What adjustments could Hurley and the team make to counter what McDermott and Creighton did on Tuesday?

[Zonepress]

So what adjustments do you think Hurley and the team can make to counter what McDermott and Creighton did on both ends of the floor to our guys on Tuesday?

I consider myself a hoops junky who has a solid understanding of Xs snd Os, but I'm not sure what adjustments Hurley can make in light of what a team built like Creighton can do when they play their A game, and with the mix of players we have on this year's team.

Of course, somehow getting Clingan to defend well without fouling as much would help, but I'm not sure what more the coaching staff can do to help him at this point. I hope they can. Though hard to prevent bad and/or borderline calls against him.

One thing we do know, when the opposing perimeter players curl around the high screen at the top of the key, they have to do something different than having our bigs hedging on screens, our weak side perimeter defenders leaving the opponents sharpshooters to temporarily cover the exposed bigs dropping back towards the basket until our big re-engages back into the paint. Creighton exploited that most of the night, especially when Clingan was on the bench.

Now there are not a lot of teams that are built and coached like Creighton that can knock down a lot of threes and successfully do rive to the basket the way they do. Creighton won't always shoot it as well from deep as they did, but hope that there is something UConn could have done differently to get more stops.

Now on the other end of the floor, Creighton did a good job of taking away some of our perimeter shooters and defending the back cuts that usually result in some could percentage shots in the paint or drawing fouls. It didn't look like they were running their half court motion as well as they usually do, but much of that might be the result of how Creighton defended it. I'd like to watch part of the game again to watch more closely at what they did.

I wish we had a 5 who could come off the bench and at least defend the paint close to how Clingan does. Johnson seems to have digressed and too often goes too far out with his help D or too aggressive on his hedge where he's either left too much open space behind him or picking up over aggressive fouls. And even with Clingan out on the floor in the second half, Creighton's sharpshooters kept on knocking down some big 3s.

Spencer struggles at times on the defense end since he doesn't have high end quickness and athleticism but it's hard not to keep him out there when he usually does so much on the offensive end. At times Hurley puts Diarra in who defends more aggressively and has been making plays on both ends, though I think he usually comes in for Castle more often than for any other player.

So what adjustments do you think can be made to counter what Creighton did?

How about clingan stays out of foul trouble
While Creighton obviously shot the three really well
They were generally wide-open shots most of which came off dribble penetration and kick out
The double team from off the ball was creating the wide-open three and certainly give Creighton a lot of credit as they move the ball quickly
To give a contrast I went to the women’s game against Creighton a team that is one of the better three point shooting teams in the country in women’s basketball and UConn women refused to double team when someone went to the basket
The only time they double teamed was whenthe player had the ball was posting up and turn their back, and then they double teamed
I’ve always amazed at why when someone gets beat the basket there’s a constant help defense
That leads to the 3
The late Rick Majerus believe that the key to the modern game was it to limit the number of made 3s but to not allow the 3 to be taken

I have no idea what DH had as the game plan
But imho the game got away when there was no DC to protect the Basket
Perhaps strategically when he is on the bench
The goal would not allow 3s to be taken
Apologize in advance for the length and wordiness of my reply

 

[dogpause]

Interesting discussion. I would not assume that Clingan would not get into foul trouble again. He's been in early trouble in a significant percentage of our games this year. He has gotten better, but both Kalkbrenner, Edey and every opponent will likely take it to him early. We need to be prepared when that happens.

In recent games, several teams have done a better job of keeping Spencer and Karaban from shooting open 3's. It's been a focus, and we need to improve our response to such tactics. We also didn't play very good defense against Creighton. Yes, they shot the lights out, but we could have been better.

Mostly I saw this game as a diagnostic tool to expose what we need to work on. Hated losing, but I hate long win streaks too, especially going into the tournaments. Creighton is a very good team who played great. They deserved the win. We need to gain knowledge without losing any confidence. I believe we will. We also need to bounce back versus Nova. I believe we'll do that too.

 

[Hunt for 7]

We scored more points in the loss than we did in the win. Whatever worked a month ago worked again. They just did not shoot as well in the first game and if you go back and watch the game the energy level on defense was much different. If we play them again I would play small ball and get Kalkbrenner guarding AK. Castle and Newton especially were able to get to the hoop but many times especially Castle ran into Kalkbrenner. If we go small I would go more to iso sets and get AK to draw Kalkbrenner away from basket. if AK is being guarded by Kalkbrenner we can over load one side of the floor put AK and one of the guards on the other side and run some pick and roll action. Make Kalkbrenner have to guard on the perimeter get him moving on defense no center should be able to play 40 minutes. As soon as they made their run after DC picked up #2 and they started making that run we should have went small changed or offensive approach. The only argument for not doing it was AK was having a bad shooting night. But we let Kalkbrenner play 40 minutes that can’t happen. They have done this to us twice no way we don’t make some real changes if we play them a third time. Go small and spread the floor and make Kalkbrenner move his feet on defense. Of course this is all with the caveat that DC is in foul trouble but even in that scenario we should try it when DC is on the bench resting. Kalkbrenner played 40 minutes has he ever played 40 minutes in a game? I think he got that 5 minute rest with our time out and the the media timeout so it was like 39 minutes and 45 seconds but still we can’t let that happen.

 

[Phoenixhusky]

Play on a neutral or home court.

 

[FreeKlaiber]

a few adjustments they could have made
1)put karaban at the 5 over samson at times when DC on bench, so kalkenbrenner couldnt play one man zone all night. Mcdermott did same thing to A Jax last yr, with Scheierman playing off him big time, clogging the paint. Maybe Alex cant handle Kalk on the block, but it wouldve changed our offensive outlook, opening up middle.

2)get out of the high hedge. This is my biggest adjustment. After Samson flies out, we scramble, with help defender dropping to guard the paint where samson just was. Now they attack 4 v 3 , & Mcdermott coached them to pass it to the corner, where our help defender just was. the fact that these role players (farabello, miller and who the hell is jason green) hit their threes really killed us, but they were open bc of hedge. couldve played it straight after awhile and dealt with pick and roll instead

3)he flashed 1-3-1 D once in first half, and a couple times late in 2nd half. We made a little run when he ran some 1-2-2 3/4 court in 2nd half, and got some turnovers. Id like to see different defensive looks during game just to throw off other offense. Marquette plays matchup zone against seton hall. If we philosophically want to get stuck in ISOs with richmond all night when we play them again, thats defensive stubborness IMHO. Id like to see us play a matchup zone sometimes, as neither alex or cam has the quickness to play man against much quicker guys. But playing zone is against some coaches DNA

4) wouldve like to see Solo or Castle more on Ashworth once he caught fire in first half

5)offensively, need to either post Clingan on block more (if only to kick it out), or get more paint pressure through drives to get inside-out game going. In both kansas and creighton games, we are stuck on perimeter and alex and cam never get looks. When teams overplay us, we need to drive to hoop. Newton does his right elbow drive, but rarely kicks it out (had a great dish to Clingan though, and played out of his mind). We get too perimeter oriented with our sets at times.

6)how many TOs did Danny take in first half? (remember one, could be mistaken if there were more)

7) gotta make Kalk play d, by taking it too him, maybe get him in foul trouble. Whether its Castle driving or Clingan posting up. He never came out of the game

danny and staff do a great job, but ive never felt in game adjustments were a strength. Bottomline Creighton shot lights out, and hard to beat a team thats collectively that hot

 

[willie99]

He's not going to play them in Omaha

 

[Greathusky]

Jesus and four disciples could have came down from heaven and Creighton would have still beat them.

Reminded me of the New Mexico State game two years ago when you just shook your head at what went in for the Aggies.

 

[HuskyFich]

Give Clingan and Samson unlimited fouls.

 

[NJHusky]

And the second foul
Was bull…. No fouls in first 8 minutes in very physical game, except one on him and another on his ass. He was fouled as many times in that time span with no fouls on kalkbrener

And when Kalk blocked AK before the half was bs. Kalk was in the air and bodied Alex. No call. Kid runs past Dc and slips..foul

 

[Giddyup5]

Switch 1 through 4 on all screens. The 5 regardless if DC or SJ plays drop.

Not too worried about the offense.

 

[NJHusky]

Interesting discussion. I would not assume that Clingan would not get into foul trouble again. He's been in early trouble in a significant percentage of our games this year. He has gotten better, but both Kalkbrenner, Edey and every opponent will likely take it to him early. We need to be prepared when that happens.

Start Tyler Olander…so someone other than Dc gets the first ticky tak foul

Mostly I saw this game as a diagnostic tool to expose what we need to work on.

Good point. Better to discover our weaknesses now and address them than during the tourney

 

[FfldCntyFan]

So what adjustments do you think Hurley and the team can make to counter what McDermott and Creighton did on both ends of the floor to our guys on Tuesday?

I consider myself a hoops junky who has a solid understanding of Xs snd Os, but I'm not sure what adjustments Hurley can make in light of what a team built like Creighton can do when they play their A game, and with the mix of players we have on this year's team.

Of course, somehow getting Clingan to defend well without fouling as much would help, but I'm not sure what more the coaching staff can do to help him at this point. I hope they can. Though hard to prevent bad and/or borderline calls against him.

One thing we do know, when the opposing perimeter players curl around the high screen at the top of the key, they have to do something different than having our bigs hedging on screens, our weak side perimeter defenders leaving the opponents sharpshooters to temporarily cover the exposed bigs dropping back towards the basket until our big re-engages back into the paint. Creighton exploited that most of the night, especially when Clingan was on the bench.

Now there are not a lot of teams that are built and coached like Creighton that can knock down a lot of threes and successfully do rive to the basket the way they do. Creighton won't always shoot it as well from deep as they did, but hope that there is something UConn could have done differently to get more stops.

Now on the other end of the floor, Creighton did a good job of taking away some of our perimeter shooters and defending the back cuts that usually result in some could percentage shots in the paint or drawing fouls. It didn't look like they were running their half court motion as well as they usually do, but much of that might be the result of how Creighton defended it. I'd like to watch part of the game again to watch more closely at what they did.

I wish we had a 5 who could come off the bench and at least defend the paint close to how Clingan does. Johnson seems to have digressed and too often goes too far out with his help D or too aggressive on his hedge where he's either left too much open space behind him or picking up over aggressive fouls. And even with Clingan out on the floor in the second half, Creighton's sharpshooters kept on knocking down some big 3s.

Spencer struggles at times on the defense end since he doesn't have high end quickness and athleticism but it's hard not to keep him out there when he usually does so much on the offensive end. At times Hurley puts Diarra in who defends more aggressively and has been making plays on both ends, though I think he usually comes in for Castle more often than for any other player.

So what adjustments do you think can be made to counter what Creighton did?

When we beat them (badly) in January, do you believe that was due to them not being on or did we have something to do with it?

I think we can take them on a neutral court.

 

[giddyup]

If the opponent push their D out to defend the 3, we have to have dribble penetration to collapse the D. We were running constant screens to free shooters for open 3s keeping the ball on the perimeter way to long. When Newton started putting the team on his back it was with penetration. Our greatest weakness is Samson on the floor. He can’t compete on the glass. He lacks physicality, isn’t a scoring threat and is real weak piece on the board. Go small and push the pace.

 

[auror]

Someone mentioned having Donovan and/or Samson take that shot at the top of the key. I'm thinking running sets with Alex at the top of the arc and using that space from the 3 pt line to the lane to shoot or drive and draw a foul or kick out a pass? That spot seems to be soft a lot of the time, we just don't have a big that can shoot it from there.

a few adjustments they could have made
1)put karaban at the 5 over samson at times when DC on bench, so kalkenbrenner couldnt play one man zone all night. Mcdermott did same thing to A Jax last yr, with Scheierman playing off him big time, clogging the paint. Maybe Alex cant handle Kalk on the block, but it wouldve changed our offensive outlook, opening up middle.

When we had Karaban at the 5 for a few possessions, they had Kalkbrenner guarding Castle instead of Karaban and still had him playing way off and daring him to shoot.

 

[Palatine]

We usually get a lot of open threes on transition. But we had very few transition opportunities because they never missed.

Calhoun used to run double screens for Hamilton. We might try that with Spenczar or Karaban..

 

[Hankster]

Zero...they shot lights out.

Zero...they shot lights out.

I agree. Some of them were just tossed up from downtown. No matter where on the court.

 

[Travelman6]

Aside from rare cases (like Duke 99 or Kentucky 2012 and 2015) every team has at least a stinker or two. Shall/ this one were UConns.

 

[Hunt for 7]

a few adjustments they could have made
1)put karaban at the 5 over samson at times when DC on bench, so kalkenbrenner couldnt play one man zone all night. Mcdermott did same thing to A Jax last yr, with Scheierman playing off him big time, clogging the paint. Maybe Alex cant handle Kalk on the block, but it wouldve changed our offensive outlook, opening up middle.

2)get out of the high hedge. This is my biggest adjustment. After Samson flies out, we scramble, with help defender dropping to guard the paint where samson just was. Now they attack 4 v 3 , & Mcdermott coached them to pass it to the corner, where our help defender just was. the fact that these role players (farabello, miller and who the hell is jason green) hit their threes really killed us, but they were open bc of hedge. couldve played it straight after awhile and dealt with pick and roll instead

3)he flashed 1-3-1 D once in first half, and a couple times late in 2nd half. We made a little run when he ran some 1-2-2 3/4 court in 2nd half, and got some turnovers. Id like to see different defensive looks during game just to throw off other offense. Marquette plays matchup zone against seton hall. If we philosophically want to get stuck in ISOs with richmond all night when we play them again, thats defensive stubborness IMHO. Id like to see us play a matchup zone sometimes, as neither alex or cam has the quickness to play man against much quicker guys. But playing zone is against some coaches DNA

4) wouldve like to see Solo or Castle more on Ashworth once he caught fire in first half

5)offensively, need to either post Clingan on block more (if only to kick it out), or get more paint pressure through drives to get inside-out game going. In both kansas and creighton games, we are stuck on perimeter and alex and cam never get looks. When teams overplay us, we need to drive to hoop. Newton does his right elbow drive, but rarely kicks it out (had a great dish to Clingan though, and played out of his mind). We get too perimeter oriented with our sets at times.

6)how many TOs did Danny take in first half? (remember one, could be mistaken if there were more)

7) gotta make Kalk play d, by taking it too him, maybe get him in foul trouble. Whether its Castle driving or Clingan posting up. He never came out of the game

danny and staff do a great job, but ive never felt in game adjustments were a strength. Bottomline Creighton shot lights out, and hard to beat a team thats collectively that hot

Good post we were writing just about the same thing at the same time. Great minds I guess. I really think the key is getting Kalkbrenner to play defense. Really all he did on defense was plant himself in the paint and protect the rim but he did not have to expend a ton of energy. I went and looked and he does play at least 35 minutes per game. If you look at their rotations their coach (who is a great coach) he makes a 7 player rotation work without his guys looking fatigued. I don’t think this bodes well for them in a three game in three day BE tournament situation. If we play them again in that tourney more than likely it will be on the third day and we should see the effects of that lack of depth. But the key is getting Kalkbrenner to play real defense. I respect this staff and they had to see it was a key so maybe it was execution but I think they missed making a few adjustments. Also Spencer who we all love was pretty bad defensively which is the weakest part of his game. He suffers the most on the defensive end when DC is on the bench. I believe we are a much better team but this was one of those games once the flood gates opened they gained confidence and we had no answers when every three started going in. DC appears to have put it behind him but he knew what happened after he picked up that second foul and it impacted his game the rest of the night. Imagine if he had the green light to take that three from the top of the key. Maybe he does but just getting the ball and acting as a screener without looking at the basket just makes that set to easy to defend.

 

[McLovin]

Hire Tonya Harding and tell her to bring her pipe… but in all seriousness, there is nothing you can do when a team shoots 60% on mid range jumpers and 50% on 25+ foot 3 pointers.

 

[UConn Dan]

We're on to Nova

 

[FreeKlaiber]

When we had Karaban at the 5 for a few possessions, they had Kalkbrenner guarding Castle instead of Karaban and still had him playing way off and daring him to shoot.

excellent point, i forgot that. They dared him to shoot from 3 throughout game, leading to couple of travels at top of key. When they put kalk on castle, i thought it would be a chance to put Ball in, and force Creightons hand...it really is chess with McDermott coaching. One of the best going. Alot of those open 3's from corner was his prepping to attack the high hedge...

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Interesting paradox :

I prefer this type of thread more than the, "How do you beat UConn?" threads that function as brainstorming sessions populated by dozens of people who watch nearly all of the games with a high level of attention, even if not with across-the-board highest levels of perception & analysis.

Of course, to get a thread like this, UConn has to lose a game.

Is there a Creighton message board "How to beat us" thread? It would save time, and probably be more reliable. Or do they keep such discussions less out in the open?

 

[DGRU]

Hoping that Cam and Newton pick it up on the defensive end but it's hard to teach lateral quickness and a desire to dig down deep on every defensive stand

channeling Pitino

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Interesting paradox :

I prefer this type of thread more than the, "How do you beat UConn?" threads that function as brainstorming sessions populated by dozens of people who watch nearly all of the games with a high level of attention, even if not with across-the-board highest levels of perception & analysis.

Of course, to get a thread like this, UConn has to lose a game.

Is there a Creighton message board "How to beat us" thread? It would save time, and probably be more reliable. Or do they keep such discussions less out in the open?

This place does boggle the mind at times.

After we destroyed Marquette, the basic theme from many on here was "can anyone beat us?". We lay an egg in a difficult venue against a very talented and very experienced team and now the theme is "can we beat them? If so, how?".

Many coaches have said (I believe Bill Parcells normally gets the credit) "You're never as good as you look when you win and you're never as bad as you look when you lose".

Bottom line, we can win every remaining game, Including both tournaments. Will we? That's what makes it so exciting.

 

[dennismenace]

I'm curious to see our "shot selection" this year vs. last year. Seems like we are setting a lot less screens for our 3 point shooters and also taking a lot more mid range floaters. Last year was all layups by Sanogo and Threes off a screen.

Spencer is one of the most lights out mid-range shooters I have ever seen. And they are almost always all net. That comes from a lot of hard work. Take what the defense gives you.