We lost this game on defense

[champs99and04]

It's pretty simple. The defense just wasn't there. You can't pin this on any one player - they aren't guarding ball screens effectively, the transition defense is bad, and the rotations are almost always late.

Paint points, free throws, and threes. That's it. Syracuse shot 48% from the floor and got to the line 39 times. I thought a couple of the calls on Brimah were questionable, but for the most part we just got flat out beat.

Ollie seems to be playing the long game with the defense. I have confidence that it will work out, but for now, there just seems to be a ton of confusion and indecisiveness.

On one hand, this game was very important. Losing sucks, and it sucks twice as much when it's to that team. But the remaining OOC games will dictate how we view this one down the road - if we bounce back tomorrow against Gonzaga, we can consider it a productive trip, and we can forgive them for laying an egg defensively on a day where they had the right to be tired. Obviously, Gonzaga is a much different team than Syracuse, but it's crucial that the players view it as a separate game and not a consolation round. In March, the difference between snagging two of these and going 1-2 is going to be huge. Third place sucks, and I'm disappointed we didn't win this tournament. But you can live with third place now if it leads to better things later. Tomorrow will be huge.

 

[mauconnfan]

They did do a terrible job in transition defense in he 2nd half. Seems people were running back to get tot he lane and no one was running to the shooters, lots of open looks. Can live with 3rd place for sure but the nightmare match up for us in this tourney was Gonzaga.

 

[80shusky]

Given the stat I heard on the radio that all of our opponents have gone to the line more than us I'm wondering if Ollie's aggressive man to man defense is going to be an issue with the new foul rules. If you breathe on a guy they call it. Will aggressive man D teams have more issues with this? Or is it just our team so far this year? Does anyone know if gadget defenses like zones and traps create less fouls for the defending team? They could become more prevalent if so. So far I believe every team we have played has defended us with a zone. I'm hoping for man to man vs. Gonzaga tomorrow. It would be incredibly ironic if the NCAA puts in the new foul rules to create more free flowing offenses and all the teams decide to play zone which is boring as hell.

 

[dogpause]

I think the issue is that 40% of our starting lineup is new to the team. We'll get better, but it sure was ugly watching our defense get shredded.

 

[JMick]

Seeing how we react to Gonzaga tomorrow is huge. If we can pull out a win, the trip is all good. If we lose - it will be a pretty big disappointment overall. I have full confidence we have the ability to win tomorrow but it won't be an easy task.

 

[huskies3]

Was there a reason for so much switching on defense? On the transition defense it just seemed that we were losing track of who we had on defense. There were multiple times two players were guarding the same guy which led to the open 3's.
-the team just had an awful game whether it was finishing, fouling, and defensively.

 

[TXHuskyFan]

We could not get a stop in 3 or 4 critical possessions. We matched them 3-3 or 4-4 but really needed a stop we could not get.

 

[Mots010]

Given the stat I heard on the radio that all of our opponents have gone to the line more than us I'm wondering if Ollie's aggressive man to man defense is going to be an issue with the new foul rules. If you breathe on a guy they call it. Will aggressive man D teams have more issues with this? Or is it just our team so far this year? Does anyone know if gadget defenses like zones and traps create less fouls for the defending team? They could become more prevalent if so. So far I believe every team we have played has defended us with a zone. I'm hoping for man to man vs. Gonzaga tomorrow. It would be incredibly ironic if the NCAA puts in the new foul rules to create more free flowing offenses and all the teams decide to play zone which is boring as hell.

The FT discrepancy is interesting. We've completely dominated each of our opponents, save cuse, in every aspect of the game, except FTs. How are teams like duke and Louisville doing?

 

[SaeHusky]

I hope Ollie is working a little bit on Zone Defense in practice. Even traditional man to man teams like Duke are using some zone at times during games. With the way fouls are being called - it can help keep your best players on the court.

 

[mauconnfan]

Would like to see some zone vs Gonzaga because if the dare to throw out a Perkins, Drginiac, Wiltjer, Krakowski and Sabonis how will we guard them? I mean seriously I will sit back and make them shoot it good once in a while, at least mix it up.

 

[ASweet3781]

We lost the game for many reasons.

Syracuse getting a huge head start at prep time by having their game #1 at 2pm ET and ours starting at 930 ET is a factor in this too. And Michigan is showing right now to be a much better team than Charlotte so they got the prep time and far easier opponent in Game 1. They are at the hotel relaxing for hours and watching us put away Michigan just before midnight. We were put at a competitive disadvantage with this tournament set up and I have yet to have heard a suitable reason why this was. Was it the only reason we lost? Nope. But it was an disadvantage. Syracuse is a 6 player team basically and we couldn't wear them down with our depth. And I don't see this odd set up at other tournaments. Usually you play in the same session as your game 2 opponent. Not impressed with this tournament and hope it's our last time there for a while.

 

[king conn]

I was completely alarmed with how easily lower D-1 guards from New Hampshire blew by our guards with ease. You get away with that with Brimah against that type of competition, but all that does is put him in foul trouble against high level teams. Then the dam breaks.
Gibbs is small but doesn't play like a small guard. His lack of penetration on offense is troubling also. Purvis is too big and bulky to keep up with the quicker guards, he plays more like a 3. Our only quick on ball defender is Adams.
I think we will have match up problems from time to time because of this. I kind of remember KO actually using zone a few times last year, perhaps he can dabble a little more this year. Don't see any other solution.

 

[ConnZag3]

Purvis continuously driving head down to the basket with 4 guys in his way and no purpose or plan whatsoever was killing us in the second half. The wild layups he was throwing up just kept starting Cuse fastbreaks left and right.

 

[Fishy]

They allowed 39 free throws and they're still not particularly good at rebounding.

The new rules are killing them. Through five games, we've got about 20 more fouls and have allowed 25 or so more free throws. Not sure how you play D at the moment...

I wasn't terribly impressed with the front court today - perhaps the short rest hurt them - but they gotta be a lot better than that tomorrow.

 

[Chief00]

They allowed 39 free throws and they're still not particularly good at rebounding.

The new rules are killing them. Through five games, we've got about 20 more fouls and have allowed 25 or so more free throws. Not sure how you play D at the moment...

I wasn't terribly impressed with the front court today - perhaps the short rest hurt them - but they gotta be a lot better than that tomorrow.

There were a lot of very open drives to the basket by Cuse that ended in fouls or kick back for threes. On offense Hamilton needs to better understand the games where he needs to be more selfish in a good way given matchups or how other guys are playing. He turned down some easy baskets and making them first will open up the easy basket for guys who need that opening created by someone else.
I agree we have not made the new rule adjustment.

 

[DogMania]

They did do a terrible job in transition defense in he 2nd half. Seems people were running back to get tot he lane and no one was running to the shooters, lots of open looks. Can live with 3rd place for sure but the nightmare match up for us in this tourney was Gonzaga.

I agree. The transition defense was notably bad today.

 

[DogMania]

I think the issue is that 40% of our starting lineup is new to the team. We'll get better, but it sure was ugly watching our defense get shredded.

I agree with this point too. I felt our defense has not been all that great this season even though the shooting percentages against us have been pretty low. The eye test tells me that the team chemistry is not quite there yet. Some of the newcomers have done a pretty good job of going over screens and hedging, but today there were a number of bad moments on defense.

 

[Edward Sargent]

It's pretty simple. The defense just wasn't there. You can't pin this on any one player - they aren't guarding ball screens effectively, the transition defense is bad, and the rotations are almost always late.

Paint points, free throws, and threes. That's it. Syracuse shot 48% from the floor and got to the line 39 times. I thought a couple of the calls on Brimah were questionable, but for the most part we just got flat out beat.

Ollie seems to be playing the long game with the defense. I have confidence that it will work out, but for now, there just seems to be a ton of confusion and indecisiveness.

On one hand, this game was very important. Losing sucks, and it sucks twice as much when it's to that team. But the remaining OOC games will dictate how we view this one down the road - if we bounce back tomorrow against Gonzaga, we can consider it a productive trip, and we can forgive them for laying an egg defensively on a day where they had the right to be tired. Obviously, Gonzaga is a much different team than Syracuse, but it's crucial that the players view it as a separate game and not a consolation round. In March, the difference between snagging two of these and going 1-2 is going to be huge. Third place sucks, and I'm disappointed we didn't win this tournament. But you can live with third place now if it leads to better things later. Tomorrow will be huge.

We turned them over three possessions to start the second half and got no points to show meanwhile Cuse is still a team that smells blood and converted almost all our TOs later in the half

 

[dogpause]

Given the stat I heard on the radio that all of our opponents have gone to the line more than us I'm wondering if Ollie's aggressive man to man defense is going to be an issue with the new foul rules. If you breathe on a guy they call it. Will aggressive man D teams have more issues with this? Or is it just our team so far this year? Does anyone know if gadget defenses like zones and traps create less fouls for the defending team? They could become more prevalent if so. So far I believe every team we have played has defended us with a zone. I'm hoping for man to man vs. Gonzaga tomorrow. It would be incredibly ironic if the NCAA puts in the new foul rules to create more free flowing offenses and all the teams decide to play zone which is boring as hell.

I don't see that stat as solely defensive issue. Seems the dribble drive has been sorely missing from our offense.

 

[Husky1]

Agree with many points made here. To me what killed us was our inability to make stops in second half in our half court defense. This was because we did not defend the pick and role. Our bigs (especially Brimah) kept hedging way out on the person with the ball and then could not recover which forced others to recover late and then the entire team was out of position, either giving up wide open threes or being in bad position and fouling. It was that simple.
Oh yeah, and either Brimah has got to start catching the ball or we have to stop passing it to him.

 

[mauconnfan]

Agree with many points made here. To me what killed us was our inability to make stops in second half in our half court defense. This was because we did not defend the pick and role. Our bigs (especially Brimah) kept hedging way out on the person with the ball and then could not recover which forced others to recover late and then the entire team was out of position, either giving up wide open threes or being in bad position and fouling. It was that simple.
Oh yeah, and either Brimah has got to start catching the ball or we have to stop passing it to him.

It amazed me to see so many of our guards continue to try to flip the ball into him after his inability to catch and finish in the 2nd half. During one spurt of 5 minutes or so we tried it, unsuccessfully for various reasons, about6-7 times I think with most of those leading to run outs. I blame the guards of this as much as AB, I mean when are you going to just shoot the ball when you're in that deep?

 

[jibsey]

They shot the lights out and we didn't get on their shooters that simple. Another thing, them going to the line on ticky tack fouls in bonus erased our lead. I don't blame anyone in particular and in fact it was a highly entertaining game. Syracuse has some real talent as we do and there's no harm in admitting that. I like our team better.

 

[Migs]

We switched a lot early yesterday and Cuse created mismatches in the paint. You could see as the game went on that we stopped switching and tried fighting through with hedge and recover. The defensive confusion was difficult to watch.

 

[mauconnfan]

We switched a lot early yesterday and Cuse created mismatches in the paint. You could see as the game went on that we stopped switching and tried fighting through with hedge and recover. The defensive confusion was difficult to watch.

It was hard to watch. The bigs hedged and their retreat was too slow or they stuck too long. Lydon made a killing off of mismatches both scoring and getting to the line. And they had numerous open looks due to confusion on who was going to get out to the shooters - it was painful to watch and not UConn like defense at all.

 

[Stinger92860]

They allowed 39 free throws and they're still not particularly good at rebounding.

The new rules are killing them. Through five games, we've got about 20 more fouls and have allowed 25 or so more free throws. Not sure how you play D at the moment...

I wasn't terribly impressed with the front court today - perhaps the short rest hurt them - but they gotta be a lot better than that tomorrow.

Ther definitely can't use their hands. I saw quite a few hand checks to hips on drives. As poorly as we played on both end, we lost by 3. I hope to look back at this game and say it was the worse game we played all year. That said cause did it several immortality shots. Granted they wee open looks, but they still knocked them down.

 

[TasteofUConn]

perhaps he can dabble a little more this year. Don't see any other solution.

We can start by not panicking after a single loss.

 

[Stinger92860]

Ther definitely can't use their hands. I saw quite a few hand checks to hips on drives. As poorly as we played on both end, we lost by 3. I hope to look back at this game and say it was the worse game we played all year. That said cause did it several immortality shots. Granted they wee open looks, but they still knocked them down.

Either I started drinking early or spell checker sucks.

 

[Migs]

It was hard to watch. The bigs hedged and their retreat was too slow or they stuck too long. Lydon made a killing off of mismatches both scoring and getting to the line. And they had numerous open looks due to confusion on who was going to get out to the shooters - it was painful to watch and not UConn like defense at all.

Lydon was taking practice shots from 3, and had one nice move in the paint. He was 4/10 from the floor but got to the line 8 times. Witjer will score 40 if we play D like that in 20 minutes.

 

[CL82]

I agree with the assessment of our defense. It will improve.

I also think that if we had "the guy" who was stepping up and making shots at the end of a possession, we'd have won comfortably.

We are a young team and heartbreaking losses like this are a part of the growth process.

 

[intlzncster]

The FT discrepancy is interesting. We've completely dominated each of our opponents, save cuse, in every aspect of the game, except FTs. How are teams like duke and Louisville doing?

Duke never has, nor ever will, have trouble in the free throw department.