Team Chemistry

[ctchamps]

back to the chemistry, they looked very happy and loose out there... giving high fives, smiling and smacking each other (tsam obviously)... i think that's just as important as the threes you guys are saying... i mean they were even doing the three sweep

My take is that there are positive and negative conditions that reinforce play and attitudes. If a team starts hitting shots and making stops on the d end, they start playing looser, smile more and are more likely to continue playing well. Miss shots and/or the other team makes an easy shot or a contested bank shot three, or end of the game three, and suddenly the body language heads south and the team cycles downwards.

It shouldn't be surprising that fans act the same way. Just look at the threads after a good win or series of wins vs. bad games or a series of losses. You would think that the fans spiraling downwards and can't control themselves would understand that players have similar traits. Of course some fans do. But some fans don't, and still other fans do understand it but insist on a double standard.

Generally speaking, teams that are more consistent with success are teams with experience, talent, balance and mental drive. Yes there are some exceptions, but overall those four things are the recipe for success.

We've been debating things about this team for a while and if we take all the arguments together we're probably close to the truth about this team versus isolating our opinion to one or two ideas. Does this team have experience? Debatable given that so few of the components have played more than one season together. Is this team talented. The jury is still out. We see things from players that make us excited but consistency is important in determining things and only RB has been consistent. Is it balanced. Most would say no without a dominant, consistent interior presence and a second perimeter player who can do what RB has done. Does the team have the mental drive. The consistent mistakes, and several players unable to provide consistent output on both ends of the court argues against this. Am I being too pessimistic? Perhaps, because I've been describing the season in it's entirety.

But I've seen something the past 6 or so games that has me excited. I've seen KO having better options with line ups than was unavailable earlier in the season. I've seen what can happen when several of these players play up to their potential. It wasn't just this game. That second half of the ECU game demonstrated a lot of pluckiness and grit. The Memphis and SMU games were stinkers. Hopefully they were aberrations in an otherwise upward trend.

 

[Stainmaster]

it wasn't so much the three ball falling as it was brimah staying on the floor until the last few minutes of the game... also purvis attacking the basket and the team hitting fts...purvis and hamilton exploited the mistmatch when moore was on them... back to the chemistry, they looked very happy and loose out there... giving high fives, smiling and smacking each other (tsam obviously)... i think that's just as important as the threes you guys are saying... i mean they were even doing the three sweep

In my mind, that was what made last year's run possible. You saw how everyone had so much fun interacting with one another, especially with the Ollie videobombs, and you thought right off the bat "This is a brotherhood. This is a family." Yesterday was the first time I've seen that all season.

 

[OkaForPrez]

@fleudslipcon Agreed. Hopefully I'm not coming off as singular in my view of who we are in regards to our shooting. I think its all interrelated. The chemistry, how light the team played.

I also think that Purvis is this year's Deandre. As soon as he realizes how good he is, the team will explode.

 

[selles]

I also think that Purvis is this year's Deandre. As soon as he realizes how good he is, the team will explode.

I agree with this. Also think Rodney's quotes from the Jacobs article someone posted in another thread - about how it's better to fail by being overaggressive than underaggressive and how the latter has been part of his issues this year - are a great sign.

As an inexperienced team, these guys feed off each others' confidence (or lack thereof) more than a veteran team would. My favorite part of yesterday's game was watching the interaction between Purvis and Hamilton down the stretch as they both caught the eye of the tiger.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

This board cracks me up.

Everyone is hedging against the next loss. People saying that they won't be impressed about a top25 win as much as they will with a win against Temple, which we should have beaten in the first game anyways. I love the "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude. It's the same attitude that people took (and somehow continue to take) with Kevin Ollie as the coach...

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but some people are simply pointing out that this team has looked good at various points in the season, and all the talk about "they've turned a corner" and "they're making progress" went out the window as soon as they took the court in the next game. So those people are simply recognizing that. You would prefer to, again, regard last night as proof that they now "get it." Cool, different strokes.

 

[UConnDan97]

Exactly, 35% on the season 43% in wins 26% in losses. It's not an aberration, its the trend of the entire year. When we shoot well from deep we win, when we don't we lose.

The difference between our season average (35%) and last night (45%) over the 20 shots we took is 2 makes, or 6 points. We won by 8...

 

[UConnDan97]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but some people are simply pointing out that this team has looked good at various points in the season, and all the talk about "they've turned a corner" and "they're making progress" went out the window as soon as they took the court in the next game. So those people are simply recognizing that. You would prefer to, again, regard last night as proof that they now "get it." Cool, different strokes.

My commentary was about people who would argue that a win over Temple would satisfy them more than the win over SMU, as I had mentioned in the original post. I think that kind of stance is both illogical and funny at the same time. Either you see that the team is coming together and showing more energy and having more fun, or you don't. To specifically point out the Temple game is comical...

 

[OkaForPrez]

The difference between our season average (35%) and last night (45%) over the 20 shots we took is 2 makes, or 6 points. We won by 8...

Well my first counterpoint would be missed threes turn into run outs and points for your opponent. Let's say the Boat end of shot clock desperation three and the Purvis hit every part of the rim, the backboard and then falls 3 are the two that bring us down to the average. That's two live ball rebounds that could easily turn into a run out for SMU. Not totally inconceivable to call that an 8 point swing. And the way we were falling apart against the press, if the game is a bit tighter do we fold?

2nd Counter-point. I did give you the actual splits between our wins and losses, so if you want to do the comparison, make it reflect our average 3pt% in our losses and this game too is a loss. The fact that we have such a large variance in our outside shooting is why we can look great one night and not so great another.

But its obviously not that simple, if we had data on good threes vs. bad threes it would look a lot different. Not all looks are created equal. Yesterday we took a lot of threes off of penetration and even got Boat a couple good looks on off-ball curls. We were getting to the rim which allowed us to collapse the defense and kick back.

If anything, my whole point here is to say, I don't think we've executed all that poorly a lot of the season. I think some of what were doing can look exceptional when the shots go in and horrific when they don't. Call it a bull whip effect: The actual variance in our execution is the handle, the variance in our shooting is the end of the whip. Maybe we get a few better looks early, they go in, we get confident, more go in and the opposite. I'm not trying to say we are definitely who we were on Sunday or who we were when we played at SMU, I'm suggesting that we shouldn't immediately believe that the corner has turned and were on the precipice of another magical run because we had a good shooting day.

It was our best performance of the year, no doubt. Brimah played great and stayed on the floor (literary and figuratively). Hamilton was a great third option and did the little things well while deferring to Purvis who had the game of his UConn career. We got contributions from our bench in Facey and Nolan. Boat was a great coach on the floor.

But, take away the 10 free throws we got as they were trying to close the lead late and SMU got to the line more, out boarded us, turned the ball over less, etc. And we had 3-4 live ball turnovers for layups again.

I'm not hedging a future loss to Memphis. I have complete confidence in Ollie and would lock him in for 30 years right now. I was all in on a National Championship last year in October. We are overly leveraged on a skill we have proved to be erratic on all year. I'm not ready to say SMU is now the rule, rather than the exception.

 

[UConnDan97]

Well my first counterpoint would be missed threes turn into run outs and points for your opponent. Let's say the Boat end of shot clock desperation three and the Purvis hit every part of the rim, the backboard and then falls 3 are the two that bring us down to the average. That's two live ball rebounds that could easily turn into a run out for SMU. Not totally inconceivable to call that an 8 point swing. And the way we were falling apart against the press, if the game is a bit tighter do we fold?

2nd Counter-point. I did give you the actual splits between our wins and losses, so if you want to do the comparison, make it reflect our average 3pt% in our losses and this game too is a loss. The fact that we have such a large variance in our outside shooting is why we can look great one night and not so great another.

But its obviously not that simple, if we had data on good threes vs. bad threes it would look a lot different. Not all looks are created equal. Yesterday we took a lot of threes off of penetration and even got Boat a couple good looks on off-ball curls. We were getting to the rim which allowed us to collapse the defense and kick back.

If anything, my whole point here is to say, I don't think we've executed all that poorly a lot of the season. I think some of what were doing can look exceptional when the shots go in and horrific when they don't. Call it a bull whip effect: The actual variance in our execution is the handle, the variance in our shooting is the end of the whip. Maybe we get a few better looks early, they go in, we get confident, more go in and the opposite. I'm not trying to say we are definitely who we were on Sunday or who we were when we played at SMU, I'm suggesting that we shouldn't immediately believe that the corner has turned and were on the precipice of another magical run because we had a good shooting day.

It was our best performance of the year, no doubt. Brimah played great and stayed on the floor (literary and figuratively). Hamilton was a great third option and did the little things well while deferring to Purvis who had the game of his UConn career. We got contributions from our bench in Facey and Nolan. Boat was a great coach on the floor.

But, take away the 10 free throws we got as they were trying to close the lead late and SMU got to the line more, out boarded us, turned the ball over less, etc. And we had 3-4 live ball turnovers for layups again.

I'm not hedging a future loss to Memphis. I have complete confidence in Ollie and would lock him in for 30 years right now. I was all in on a National Championship last year in October. We are overly leveraged on a skill we have proved to be erratic on all year. I'm not ready to say SMU is now the rule, rather than the exception.

I'm not saying that you are hedging or that you don't have complete confidence in Ollie.

I'm saying that simply looking at the 3-point stats doesn't tell the story of the game. In fact, it has already been mentioned in this thread that there is more to be learned from the quality of the 3-point attempts than the amount. And the quality came from dribble-drive-kick from our guards, rather than just passing it around the horn and hoisting up a late shot-clock prayer. Also, the better teams we play will be the better defensive teams as well, so one would expect that the percentage would go down naturally. There's not much else to learn from the percentage as you've analyzed it...

 

[OkaForPrez]

5-21. L.

 

[OkaForPrez]

11/17 W

 

[OkaForPrez]

Temple was 6/17 btw.

 

[Matrim55]

11/17 W

Best part of it was that four or five of those were pure, no hesitation catch-and-shoots from Hamilton and Purvis. They have to be ready to hurt scrambling defenses - too often they catch, wait a second for the defense to catch up, and only then make their decision on what to do.

It undoes a lot of the good work our ball movement creates.

 

[Chief00]

I am sorry I don't have time to break down our 3 point shooting now. Quite frankly, some good points have been made - so congratulations to those posters. But to expand one angle - a miss three from the corner, especially if shot by a guard often is one of many reasons for our poor transition defense. Think of it as a poor foundation of court balance. Nobody back there to defend the break to slow it down until help arrives, and often our help arrives late this year.
It also is a great shot to get a weak side rebound off of - something I discussed a few weeks ago. Obviously, much more to breakdown for the basketball newbies but I hope this is a good starting point.

 

[Scot-e]

We are obviously DOOMED!!!!

 

[whaler11]

I'm sorry am I reading hot takes about a game played against a team that is so bad you can go blind watching them?

 

[Matrim55]

Best part of it was that four or five of those were pure, no hesitation catch-and-shoots from Hamilton and Purvis.

Bump.

What happened to this? Passing up so many chances - especially Omar. The ball movement is pretty good for a bit, then someone catches, has daylight... and stops everything, giving Cincy time to reset their defense.

Goddammit.

 

[UConnDan97]

Bump.

What happened to this? Passing up so many chances - especially Omar. The ball movement is pretty good for a bit, then someone catches, has daylight... and stops everything, giving Cincy time to reset their defense.

Goddammit.

Thanks for the bump. 2 down. 2 to go...

 

[UConnDan97]

This is the "We played $#ittily for long stretches of the game but the kids kept believing" bump. 3 down. 1 to go...