Why were we doubling in the post?

[CONN78SEJ]

My thoughts on the doubling strategy:

• Instead of doubling, I would have rather seen Sanogo at the 4 and Clingan at the 5. It's not great for spacing on the offensive end, but a few mins would have been interesting to give Karaban a breather.

This tactic has really worked well in several recent UConn games. Most teams don’t have answer for it, and Sanogo can continue polishing his 3 pt shooting (Lol) and even if he misses, Clingan likely gets the rebound. The defense on Hawkins, Newton and Karaban or Joey C falls apart.

 

[HooperScooper]

It’s why Sampson Johnson is important

Who?

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Who?

Maybe this'll make a difference...

 

[Deadrody]

Yeah, we really, really needed Johnson in this game. Should have given Springs some minutes, his post D is probably better than Alex's. Karaban was playing post defense against a big, physical guy. The kind of pushing shoving, holding ground D we ask Sanogo to do. That is not his strong suit to begin with, and defending that way is going to consume a lot of energy, so playing 37 minutes is too much. He was a problem on the defensive end against Oklahoma State. Guards coming on the double helped a few times and produced good results.

Guards coming on the double resulted in ball rotation and dunks just as often.

Asking Karaban to play post defense against a talented, physical 4 is not the way to go, but we basically didn't try anything else, which is disappointing.