UConn game thread 2.0

[Anti-Homer]

Head scratching the way we can't defend guards. Hawkins scored 26 points in the second half. We gave up 55 points in the second half. That's hard to do. Well another good win. They all are .Claude is really coming on. Good game for Jones and Hunter. Better not pick up stupid Technicals if we are only going to play 7 guys. Miller helps a lot at the end of games .Team keeps winning. Go X.

's

and in their last posession he didn't even touch the ball. KenPom said X had a 1-5 chance to win the game and X lead the whole game. Great road kill now let's go hunting got bluejays

Great win at a very tough venue ag. a great team. The game was won by Boum in the first seven minutes when Connecticut was scoring at a pace of 4pts/min. (an NBA All Star Game pace), and SM, a NCOY candidate, made zero adjustments on D yet again. He schooled Hurley at Cintas, but Hurley schooled SM tonight, with varying defenses consisting of full-court press, two different ones, and man. Love SM, but I suspect if they played the Chiefs, and Mahomes threw 6 touchdowns, he'd adjust by bringing the safety up to have nine in the box to leave the CBs on an island. But I digress.

Hunter was spectacular as usual, and Claude was outstanding, both defensively and offensively. He was great at the hole tonight, but that should be the limit of his shot selection range. If he learns how to shoot, he will be an All-BE player.

The best defense X played was obviously in the 1st half and the last nine seconds. They tried to get Hawkins the ball, but X switched up every time. Thank God for the inadvertent foul by Claude. The sports world is right again in OH: Bengals are playing great, Xavier is back at its customary high perch, and OSU is still the king of CFB in OH, for only like the last 4,000 years.

[Xavier2005]

I never heard the explanation of the technical foul on. I believe, Freemantle or who ever????? what happen???

[pdxmuskie]

The 2 half differential was partially defense, partially shooting and partially officiating. Xavier was plus 1 in bad calls in their favor in the first half. Shockingly there was only 1 bad call in the first half and it was a travel not called on Colby. 2nd half, UCON was +4 in bad calls in their favor, which if I recall correctly all ended in points for UCON, including a 3. Net 3 bad calls against Xavier is essentially the same as when X plays at home.

If you take away the extra points granted by the officials, this was an easy win. The crowd likely never gets involved, shooters never start feeling it and X gets a double digit win.

That is not to say that the X defense didn't make mistakes or offensive mistakes were not made. Xavier could have won by a bigger margin if they simply limited mistakes. Hard to play perfect. Loved the energy and will to win.

Officials will make mistakes. They will make assumptions. They should however keep track of how often they give the benefit of the doubt to 1 team vs the other and even out the questionable calls. Luckily Xavier is used to this treatment since it is the norm in Cincy (maybe UC fans shouldn't be allowed to officiate in the Cintas?) and they left with the win.

A brilliant 1st half but that was certainly aided by bad shooting by UCON. That was partially the wrong shooters taking shots and Xavier defending the right shooters well. It was also largely because Xavier limited UCON to 1 shot most possessions.

[yellow20xd]

Who Muskies!!!... Dan

[kyzrex]

There’s no sense in trying to play multiple defenses if they can’t stop anyone. UConn was scoring on them in the 2nd half by hitting lots of 3 point shots. UConn was 1-11 in the 1st half and 9-17 in the 2nd half. When a team is shooting that well and that often from the outside (as UConn was in the 2nd half), why would you go to a zone defense? Miller was correct to stay in the man defense in this game.

But ultimately both teams ended up hitting 10 3-pointers for the game. That’s a wash.

I was surprised that Edwards didn’t get some play when they got out to such a big lead in the 1st half. Thought they may have inserted him into the lineup for a couple of minutes with Nunge, and let Free and Hunter get some rest.

The biggest turn around between the games was the number of foul shots taken and made. In the 1st game X had a big edge, in this game UConn had the edge. But the total fouls was almost dead even.

They didn’t show where Free got his technical. I wonder if it was warranted or did the ref just overreact?

[longliveskip]

if anyone thought after halftime that we were going to be able to keep that up or that UConn was going to keep being that cold from 3, then you haven't watched much college basketball or Xavier this year. you knew they'd have a run or two in them and switching to zone caused us some problems. they're long, big down low, etc. Souley's hot shooting in the 2nd half kept UConn "at bay" and they never got the lead, which was huge for our psyche and the crowd on the road, which i'm sure was great.

as i said in the other thread, i felt better about winning at UConn because we match up well with them and they aren't a great 3-pt shooting team, so that bodes well for a team who struggles to keep guys in front of them. you don't have to tighten up outside the 3 on everyone and can play the drive more.

Claude and Hunter - freaking love them. as Sean said, we don't with that game without their effort/production. Claude's confidence is skyrocketing as is Hunter's. when Claude develops a decent 3 he will be hard to stop.

Creighton will be MUCH HARDER on Saturday.

[muskieman]

I also wish Edwards would get some playing time especially when Zack fouled out, but Sean knows best, and his record proves it. Assuming that a zone would stop the barrage of threes would be quelled is nonsense. UConn averages slightly more than 25 attempts and 10 made per game. They made 10 last night on 28 attempts.

I never thought for a minute that UConn wouldn't make a run in the second half I just hoped X would have kept the lead to 5-7 till the end. Remember UConn was a 7 point favorite at home

UConn has only two guys that average double figure but 2 that average 9+ points per game and last night two guys had significantly more than 16 which were the average but one wasn't Sanago who is the team's leading scorer and all the rest of the player's not names Hawkins and Newton were under their average

The foul shooting of Hawkins and Newton was a big difference or X would have destroyed UConn. They accounted for 16 of the 19 made foul shots.

[skyhops]

Obviously switching to a zone when a team gets hot from 3 is non sense. Our inability to get around balls screens especially over top has been killing us all year, but luckily we have one of the best offense's in college basketball. The size and strength of UConns guards is a tough matchup for AK and Boum and Jones defense was shaky at best. The refs don't call much in beginning of the game and decide to call every ticky tack call that allowed the crowd and UConn in the game. Claude and Hunter were difference makers, which bodes well for next year. Nice games by Jones and Boum.

[connecticut72]

Proud to be a Muskie in the state of Connecticut today. Get out the BROOM!!! Thank God we put on a clinic in the first half because we certainly did not in the second half. But I do not want to get into a discussion on our D or lack thereof. It is what it is at this point. I felt bad for Jackson who my son coached in HS. X was daring him to shoot and he could not buy a bucket. (0-7) The crowd was yelling don't shoot. It was embarrassing for the kid who is probably the most athletic player in the Big East. We made some winning plays at the end. Getting some long rebounds off long shots an then scoring off some nice passes. I think Hurley wanted Newton to miss that second foul shot. He put in both his big guys to get the rebound. By the way that foul on Claude was awful. I agree with who ever said it on this board the officiating was not good. Very good win but it would have been terrible if we loss after leading the entire game. GO X on to Omaha.

[Kevin Reilly]

When I was talking about switching up the defense it wasn't to stop their three point shooting. It didn't mean we have to drop back in a zone. I meant how about a full court press for a couple minutes. I know we don't play enough guys to press for long. Just give them a different look . Make them hesitate for a minute. When you give up 55 points in one half it might be worth a different look. I actually thought a press may cool off Hawkins . We made it so easy for Hawkins with the pick and roll. Heck he couldn't keep the grin off his face. I remember Miller saying at some point just tackle the guy. I think must of us would have signed off on 17-4 to start the season. I am so pleased with the team and Miller. Just wish we could make it harder on the other teams offense.