Game #21: 1/25/20--3PM vs Hartford

[dslyank]

Ellison had 31 pts; ½ hart's totals

[UA'08]

31 minutes ago, godanesgo99 said:

Hopefully Clark is ok. He was limping while shaking hands at the end. If he is out, that would be the end of the season.

On tv he got a knee to the balls. 

[UA1882]

We are a below average team . (RPI in the low 200's out of approx 360).

Our biggest problem is this : We dont have a player we can constantly rely on. 

Clark (our most valuable player) plays out of control a lot and shoots a low percentage.

Healy is good, but against athletic good defensive teams he is just average.  Several turnovers today.

The rest is a crap shoot. We need to get much more athletic. We have at least 2 scholarships left and they should go to the most athletic people we can recruit.  

[Dane Pound]

Didn't like the smaller lineup from the start. Rizzuto on Elliot and Hutch on Marks weren't good matchups at all. 

I thought Hansen and Lauderdale played hard and Lauderdale should have gotten more minutes. 

Lulka had a really solid freshman year and I had hopes for him but he drove me crazy in this game. 

Whoeverr recruited Stafl and Flowers for Hartford, in addition to getting the two grad transfers, should get a big raise.

Both teams had their PGs in foul trouble - Ahmad for us and Carter for Hartford. Hartford actually had a backup PG and that made the difference. Two point game when Ahamd picked up his forth foul. It was over when he went out of the game.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Dane Pound

[Bball2020]

No adjustments vs the man defense, ua did not look to score inside. Depsite no desousa that hartford team was very poir, simply jack up threes every time down. We let number one get confidence going, bad night shooting and poor effort. No offensive adjustments such as posting lauderdale and lulka up. Hopefully just one of those games.

[BestDaneSinceHamlet]

1 hour ago, dslyank said:

 

OK; but see above quote?? What do you purpose??

I’m not sure, but I’m also not paid 350k to figure it out 

[Bball2020]

I thougjt they could have posted their big man up more instead of turning it over twenty five times vs quick guards- yes lulka lauderdale hanson etc are far from adequate post players but at least try it. Hartford keyed on guards and extended their defense.  Ua didnt even look to do it and lulka and lauderdale could both have scored on their soft inside and they have both had twenty point nights in the past. Not saying it would have fixed all but to not even try? Threes and turnovers all day- 

[Dane06grad]

30 minutes ago, BestDaneSinceHamlet said:

I’m not sure, but I’m also not paid 350k to figure it out 

Good point. 

Someone said it earlier, the team just isn't athletic enough. It is a team of nice complimentary players, but there isn't a guy on this team who is gonna get his no matter what team they play and who they put on him. Clark does his best, but he can't take a game over like a cremo, Rowley, Singletary, Nichols, etc could. One person from the opposing team DOMINATED the Danes today, all of the Danes. 

[McFan]

4 hours ago, Dane Pound said:

Didn't like the smaller lineup from the start. Rizzuto on Elliot and Hutch on Marks weren't good matchups at all. 

I thought Hansen and Lauderdale played hard and Lauderdale should have gotten more minutes. 

Lulka had a really solid freshman year and I had hopes for him but he drove me crazy in this game. 

Whoeverr recruited Stafl and Flowers for Hartford, in addition to getting the two grad transfers, should get a big raise.

Both teams had their PGs in foul trouble - Ahmad for us and Carter for Hartford. Hartford actually had a backup PG and that made the difference. Two point game when Ahamd picked up his forth foul. It was over when he went out of the game.

I thought Lauderdale earned some more time too.  Once Ahmad got his 4th I don’t think it would have mattered.

Clark can drive us all crazy but we don’t even have an option at PG after him.

[godanesgo99]

This is why losing JoJo hurts so much more than we realize. I get that he didn't feel he could contribute and felt it best to get the surgery now to be 100% for next season, but when Clark isn't on the floor the team plays a survival game. With no one else that can really handle the ball the team can not beat a press or really any pressure defense. Healey made a couple of nice attacking plays, but for the most part the team can't run the offense without him. 

It was a 2 point game when Clark had to leave. In less than 5 minutes without him it turned into a 15 point lead extremely quickly. By the time he was back in the floor the entire team had lost its energy and started playing defeated. You could see it in their eyes. Clark dove to save a ball from going out of bounds but accidentally threw the ball to Hartford who promptly hit a 3 and the team just appeared to give up.

I hate to put pressure on one kid, but this team will only go as far as Clark takes them.

We shouldn't have another game where the team shoots that poorly. I didn't think Hartford looked that strong defensively. The outside shots UA took were mostly uncontested and open. Most looked flat with no rotation if they were on line, the rest were all off right or left. 

[dslyank]

Some famous coach once said, you are not as bad as you look when you shoot poorly and not as good as you look when you shoot exceptionally {or something like that.} The point being Wednesday UA shot at a amazing % and Saturday could not hit the broad side of a barn with  a tennis ball. As a team, we are probably somewhere between what we saw wed. and sat.. If UA shoots even their normal average yesterday, they win; if they don't turn it over 19 times they win walking  away.  In spite of how bad they looked, UA only gave up 62 points, ½ of which came from one player and ½ of those points came in a span of 10 minutes. We out rebounded Hford by 10 and only allowed 3 offensive rebounds and few if any second chance points; in spite of the fact that Hford had a distinct size advantage at nearly every position; and our top rebounder and most athletic kid did not suit. 

This team is so frustratingly close to being really GOOD, maybe even winning the AmEast. No body is going to win this thing running away. Top to bottom the league is that close this year. Not sure if the league is just ALL BAD or all improved, but really on any given day any team in this league can beat another. If UA could just get their offense and shooting more consistent and CUT DOWN ON TURNOVERS, IMHO they could going dancing again. On the other hand, especially without a competent back-up at the point mid-pack and early exit also highly possible. 

Edited January 26, 2020 by dslyank

[Dane Pound]

3 minutes ago, dslyank said:

This team is so frustratingly close to being really GOOD, maybe even winning the AmEast. No body is going to win this thing running away. Top to bottom the league is that close this year. Not sure if the league is just ALL BAD or all improved, but really on any given day any team in this league can beat another. If UA could just get their offense and shooting more consistent and CUT DOWN ON TURNOVERS, IMHO they could going dancing again. On the other hand, especially without a competent back-up at the point mid-pack and early exit also highly possible. 

I'd add that our lineup is so ragged at this point that we aren't able to have a consistent rotation, not to mention being able to work on things.

CB mentioned after the game that he might hold Hutch out for a while so he can get healthy. He hasn't looked like the same guy as earlier in the season because of the injury. I have expected we might see some of Sam Schaefer last night since he became available. He's at least a bigger wing that would help.