Time for conference play - a few thoughts

[reeder]

1. Turley is showing the ability to make moves and go to the basket. Yes he travels occassionally but he does attack the basket which is something the team needs - if he gets 20 minutes per game, I would expect him to get 6 free throw attempts because he will be fouled a lot down low. Covington does it sometimes as well but IMO, Turley will be successful in conference if he keeps working at it.

2. Josh Martin is doing a good job running the point. He needs to be more consistent from the perimeter otherwise his defender will begin to cheat - crowding the lane and making it hard for penetration.

3. Someone needs to attack the basket. UA runs a lot of set plays, a lot of passing, cutting, screens... which is good but it appears to become challenging when the other team plays tight defense. If an Ambrose or anyone can continue to penetrate, it will force other defenders to help out creating better passing lanes...

4. I don't know that we can stay in a man to man against very athletic teams. First, we just foul too much anyway and when the other teams are very athletic, we create mismatches (not in our favor) for Connelly and Wilson. It also creates a situation where Turley, Covington and Gifford just foul more - this is why there seems to be a free throw discreptancy in almost every game. I remember the team practicing a match up zone last year - would like to see a lot more of that.

5. I think Len Elmore made great points during the Duke game. The most significant was that the UA players that are receiving passes need to move towards the passer so there aren't so many turnovers. That needs to happen, or something needs to happen. The team isn't good enough to have a lot of empty possessions.

[DanesRGood]

1. Turley is showing the ability to make moves and go to the basket. Yes he travels occassionally but he does attack the basket which is something the team needs - if he gets 20 minutes per game, I would expect him to get 6 free throw attempts because he will be fouled a lot down low. Covington does it sometimes as well but IMO, Turley will be successful in conference if he keeps working at it.

2. Josh Martin is doing a good job running the point. He needs to be more consistent from the perimeter otherwise his defender will begin to cheat - crowding the lane and making it hard for penetration.

3. Someone needs to attack the basket. UA runs a lot of set plays, a lot of passing, cutting, screens... which is good but it appears to become challenging when the other team plays tight defense. If an Ambrose or anyone can continue to penetrate, it will force other defenders to help out creating better passing lanes...

4. I don't know that we can stay in a man to man against very athletic teams. First, we just foul too much anyway and when the other teams are very athletic, we create mismatches (not in our favor) for Connelly and Wilson. It also creates a situation where Turley, Covington and Gifford just foul more - this is why there seems to be a free throw discreptancy in almost every game. I remember the team practicing a match up zone last year - would like to see a lot more of that.

5. I think Len Elmore made great points during the Duke game. The most significant was that the UA players that are receiving passes need to move towards the passer so there aren't so many turnovers. That needs to happen, or something needs to happen. The team isn't good enough to have a lot of empty possessions.

 

Good post and I agree with most of it. If you look at the games we won they were against opponents that are on the same level as our AE opponents. Should be interesting to see how we do against them.

 

I've watched almost every game that has been online or on TV and I attended the CCSU game. I haven't seen any imporvement from Covington on offense. I had high hopes for him this year to sort of breakout and actually show some offense but he just isn't that good. I'd like to see Turley, Ambrose, Martin, Lillis, Wilson, Connelly and Iati get most of the minutes the rest of the year. It gives the seniors a chance to play out their final season and the younger guys get a chance to gain experience at this level.