UA losses to UConn

[B9j2j6s]

Well despite optimism it wasn't unexpected that we would lose so can't say that most people on here should be surprised or upset. The team gave the best we had today and the results are the results. The good thing is we have a week to practice and prepare for the next game.

 

Now comes me being a homer I saw some good things mixed in the bad.

 

1. Gifford played well especially in the second half, he showed that he has the potential to be great and in conference play he could be as Coach Brown has been saying an impact player. (IMHO he will be starting against Siena)

 

2. Siggers played a great game and I expect him to have a good game against Siena next week.

 

3. It was nice to see Yocum and Anderson getting some time on the floor it was good experience.

 

4. Our Defense was good causing a good number of turnovers I believe at one point in the second half before Lillis fouled out that UConn had more turnovers then UA.

 

Negatives well I'm in a happy mood with the PATS winning and seeing my family for the first time in months this weekend so I'll let someone else take on the negatives.

[KingDane]

Very happy to have had a chance to watch the game from such a remote location, and looking forward to flying up to see the Siena game.

 

I've listened to the previous games on line, and watched this one. I hope at some point Iati begins to contribute.

 

This game was unwinnable. It should be great to see Uconn play in their Big East schedule.

[reeder]

Now comes me being a homer I saw some good things mixed in the bad.

 

1. Gifford played well especially in the second half, he showed that he has the potential to be great and in conference play he could be as Coach Brown has been saying an impact player. (IMHO he will be starting against Siena)

 

2. Siggers played a great game and I expect him to have a good game against Siena next week.

 

3. It was nice to see Yocum and Anderson getting some time on the floor it was good experience.

 

4. Our Defense was good causing a good number of turnovers I believe at one point in the second half before Lillis fouled out that UConn had more turnovers then UA.

 

Agreed on all points:

1. Glad to see Gifford get the start - he will do well this year. He made a couple of good moves and seems to understand what's going on.

2. It looked like Brown made a conscious effort to move Jamar off the point in the second half. I think that when you have a big athletic team like UConn, it's not realistic for Jamar to run the point, create and be depended upon to score a lot of points.

3. I think there was a lot more intensity defensively - UConn was just a lot bigger and more athletic.

4. The turnovers were bad - I don't mind the driving to the basket and getting shots blocked, but the bad passes are correctable.

[Clickclack]

I was also very encouraged by the game Gifford played. He went up against a 7'3 guy and had a nice hook over him and a jumper. He also had a great back door cut pass I think to Siggers, that shows awareness. In my opinion he is already a better player then Covington and from this point on should get the start. Covington is great coming of the bench and knocking the other teams big guy around but I think Gifford gets the start from here on. Although I'm not sure if the coach feels that way.

 

We are barely getting anything out of Iati, whats up? Siggers so far has been the most impressive this season.

 

The Sacred Heart game was a bad loss since we could have been 3-1 instead of 2-2. Oh well, on to play LCC. By the way, two UA related threads going on at the LCC board, and yet we are the ones obsessed go figure.

[ASP Guy]

just came back from the game.

I have to say i'm a little bummed at the way things transpired tonight.

I don't mind that we lost to UConn, but I do wish we'd made it a little more competitive.

 

A few thoughts:

- It was nice to see Jamar be able to take it to the hole, even though he didnt convert as often as he normally would.

- Siggers looked very good. He really ought to be able to completely replace Lucious by the time midseason rolls around.

- Watching this team made me want to appreciate Zoellner more.

- Most importantly: even though we looked out of sync and overmatched during parts of the game, it was also clear that this is still probably the best team in the America East.

 

Can't wait to see them take it out on what after this game will look like a J.V team from Loudinville.

[Dane Pound]

Like the rest of you I liked what I saw from Gifford. Pretty sure he was the only guy with a positive assist to turnover ratio. Not something you usually say about your starting center and he did it against a guy who he is not going to see the likes of for the rest of the season.

[reeder]

There were some comments in the TU Blog from Calhoun saying that Jamar kept the ball a lot - tried to beat his man one on one... Also a piece by Ettkin that talked about Leaders (Jamar) stepping up.

 

I think the team was genuinely confused and unable to handle the aggressive defense that UConn applied. IMO, Jamar made a decision to attack the basket as nothing else appeared to be working for the team. Not sure if it was a good or bad decision, but it was a decision and again, it didn't appear that there were a lot of other ideas. Point Guard or not, Jamar seems to do a lot of the ball handling when there is aggressive defense - someone was going to turn the ball over against that defense and it was Jamar by default.

 

The good news is that he did get to the basket frequently - he was forced to alter his shot a lot and had a few blocked, but he did what he thought was the right thing.

 

IMO, this team is a work in progress - it took a long time last year for people to understand and accept their roles and this year will not be different.

1. Post player rotation - I think moving Gifford into the starting lineup is a good decision. Now the team needs to refine the roles of Connelly and Covington. It is going to be difficult not to continue to increase Connelly's minutes if Covington doesn't contribute more.

2. Guard rotation - Does Jamar continue to run the point (he seemed to be doing it in the two games that I saw)? or does it go back to Brian Lillis? Will Iati step up like he did early last year or does Michael Knight get more minutes.

 

 

The good news is that we have another month or so before the games start to count - plenty of time to work these things out.

[NYR]

I watched the first half of the game again last night and noticed how often Jamar abandoned the offensive to drive to the hoop. He also got in trouble, passed the ball off and then demanded the ball back several times instead of running the O. It was funny to see Calhoon’s comments this morning on Jamar in the TU blog saying the same thing. Pressure on Siggers on the wing really bothered him. He could overcome the pressure by driving to the hoop but 1) this abandons the offensive scheme and 2) he was driving into some serious shot blockers. We are a very bad team when it comes to running off screens. I’m convinced the screens are adequate but the people running off the screens are not using them properly. It is also clear that we are running only half of the offense. We need our forwards to participate. Give them some touches.

 

I disagree with the blog completely regarding Brent’s defense. I think Brent is solid defensively. It’s tough to judge him on the UConn game. The 3-2 zone we played failed miserably, particularly in the front court. I’m sure we’ll see man defensive 99% of the rest of the year.

 

As for the rotation

 

Forwards: I like Gifford in the starting lineup. Now let’s give him the ball and see what he can do. He doesn’t need to shoot every time…he is proving to be a very good passer. I think the guards need to gain some confidence in him. Connelly is clearly the first forward off the bench. If I were coach Brown I would put some tape together and show him how Levi Levine created 10-15 foot jumpers for himself within the offense. Covington is clearly struggling and is opening the door for Yocum earn some PT. In the three games I’ve seen (Bucknell, Delaware and UConn) our forwards have not been able to guard the opposing team forwards straight-up. Doubling across and rotating down has worked well but we need this group to prove they can guard other teams straight-up.

 

Guards: I’d like to see the days of Jamar playing 38 minutes a night end. The truth is we played our best basketball of the year in the second half of the Bucknell game with Jamar on the bench. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is a Sports Guy “Patrick Ewing Theory” situation, but I think the team would benefit from having Jamar play in the low 30’s.

 

As for Jamar at the point, there are definitely some offensive sets where they want Jamar off the ball but against pressure like UConn’s Jamar is your best ball handler. Personally I would completely boycott Jamar from the point. This will keep him from high-jacking the offense. I would like to see some more two man pick and roll play (or pick and pop in Brent’s case) with Jamar and Brent. I’d let Lillis and Iati run the point full time. From what I’ve seen of Knight it doesn’t appear he has the ball handling skills to run the point but it’s hard to say based on the limited minutes I’ve seen him play.

[Big D]

Yes, Jamar did make a few bad passes and took some ill advised shots, but the bottom line is we were overmatched in every phase of the game. Lets hope these last two games were a wake up call.

 

I think Gifford should start. He is a big body, with at least some feel on the offensive end. From what I've seen of Covington, he has no useful offensive skills for the Div. I college basketball game. His role is as a banger off the bench.

 

Brent is not a great defender, but he does have good help defense skills, and takes a charge as well as anyone. He is what he is... a 6' 8" spot up perimeter shooter.

 

The UConn game was hard to watch, because there was no flow to the game, and lots of turnovers (both ways). I thought there might be some opportunties for dribble penetration and then kickouts for 3s, but UConn must have been doing something defensively to prevent this.

 

Hopefully, the ship will be righted on Saturday. Lets not forget that Danes were 2-6 at the start last year.

[Dane Pound]

I'll preface this by saying I probably know less than those guys in the barber shop in "Hoosiers" who gave advice to Gene Hackman.

 

I don't have the basketball IQ to fully know what they were doing on offense but it did seem Jamar tried a lot of one-on-one. I suppose he does in a lot of games (and is sucessful!) however he struggled against UConn so it was more a focus after this game. I'm pretty sure we had some of these same discussions early last season and things worked out.

 

I know I've said this before but I would have liked to see Lillis shoot those shots when he was open. It seemed like several times he got open looks and passed on them. During most games it seems alright but against UConn they had to work very hard to get open looks and I hated to see him pass on them. Especially when I know he can make them.

 

Overall with the flashes we've seen from Gifford and what we know the veterans can do there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic about this team. It might take a while to figure things out but this team is going to be fun to watch when they do.

[haggyland]

I know I've said this before but I would have liked to see Lillis shoot those shots when he was open. It seemed like several times he got open looks and passed on them. During most games it seems alright but against UConn they had to work very hard to get open looks and I hated to see him pass on them. Especially when I know he can make them.

 

17955[/snapback]

 

Nice call with Lillis, DanePound. First there was the qoute by him that said he would be looking to shoot more because there are a lot of hungry players on the bench. Next, he passes on a handful of open shots in the UConn game, when as mention, open shots were difficult to obtain. Even so, I still look for Lillis to continually improve all season, and hopefully average around 8-10ppg.

 

As for other comments by other users, what does everybody think about the chances of or merit in Carl Ross being the first guard off the bench? Judging by some of Coach Brown's quotes, he is high on him, and in the Delaware game he always had his hands on the ball on defense, and nearly broke the backboard on that one odd-man rush.

Any thoughts?

[Clickclack]

Lillis in my opinion gambles a little to much on defense. Don't get me wrong, I love his intensity but the problem is that at times he's a little to overzealous, get's into early foul trouble and takes himself out of the flow of the game. He needs to figure out how to play great defense without picking up fouls. I agree with you guys that he has a nice shot and can slash to the bucket, but at least in the first three games he takes himself out of the game with early foul trouble. It happened vs. Bucknell and it happened at Sacred Heart. Then when he comes in end of the first half start of the second he is out of sync. in my opinion he needs to be a little more assertive and shoot, but he needs to be on the court to do that.

[Oldtimer]

I agree, Lillis needs to look like he wants to score--it will open passing lanes. Gifford, Connelly and Covington can all catch the ball, they get good position BUT they just don't get the ball. Our guards seem reluctant to kick it in or have no confidence in their own passing ability. Gifford and Connelly are both good passers and will kick it back out and that could really help our offense. I know, I should get off my armchair but they are open and yadda, yadda, yadda.............bye

[McFan]

That game for Jamar was bad... but I think he was forced to do what he was doing. Lillis passed up open shots. Siggers played well, but nobody else was really even looking at the basket.

 

I would think Coach noticed everthing that we have on this board and this team will come out on all cylindars on Saturday.

[olddog71]

Has anyone been watching the game between UConn and Sacred Heart? Right now, with less than six minutes to play, the Huskies have opened up a 2-1 margin against the Cardinals. It must be horrible to watch.