Everybody relax

[intlzncster]

No question, Brimah made a huge impact on the game last night. Matter of fact, I was a little disappointed that Ollie waited so long to put him in the game (I think he finally inserted him into the lineup at around the 10 minute mark in both halves). He's still a liability on the offensive end of the court, but he's far more disruptive defensively than any of our other big men.

I like his energy too. It's infectious.

 

[champs99and04]

Good post, Champs, but let's say this one isn't going on KO's coaching highlight reel. We looked dumbfounded for the entire 20 minutes.

I'm not taking too much out of this. If we shoot, say, 23% from the field in the second half, we win pretty easily. We've been killing it from 3. Ironically, Stanford is BAD at defending the 3 (or was -- I bet their stats just improved). Dysfunction happens.

But that was ugly and every person who played or coaches for UConn last night deserves blame for the loss. Very few adjustments. It was a real team effort.

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have completely exonerated KO, as he deserves some blame as well. There is never an excuse for scoring 13 points in a half. It should just never happen. It's not the end of the world, though - the way they respond Sunday will tell us more than this game did, IMO.

 

[nomar]

Sorry Nomar I don't think we're on the same page and I'm not really following your challenge to the blog. Kenpom is suggesting that there is no correlation between early season 3p% allowed and late season 3p% allowed which is to suggest that the statistic is not influenced by the opposition. If it was, you would expect that teams who do well against the 3 would continue to do well against the 3 and vice versa.

Pomeroy is saying you shouldn't credit or discredit Stanford with the 3p% of their opponents previously. Isn't that directly on topic?

I didn't say, "Stanford's bad at defending 3's because their D3% is ___." I said it was bad. They were giving up over 7 3's a game and, yeah, at a high percentage (particularly compared to their overall DFG%). It's not like they'd allowed 4 shots from behind the arc all season and allowed 2 makes and I was saying, "Man they're bad!"

I also happen to think he's dead wrong in suggesting that D3% is something a team has no control over. Do you actually believe that? Is it an accident that UConn has historically had low a D3% over the years? I don't think so. We happened to have great shotblockers so we could close out on 3-point shooters. Considering that Stanford allows 40% overall, it's pretty clear that closing out is not a major goal of theirs. Frankly, I'm shocked he even wrote that, it's so ridiculous. Of course a good defense can neutralize 3-point shooters better. Numbers can't tell the whole story of course.

I mean, I love metrics as much as the next guy, but you know what Mark Twain said about statistics. (A reference which, I realize, undermines my argument as well as Pomeroy's.)

 

[UConnSwag11]

even after a win the board is like this so it's not suprising