focusing them on the 2 most important things for a victory:

-Take away Poplar's right hand
-Get over the hump and take the lead (after the game, he went further and said the "game pressure" from doing that would affect Nova)


We did get over the hump shortly after that TO, and I don't think Poplar had a legit good drive with his right hand the rest of the game. The rest of the team was largely ineffective.

 

[RuffRuff]

Yea, some of it was on Nova, but we also did a much better job containing their drives into the lane, and when they did get there, we contained it much better.

Don't be afraid to give us some praise and credit, You don't have to always be 110% contrarian.

Just looking for stuff that translates to Dancing.

AK playing well - check, he's playing like old Alex. This may be the most important piece, which is great.
Solo hot - hasn't shot it all that well lately
Liam hot - going through a funk at the wrong time
Hass being healthy - was evident yesterday he is operating well below 100%, shifting to AM picking up the gap here and finding confidence. He did look really good yesterday and I anticipate he can have a good game tonight. We need good guard play to have any chance.
Tarris being a pillar in the offense - seems we've moved away from Tarris, he's back to looking kind of complacent and in a backup mentality. His vibe felt very odd yesterday.

Was that a super satisfying win? No. Maybe it came through differently on TV. It was far from a Picasso live. The first half offense looked disjointed much of the time and we had no solution for one guy defensively. Appreciate the win, excited for tonight, not coming out of that one feeling like we are gelling.

 

[Waquoit]

So do you think Karaban is fully healed from the concussion? /s. He's had a pretty good 5 game run here.

UConn needs AK to be this good every game to be at their winning best. No pressure, Alex!

 

[Hey Adrien!]

Who are we rooting for in game 1 tonight

In terms of matchup, I don't care, but who wouldn't root for Smart over Pitino? Also, I'd like to see Marquette get a bit of a boost in potential seeding. After losing the last two games of the regular season, they can use some mojo after finishing the season losing to St. John's in OT.

 

[Waquoit]

It
Starts
With
Defense

I dunno. I think it started with making shots.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

In terms of matchup, I don't care, but who wouldn't root for Smart over Pitino? Also, I'd like to see Marquette get a bit of a boost in potential seeding. After losing the last two games of the regular season, they can use some mojo after finishing the season losing to St. John's in OT.

I'd rather get off the 8/9 line than give Marquette seeding help. I don't follow this stuff closely enough to know whether a win over Marquette does it. Based on the last couple years with the committee and the Big East I am preparing to be disappointed on Sunday, but a win over St. John's certainly helps more.

Plus I just love the idea of a St. Johns / UConn final on Saturday night.

 

[Dogdeacon]

Buddy and I were talking - pound for pound, Jaylen is the best looking athlete on Uconn. He just looks like a basketball player, when you consider length, frame, smoothness of movement. Anything that stops him from becoming great will be entirely upstairs. He does still feel very young, almost looks more like a freshman than a sophomore. Once the maturity kicks in and he flips into a man, he's going to be a really interesting player to watch.

He does play great D against Dixon.

Jaylin's 1st half layup off the SJohnson feed was a great example of that athleticism. A Nova player flopped to the ground and JStew had to make the layup and jump over the flopper to land safely on the other side. He did this effortlessly.

 

[jibsey]

Reflecting on the Box Score, UConn really played stellar defense. Poplar went off but they shut down everything else. Holding them to the 50s is pretty impressive. Samson had a monster game defensively. He was all over the place and was the only guy who could guard Poplar. Took him several times and every single time Poplar couldn't get a shot off and had to pass out.

Huge game from Mahaney. I don't know what drugs they gave him, but playing at 1.5X his normal speed is working for him. Maybe he's finally comfortable in the offense. Alex seems to be Alex again, which is all we can ask for. Now if we could only get the old Liam back, we'd really be cooking. Ball is due for a breakout shooting night soon. While everyone on the board gushes over Reed, can we appreciate just how much better our combined 5s are that what anybody else is throwing out there? Merge their stats and impact and it's really impressive.

Mahaney had not had a ton of experience running the complex offense with his very limited minutes. I think that plus confidence is what is getting him there.

 

[Waquoit]

Jaylin's 1st half layup off the SJohnson feed was a great example of that athleticism. A Nova player flopped to the ground and JStew had to make the layup and jump over the flopper to land safely on the other side. He did this effortlessly.

He does a lot of things well. He just needs to to put it all together consistently. I like how he's always ready to go when he gets the call.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

I dunno. I think it started with making shots.

Better shots follow good defense.