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

[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.

 

[Greathusky]

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 fo

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.

Learned that the Boneyard does not allow the word "Jes*s" as this was my first word in the post above. I am talking about the man upstairs.

What if someday the number one recruit in the country named Jes*s Rodriguez commits to UConn?

 

[HooperScooper]

Learned that the Boneyard does not allow the word "Jes*s" as this was my first word in the post above. I am talking about the man upstairs.

What if someday the number one recruit in the country named Jes*s Rodriguez commits to UConn?

Well at least everyone on here would spell his first name correctly.

 

[storrsroars]

What if someday the number one recruit in the country named Jes*s Rodriguez commits to UConn?

Then Tom would probably program every mention of Jeebus to "Jeebus Rodriguez" even if you were referring to the other one, much like he did with T.P. = Tyler Phommanchanh.

Having said that, I'm now mildly surprised he hasn't already programmed it to say "Jeebus Shuttleworth"

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Learned that the Boneyard does not allow the word "Jes*s" as this was my first word in the post above. I am talking about the man upstairs.

What if someday the number one recruit in the country named Jes*s Rodriguez commits to UConn?

There was a time when that was a perfectly acceptable single word Reply post, and was regularly used by a noted throat-puncher who might otherwise simply write, "Good grief" in exasperation or dismissive simplicity when something was judged unworthy of a more detailed disapproving response.

 

[temery]

Learned that the Boneyard does not allow the word "Jes*s" as this was my first word in the post above. I am talking about the man upstairs.

What if someday the number one recruit in the country named Jes*s Rodriguez commits to UConn?

I'm currently fighting with an ad vendor who was suspending ads on pages with the name "Solo Ball." They insist it is a euphemism for prohibited "Adult Sexual Content."

Edit: Jesus Rodriguez. Works.

Worth noting: You can now say WTF. You're welcome.

 

[temery]

There was a time when that was a perfectly acceptable single word Reply post, and was regularly used by a noted throat-puncher who might otherwise simply write, "Good grief" in exasperation or dismissive simplicity when something was judged unworthy of a more detailed disapproving response.

And there were many, many complaints, which creates work for me. I don't like work. I can't fight every front.

Jesus is a noun, not an interjection or adjective.

 

[temery]

Not give up unlimited open 3s.

My guess is they were trying to draw the defense out to give Kalkbrenner more room to get around Clingan in the paint.

 

[JeffConn]

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?

I've been a college basketball/UConn fan for a long time, but not too in the know about the Xs and Os. I agree with a lot of posters that note Creighton had a great game plan and played their A game while our Huskies did not. It appeared that our players maintained their composure to make a comeback despite Creighton players' lights-out shooting for most of the game. While a big part of that is home court advantage, I offer some casual observations.

Most of our players did not have best games. That's to be expected. Alex and Cam were not getting open looks. Stephon Castle had a pause in his ascension; his toughness and defensive stopper abilities were not as evident. As many noted, when Donovan went out, the offense digressed to missed shots and only Tristen was carrying the team. While generally being a very steady shooter, scorer and leader, it seems to me that Cam Spencer is one or our defensive X factors. I love the grit, toughness and leadership he regularly brings. He usually always brings great defensive hands play and heads-up play to disrupt the other team and intercept passes, but sometimes (Seton Hall and Creighton), he has appeared slow-footed on defense which was exploited by opponents. When Cam appeared to be covering him, the smaller Creighton guard Steven Ashworth went off and that reset the tone for the game; early on, he was allowed to be too open to shoot. During one moment when Cam was covering Trey Alexander, Alexander appeared to recognize the opportunity and immediately took and hit a three. That had me wondering if it was part of Creighton's game plan to have their players look to shoot when Cam was covering them. Maybe Cam can focus on minimizing the spacing when covering shooters like Ashworth who are not driving threats. And maybe Cam should not be assigned to cover faster players like Trey Alexander. It's evident our coaching staff has been doing a phenomenally great job over the last year, but maybe (?) our defensive schemes could be slightly tweaked to better minimize some players' defensive weaknesses while continuing to take advantage of their much more extensive playing strengths.

 

[Deepster]

I'm currently fighting with an ad vendor who was suspending ads on pages with the name "Solo Ball." They insist it is a euphemism for prohibited "Adult Sexual Content."

Edit: Jesus Rodriguez. Works.

Worth noting: You can now say WTF. You're welcome.

We could auto correct his name to “The Senhor”….

 

[Jumpman62114]

Be prepared and willing to make some easy mid range 2s coming off the curls to make them adjust. Consider playing drop coverage with Samson versus better passing teams that make us scramble on D. Isolate their short PG (Ashworth) on D in the mid range/post when possible.