who is the rudder?

[Marty Jackson]

if you look back at the successful teams, there was a 'go to' player. Someone that thrived under the pressure. Just when the other team was imposing its will, this player seemed to step up and literally deny that team with his own will. Call it a 'winning mentality'.

Kemba and Shabazz are the most recent and two of the finest. Hamilton and Butler were also players that stepped up in pressure situations. There were also some standout talent that just couldn't seem to hit that next level. Sticks and Dyson come to mind. Tremendous talent that just didn't translate to team success.

A mentor of mine used to say that 'great captains aren't made by sailing calm seas...". We'll see if this team bounces back. How Ollie motivates this team and makes this a learning opportunity. But the reality is, this team has no rudder. We can point out how Ollie coached and what he did or didn't do. But the players have to execute. This team was up 12 and coasting. they were outscored 23-2 or something in the final 5 minutes.
3 players missed a 1 foot shot. How many shot clock violations were there? How many stupid turnovers?
you could see the finger pointing with each other. And this isn't the first time they've been outscored like this in the final minutes. It's a problem because they don't have someone to step up and be that guy when the seas get rough:

Hamilton-puckered. someone should check to see if he has a pulse
Purvis-Double puckered
Gibbs-puckered
Miller-not sure if he puckered because he seemed to disappear.
AB-half puckered. give him little break because he probably isn't 100% yet
Nolan-puckered. looked like he didn't belong last night

It's hard to play when your a-- is puckered so tight. You choke. you lose that mental edge. And that's what happened to this team.

Who is going to be that rudder?

 

[Bryan Lord]

Gibbs and that is my stone cold lock of the week. He just needs to adjust to the 30 second shot clock.

 

[Marty Jackson]

the only saving grace is we saw a similar turn of events in 2014 when uconn was blown up by Louisville late in the season. They turned it around and made a decent run after that. maybe this team's louisville is temple?

 

[Uconn77Duke74]

the only saving grace is we saw a similar turn of events in 2014 when uconn was blown up by Louisville late in the season. They turned it around and made a decent run after that. maybe this team's louisville is temple?

looking more like the 2014-15 team

 

[Dove]

I saw enough of Gibbs last night to know that he is a broken rudder.

IF there is rudder, which I guess is not the same as an Alpha Dawg(?)...it would have to be the future, Jalen "Meet the Pine" Adams.

 

[HuskyCLT]

It's hard to play when your a-- is puckered so tight. You choke. you lose that mental edge. And that's what happened to this team. ?

This team needs to un-pucker and take a steaming dump on our next 3 opponents.

 

[OkaForPrez]

Was going to post this as an original thread but it belongs here. We're now on February the 12th and we have the same problem that we collectively identified as a group heading into the season and that KO called out in the preseason. We do not have the go to scorer in the clutch. Yesterday went more or less as I expected it would, in fact, we were playing above expectation for 33 minutes. The fact that we were playing with a 10-12 point lead late makes the loss particularly harder to swallow. We need to remember that. It's not the loss that's killing us so much as the collapse. Lots of teams in college basketball would drop a road game to a tourney caliber team this year. But we have to be concerned because...

We thought we would be able to count on Gibbs to step up and bail us out at this point in the season. We're all doing our share of scapegoating right now, and generally I don't like to do that, but I have to say at this point I'm truly miffed and disappointed in what we're seeing out of him. Where is the guy who flashed the step back in the Big East Tourney last year? I thought this kid would be able to create his own shot when our offense otherwise broke down, or at the very least as a super senior, be able to execute the offense so that we can get up a good look when it counts. The broken play with a minute left is a microcosm for our season so far.

I'm not flip flopping on my expectations for this team. Between the defense and the offensive pieces we're still plenty capable of making the run. In the grand scheme of the season the loss doesn't mean anything with the exception that the nature of the loss underscores our Achilles heal once more. Hat tip to the "But we should win the american" crowd, you're right, but I don't personally care about that, I want NC rings.

I don't believe the optimists were wrong to be feeling great about our progress over the three preceding games and I don't think we should abandon that optimism now. That was another tremendous defensive performance. We need "the guy" though. And maybe our only chance is that Adams becomes that guy. Because Sterling has to be what he is at this point, right?

 

[Marty Jackson]

This team needs to un-pucker and take a steaming dump on our next 3 opponents.

couldn't agree more...

 

[uconnfan68]

Gibbs and that is my stone cold lock of the week. He just needs to adjust to the 30 second shot clock.

Really hard to do when the other 4 play statue.