We are officially in our January slump | Page 3 | The Boneyard
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We are officially in our January slump

It’s a very individually talented squad, but the pieces don’t seem to fit together very well at times. Not sure Danny has the team figured out. I also think they are drinking their own kool aide and believe they can coast and turn it on and off when they want.
 
giddyup said:
It’s a very individually talented squad, but the pieces don’t seem to fit together very well at times. Not sure Danny has the team figured out. I also think they are drinking their own kool aide and believe they can coast and turn it on and off when they want.
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It's a team built around 3 elite shooters, who have combined in the last 5 games to have 1 game where they made 13 threes at 54%, and in the other four games combined for 12 threes at 17%.
 
I think we’re fine - there are two major issues right now:

1. The team is exhausted playing these games where every single opponent treats it as their Super Bowl and play so hard. While this will also be true in the BET and NCAAT, we can get up for those. Plus in the NCAAT the games will be called normally, to our benefit.

2. Solo Ball’s shooting is killing us. 0-5 from 3 today. Hate to say it but he can’t be starting anymore. Maybe that will be the change he needs.
 
Just to be clear, the OP is not worried. Just pointing out Hurley's teams seemingly struggle in January. Not sure why, my best guess is that conference opponents hate us and give us their best shot

In a weird sort of way, I guess that's what helps us prepare for March
 
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UCan3 said:
If we hadn’t beaten so many “not garbage” OCC opponents to start the year, I’d be more concerned than I am.
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we were certainly great to start. we have fallen off a cliff offensively. I don't know if it's these other schools playing better than expected, or teams figuring out how to defend us....but it's not a good sign that we have to win close games. it means we're not good enough to win by larger margins.

To the comparisons to 2023....yes...they lost and this is better than losing....but the big east this year is also significantly worse than it was 3 years ago....and just beccause a team CAN pull out of a slump does not mean we have to expect it.

This team has been bad lately and they have a much further way to go now to be a title quality team than they did a month ago.
 
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i trust AK and mullins to take a lot of shots. solo is dealing with a wrist and his track record as an elite shooter is rather short. they could be using this time to run out the death star lineup with stew mullins more but it seems like they are playing a hurt solo instead.
 
I had that feeling of the January swoon a few minutes after the game.

Each of the past four or five seasons we fans have panicked over player rotations and roles and by the time the aeason was done, we've been wrong.
For example, we watched AJ and Adama struggle and then figure it out.

So, my mid-January misplaced rotation says I want Stewart replacing Ball in the starting lineup.

I'd like to see what 10 weeks of Demary, Mullins, Stewart, Karaban and Reed can do as a group.

Smith, Ball, Ross, and Riebe off the bench.

Ball does seem to have fragile confidence. No way ahead shooter as good as him should ever be this bad for this long. His mechanics are fine but he is passing up open looks no shooter should ever pass up.
 
In 23-24, I recall squeaking out wins over bad Xavier, butler and nova teams on the road in January. Then end of the month hit and the roll began and that team had a fairly decent close to the year.

Assuming the same is coming now.
 
superjohn said:
We're not going to win the national championship with a demoted reduced role Solo, we need his scoring and shooting. He's a much better player than Jaylin and Ross, he just needs to play his way out of this.
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Problem is if Ball doesn't come out of his slump the team isn't winning a championship.

The calculus is what is a higher probability- Ball coming out of his slump and teams plays to its potential, or, lineup shake up with roles changing, and team plays to its potential.

One thing I've learned is we fans rarely get it right in January.
 
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Chin Diesel said:
Problem is if Ball doesn't come out of his slump the team isn't winning a championship.

The calculus is what is a higher probability- Ball coming out of his slump and teams plays to its potential, or, lineup shake up with roles changing, and team plays to its potential.

One thing I've learned is we fans rarely get it right in January.
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We need two things to occur. Stewart needs to keep making winnings plays, which in these dog days of January are crucial.

And we need Solo to find his shot AND pick it up on D. He makes way too many losing plays for every time he makes a good one.

Both need to happen if we’re going to hit our ceiling.
 
My feedback to a non-UConn gambler this year. Bet against UCONN and the spread in Big East games this year and bet with us in the tournament. Hard to maintain elite level of play night in night out when we are the marquee game on everyone's schedule. Take the W and the $$ and enjoy the freight train that is coming when it matters most in March
 
Radical idea-We're winning despite not approaching our A game yet. Think these guys are tired and playing through minor injuries after 5 games in 13 days. They seem to level up or down based on the opposition. I do believe that they are gaining confidence re: closing time and winning plays that will benefit them in BET/March Madness single elimination games.

Dan has plenty of tape to review and to tweak a few things prior to Nova game. Get healthy and put up some shots this week.
 
Smp7598 said:
For a team that has so much depth the starters play an awful lot of minutes. Karaban does not have to play 35- 38 minutes a game.
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Going into last year, the story was that we could go 10-11 deep with all of our depth. We were basically 8 deep and that’s counting Aidan as a valuable bench piece.

This year, same story with preseason questions about how we’d get enough minutes for everyone and people doing their ridiculous minute breakdowns and having AK getting 28/gm because player X needs minutes. Maybe we need to face reality and realize that our bench is nowhere as good as we think. There’s a huge drop off with Smith and Reibe and you still, after three years, have absolutely no idea if Stew or Ross will show up.
 
Chin Diesel said:
Problem is if Ball doesn't come out of his slump the team isn't winning a championship.

The calculus is what is a higher probability- Ball coming out of his slump and teams plays to its potential, or, lineup shake up with roles changing, and team plays to its potential.

One thing I've learned is we fans rarely get it right in January.
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The team isn't winning the championship by giving an inferior player his starting spot and reducing his role.
 
CTBasketball said:
And we need Solo to find his shot AND pick it up on D. He makes way too many losing plays for every time he makes a good one.
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Good way to put it. I feel like his individualized net would be on the lower side of late.
 
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boog204 said:
Going into last year, the story was that we could go 10-11 deep with all of our depth. We were basically 8 deep and that’s counting Aidan as a valuable bench piece.

This year, same story with preseason questions about how we’d get enough minutes for everyone and people doing their ridiculous minute breakdowns and having AK getting 28/gm because player X needs minutes. Maybe we need to face reality and realize that our bench is nowhere as good as we think. There’s a huge drop off with Smith and Reibe and you still, after three years, have absolutely no idea if Stew or Ross will show up.
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AK played too many minutes last season and he's playing too many minutes this season.
 
I'd like to see Solo win 6th man of the year in BE. What that entails is what we need him to do. Be a microwave on offense, which he can do, and not hurt us on Defense, which he has shown the ability to do. I guess that give Ross or Stew the start. I'd have Solo in fairly quickly, unless one of those 2 is having a career day.
 
RuffRuff said:
Largely because we can’t pull away from teams. He’ll always stay in close games.
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His position was supposed to be our position with the most depth with Jaylin and Ross being able to slide in and even possibly Reibe if we went double big for a couple minutes. Here we are once again with AK by far leading us in minutes despite nobody thinking he's our best player.

I think the team would benefit from a fresher AK over an AK who is always out there even when he is playing poorly.
 
superjohn said:
His position was supposed to be our position with the most depth with Jaylin and Ross being able to slide in and even possibly Reibe if we went double big for a couple minutes. Here we are once again with AK by far leading us in minutes despite nobody thinking he's our best player.

I think the team would benefit from a fresher AK over an AK who is always out there even when he is playing poorly.
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We had this discussion quite a bit in the early season, hoping Danny would tame down the AK minutes. He is at 33.5 this year versus 35.9 last year. Whether he's our best player or not, Hurley trusts him.

The one player that seems to really be falling off recently is Smith - generally feels like a poor fit for the system as an overdribbler who drives into chaos without a plan far too often.
 
superjohn said:
We're not going to win the national championship with a demoted reduced role Solo, we need his scoring and shooting. He's a much better player than Jaylin and Ross, he just needs to play his way out of this.
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You've always overrated this guy. You said he was a better 3 point shooter than Jordan Hawkins. He hasn't been much better that the two J's lately. Hurley gave him a lot of rope yesterday and he didn't respond.
 
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Waquoit said:
You've always overrated this guy. You said he was a better 3 point shooter than Jordan Hawkins. He hasn't been much better that the two J's lately. Hurley gave him a lot of rope yesterday and he didn't respond.
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This guy?

Solo was a better three point shooter than Hawkins last season. Hawkins has never shot 40% from three in his college or pro career.

This is how I viewed them going into the season...

Screenshot_20260118_110951_Chrome.jpg
Screenshot_20260118_110613_Chrome.jpg
 
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