Why don't the Huskies run more?

[HooperScooper]

Don't tell me Dave Borges doesn't read the Boneyard. Lol

And so, while UConn’s 27 fast-break points in Tuesday night’s 96-73 win over Georgetown were the most it’s scored in a game since scoring 30 against low-majors Central Connecticut State and Long Island on Nov. 9 and 13, respectively, don’t expect this to kick off a new era of the “Runnin’ Huskies.”

“Quite frankly, you’d love to do that every game,” Hurley said. “Georgetown (is second in) the league in offensive rebounding, so they crash the offensive glass. They don’t send three or four guys back and abort the offensive glass, which, in a lot of games against us, prevents us from getting the transition opportunities.”

Why doesn’t the UConn men’s basketball team run more? It’s not as easy as it may appear.

After scoring 27 points in transition on Tuesday, why doesn’t UConn men’s basketball...

www.nhregister.com

Free access link: Why doesn't the UConn men's basketball team run more?

 

[UconnU]

Good article by Borges. We should run more, we have the personnel and struggle at times getting clean looks in the half court. Although I will say we do play at a faster pace than one would think. We average nearly 74 possessions per(top 20ish percentile), up from 68 last year.

 

[willie99]

We're a big, physical team, that's our strength. We're establishing a very good identity now, we're jelling, why on earth would anybody want to change that? At this point in time? I know, maybe we can change our style of play just before the Dance

Only the media changes things now, because they've perfected everything

Sorry Dave

 

[boog204]

We've been saying this for over 10 years. Someone will also comment that we need to press more, something we haven't done in like 15-20. We haven't been a "running" team or particularly strong half-court offensive team since probably 2009 or so. We won two national championships as a full out grind it out, half-court team.

 

[Palatine]

This is an area where Hurley has improved as a coach. A few years ago his team couldn't run a two-on-one break. That's partially on the players but it's also something that has to be taught.

Also, we seem to identified who the finishers are on the break. Rather than throwing to a big at the foul line, we get the ball to Martin or Cole who know what to do with it.

BTW, Georgetown is the prefect opponent for us. They almost never come out of their man-to-man. And as Hurley mentioned, they crash the offensive glass. They play to our strengths.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

The answer is in what Hurley said. Most teams send their players back to defend the break rather than offensive rebound.

With Martin, Cole and Jackson though if you press it’s basically a fast break.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

The answer is in what Hurley said. Most teams send their players back to defend the break rather than offensive rebound.

With Martin, Cole and Jackson though if you press it’s basically a fast break.

Good point. While I appreciate the value of stats and metrics, they also need to be placed in the context of actually watching the games. I see many on here blindly using them to say "our pace is in the bottom xx%...we need to fast break more". If you pay attention to the gameflow, you can see it's obvious that most other teams respect that we have the pieces to play really fast...and they sacrifice offensive rebounding to stop rampant fast breaking.

For example, every single time AJ grabs a rebound, he's pushing the pace...even though the other team already has 2-3 players past the halfcourt line already. Most of the time, there's nothing there, so they go into a halfcourt set.

The pace metrics don't account for that, AFAIK. But I'm willing to learn more if I'm wrong.

 

[Hungryhusky99]

If no one crashes the offensive boards against us how come we have are 193rd in the country in offensive rebounding % allowed??

 

[Kenny11]

If no one crashes the offensive boards against us how come we have are 193rd in the country in offensive rebounding % allowed??

my guess is because we try to block a lot of shots which leads to weakside offensive rebounds

 

[superjohn]

The Huskies do run more now. They play at a way faster pace now than last year/previous years and are much better on the break now.

 

[HuskyHawk]

The answer is in what Hurley said. Most teams send their players back to defend the break rather than offensive rebound.

With Martin, Cole and Jackson though if you press it’s basically a fast break.

Nailed it. Opponents do not want to let us run for the same reason everyone here does want to see it. So they scheme against it, which makes defensive rebounding easier. As for the press, as soon as we started keeping Jackson back against the press it became a non-factor. His ability to throw over it or dribble past it, makes it a very bad risk. He's a fantastic press breaker in a way no 6' PG could be.

 

[Waquoit]

Now wee

This is an area where Hurley has improved as a coach. A few years ago his team couldn't run a two-on-one break. That's partially on the players but it's also something that has to be taught.

Put me down for it all, not partially on the players. My CYO coach could teach a 2 on 1 break but Hurley just recently figured it out? Don't you remember who was on the team a few years ago?

 

[auror]

The top transition team in the country is in transition 25% of their offensive possessions (Kentucky).
The D1 average is 15% transition.

UConn is at 22% transition, 13th most in the country.

When not in transition, we play pretty methodically. (Setup a play, run some action, use action to dump it into Sanogo, maybe kick it back out, find shooter off a screen, offensive rebound, etc.). It's why despite being in transition 13th most, we have the 148th quickest offensive tempo. Offensive rebounds in general can distort pace stats depending on how they're accounted for.

On the other hand, take a team like Depaul. They've only been in transition 17% of time, close to average. But their offensive tempo rank is 65th, because even when they're not in transition, they'll just have a wing guy jack a random 3 for no reason with 20 left on the shot clock. One of the reasons their offensive is 100+ and ours is top 20.

 

[t8per]

BTW, Georgetown is the prefect opponent for us. They almost never come out of their man-to-man. And as Hurley mentioned, they crash the offensive glass. They play to our strengths.

Which makes that Creighton loss in the BET that much more painful. We would have CRUSHED Georgetown in the championship game. Oh well, there's always this year