Worst Defensive Performance

[uconngb]

Zone cost us the game. I am absolutely stunned at that being used from Hurley. In disbelief

And our man to man was better?? He had to try something. Guarantee if he didn’t you and the others criticizing the zone would be wailing about he didn’t try to change something. We had NO answer for them. Period.

 

[Vuce]

Our FT shooting could have won the game. 10-15 from the line and that includes missing the front end of 1 and 1’s twice so it was even worse than it looks on paper. It was there for the taking. Get the win Sunday

 

[JB75]

Not sure about that foul on Vital's steal down 2...or the no-travel call on SMU on the very next play...

2 awful obvious calls that -as usual went against us. Vital popped the balll out from behind. Wasn’t like it was a reach around. Another killer ending from the refs

 

[VA Blue Dog]

Yeah ran video in slow motion and Vital had all ball. Two SMU guys collided. Vital also got an elbow in the face that the referees and the announcers missed totally.

 

[Bulldog]

Our offense was extremely good, but I’ve never seen us play worse defense than tonight under Hurley so far. Not just the abysmal zone, but we were not challenging anyone all night. Also blatant travel at end. Good comeback and fight though. Oh well, another close loss, onto Memphis

Wow, you just about captured all of my thoughts. Poor defense all the way. Zone was atrocious. Team not used to playing zone and it showed. That made a comeback tough. To their credit they made the comeback. Cut to 2 point lead and missed free throw, missed an open 3 and a Bouknight shot in the lane. Couple of questionable calls. The Vital call and the missed travel. The travel was pretty obvious. Gilbert’s 3 was clutch. Just needed one more offensive play.

 

[superjohn]

2 awful obvious calls that -as usual went against us. Vital popped the balll out from behind. Wasn’t like it was a reach around. Another killer ending from the refs

I thought the refs were fine but they missed a blatant travel by SMU at the end, I thought we got the benefit on 2 foul calls down the stretch.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Zone was atrocious.

The zone looked bad but a good offense is going to beat a zone and SMU looked really well coached in that regard. There are pretty good offensive teams out there that would not have torn up the zone like SMU did.

 

[Get a Job]

I thought the refs were fine but they missed a blatant travel by SMU at the end, I thought we got the benefit on 2 foul calls down the stretch.

Refs were bad as usual, but a lot of bad calls went our way. Officiating definitely a nonfactor tonight, in my opinion.

 

[housekeys]

And our man to man was better?? He had to try something. Guarantee if he didn’t you and the others criticizing the zone would be wailing about he didn’t try to change something. We had NO answer for them. Period.

I can't speak for others, but the problem I had with the zone, is the timing of it. There are better times to put on a zone; down 10 is not one of them, IMHO. Zoning a good shooting team, like apparently, SMU, is high risk. The lead is a cushion that SMU players can take advantage of. Trading 2's for 3's is not the way to get back in the game. We need to make a 3 for every one they make, with the risk of further falling behind if we do not attempt 3's. It's just the wrong approach for that time in the game, IMHO. Having said that, I would not say that was "the" reason we lost.

 

[uconngb]

I thought the refs were fine but they missed a blatant travel by SMU at the end, I thought we got the benefit on 2 foul calls down the stretch.

We definitely got the benefit of two very questionable calls. Somehow people forget those. Refs were not the reason we lost tonight. They very rarely are.

 

[AdamaNation]

SMU is easily the best offensive team in the conference and probably the best we've played all year. Shouldn't have gone zone though jesus that was coaching malpractice.

Zone was the game. I actually thought the whole game flow changed once we stayed with it on the next possession then for about 3 minutes. They moved the ball like old white guys at the ymca. That was a bad Danny moment. Very surprised how cv got totally lost on one stand, but will say they moved very well. With Akok they could have allowed a little more space. Rey surprise we took so long to go small and even more surprised we didn’t press more(maybe due to heavy guard minutes). The fact that AA probably had the only real bad game due to lack of presence should mean something.
I love the guy but can someone find out who the most blocked shot takers in the country are? For our own stats? And then hand deliver it to Hurley and slide one under als door? Everything is fine so long as he stays out of the paint.

 

[uconnfan68]

They are athletic but no team should dominate us on O like that. When Hurley pulled Gaffney and Bouk they went on a run. Then later he went zone and not to defend him but wow why were we packing the zone in? They were toying with us.

They had sub 30% shooters going 8-9, with 3s too. They all shot very well (9-17 from 3). If we made our foul shots we might have won, in spite of another poor officiating job.

 

[uconngb]

Zone was the game. I actually thought the whole game flow changed once we stayed with it on the next possession then for about 3 minutes. They moved the ball like old white guys at the ymca. That was a bad Danny moment. Very surprised how cv got totally lost on one stand, but will say they moved very well. With Akok they could have allowed a little more space. Rey surprise we took so long to go small and even more surprised we didn’t press more(maybe due to heavy guard minutes). The fact that AA probably had the only real bad game due to lack of presence should mean something.
I love the guy but can someone find out who the most blocked shot takers in the country are? For our own stats? And then hand deliver it to Hurley and slide one under als door? Everything is fine so long as he stays out of the paint.

And how was the man to man the rest of the game?? What exactly were the other options?? It was an awful defensive performance, no matter what they were in. Why don’t people see that? They shot 60% in the first half against exclusively man. Yeah, let’s just stay with that all game.

 

[ToolzieFan]

I love the guy but can someone find out who the most blocked shot takers in the country are? For our own stats? And then hand deliver it to Hurley and slide one under als door? Everything is fine so long as he stays out of the paint.

Our blocked shot rate on offense is 11.1%, good for 36th worst in the country. Defensively, our 16.4% blocked shot rate is 4th best in the country. Our average height is 106th in the country, so we shouldn’t be blocked so often, as if anyone didn’t already know that. That’s without a doubt a big reason our 46.1% 2-point shooting percentage is ranked 301st in the nation.

 

[JohnFSilver]

Our offense was extremely good, but I’ve never seen us play worse defense than tonight under Hurley so far. Not just the abysmal zone, but we were not challenging anyone all night. Also blatant travel at end. Good comeback and fight though. Oh well, another close loss, onto Memphis

credit to smu. They are very tough to guard.that is a very tough team to play off the dribble.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

Our offense was extremely good, but I’ve never seen us play worse defense than tonight under Hurley so far. Not just the abysmal zone, but we were not challenging anyone all night. Also blatant travel at end. Good comeback and fight though. Oh well, another close loss, onto Memphis

im scouring the board, and I still don't see talk, or a thread, about this. ridiculous, game changing bad call by the zebras. unbelievable.

 

[uconngb]

im scouring the board, and I still don't see talk, or a thread, about this. ridiculous, game changing bad call by the zebras. unbelievable.

That’s because the refs did not lose this game for us. Atrocious defense lost this game for us.

 

[storrsroars]

Refs were bad as usual, but a lot of bad calls went our way. Officiating definitely a nonfactor tonight, in my opinion.

I only saw 2nd half and seemed to me like for most part refs let the kids play, which made some of the ticky tack fouls that were called seem ridiculous. But IMO, the only blatantly bad call was that SMU walk while catching a high pass with 16.2 left.

It's a loss, and a road loss at that at a place UConn has never won, but the good guys made it a game when it looked like SMU was going to run away with it a couple of times. Bad D, but also the best game in Dallas since joining the AAC. In the prior five games at Moody, UConn lost by 8, 18, 26, 20, 18... and tonight by only 4.

 

[Brandon86]

Not sure about that foul on Vital's steal down 2...or the no-travel call on SMU on the very next play...

It was a clean steal. The SMU player teammate took his legs out from under him.

 

[Sonofabeach]

Always someone huh? Lol

How many times did Hunt go strait down the lane do a double axle and score? Too easy!

 

[Edward Sargent]

Stayed in a little too long but I agree has to try something.

Even AG couldn't stay in front of their PG so I agree

 

[Hankster]

Always someone huh? Lol

I agree on that. It is always some player shooting three's at 20% for the year and then going nuts against us. It is always someone.

 

[Hankster]

How many times did Hunt go strait down the lane do a double axle and score? Too easy!

SMU Made a meal out of our big's. I didn't look a the stats. Did we block anything? They floated their shot over Carlton and Akok. Both were absent.

 

[The Funster]

I was very impressed with SMU and no, we did not make them look better. They ran the offense well.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

SMU was getting to the rim at will. Some of our defenders, particularly Akok, were just backing up and letting them get to the hoop. I honestly thought the effort was not great. Gilbert got stuffed in the first half, and he was jogging back on defense when SMU hit a layup. I would have sat his butt down for the rest of the game for that sequence, although he wasn't the only one that seemed to be going through the motions.

UConn is a young team and it is late in the season, but last night was unacceptable. I can live with losing, but lack of effort is a problem.