Certainly a lot of our problems over the past several years are self-inflicted but I've never seen such bad luck with any sports team I've followed, it's literally one injury and freak occurence after another. I'm almost expecting a floor board to pop up and impale someone at this point.
It's not bad luck.
I was there tonight. This team is awful. You don't realize how bad it is until you see them up close. Temple was toying with us. And Temple isn't even that good. The Gampel crowd got on their feet at least 7 times when we had momentum and needed a stop and each time Temple scored at will. Even before AG left it never felt like we we're gonna win it.
In the first 21 minutes I had Tarin Smith at -14. 4 missed chippies, 2 turnovers on the break which led to Temple hoops, and another turnover at the start of the 2nd that led to a Temple hoop.
Tyler Polley must have missed five 2nd half free throws. That's unbelievable.
Brendan Adams gave up a 6 point lead in the span of like a minute. (Didn't get a good view of the "intentional".
The reason GIlbert is there in the paint vs a 6'10 guy is because if he and Vital don't go down there we would literally never grab a rebound. Carlton isn't strong enough to box out and get the ball and Polley certainly isn't going to get it. So we need our guards to put their lives on the line down low. My seats didn't give me a great view but I believe AG got hurt because we failed to get the rebound and he was down there trying to get it.
Despite all of the insanely bad negative plays and bad IQ we are there because we do play hard (just not smart) and because Temple is merely decent. The 1997 and 2001 UConn teams would win 25 games in this league. That's how bad our talent is right now. We get pushed around and our best players physically taken out by Temple. We can't win games in this adequate league.
Vital, Gilbert, and Carlton are really the only even remotely UConn worthy players in this roster. One can't stay on the court and the other 2 would be coming off the bench on most UConn teams of the past.
Its not luck. There needs to be an aggressive aggressive influx of talent the next 1-2 years. We need more from this class and another 5th year grad Power 5 grad transfer. NO MORE ATLANTIC 10.