Went to game last night

[Hans Sprungfeld]

People forget that KO and Hoiberg are dear friends of long standing. Neither one in his right mind would intentionally ever try to humiliate the other on national TV, especially. They both turned down Arizona as recruits after the school had given them an ultimatum: the first to accept the offer will get it. KO then went to Uconn and Hoiberg to ISU, get it?

So on this magical night at the Garden, KO just let his dear friend's team sprinkle some water to grow his growing little seed that he planted while at the same time exasperating the Las Vegas oddsmakers. I do not want to believe that KO and Hoiberg secretly bet on this close result behind our backs. No secret sinister pact involved. Just playing it by ear, baby.

Brother-in-law coaching?
I'll take the W

 

[itgoeslike]

Um dude, no.
The game was never "in hand" until about 18 seconds showed on the clock. Up 14 against a top 10 offense with 15 to go is not "in hand."
AND
NOBODY gets rested for the next game when you are fighting to get into the final 8 - you'd have to be up 30 with 10 to go to even consider it.

When we were up by 16 that's "somewhat" in hand. We were also up by 12 with 5 to go. While it did get hairy with a few minutes to go, at that point it made more sense to have better ball handlers in the game and to try to win it at the line. Lastly, while Hogue had a big game, the offense generated by Iowa State at the close of a game is typically on the perimeter. It wasn't a bad idea to go small and quick.

Edit: Anyhow, the point I was making is that we need our bigs to play tough tomorrow on the interior. Escaping with a win and having them more rested could be an advantage.

 

[sledog]

Thought the same with the open basket policy late in game. The problem with the pure matador D is that the probability of getting a layup is virtually 100%. So you're giving away 2, for the hope of making 2 at the FT line. UC shot something like 14/16, so also nearly 100%, and at parity. But if the FTs are not landing, ... Better to at least try to slow down the man driving the hoop. Avoid the foul, but induce hesitatation.

 

[dtrumpet]

I actually thought they let up after the 12:00 timeout. It wasn't as noticeable since we were trading hoops, but thing got too easy for IS from that point on. The bad call on Daniels with the offensive rebound was pivotal. Instead of being up 12 at the line, they made a layup that got them down 10, and they were rolling.

 

[David 76]

I think we played w/o a center for 9 minutes. But I think people are confusing playing w/o a center (smart match up move, Samuel got in and was great, everyone is great at the foul line) with the matador defense which I did not get. We get fouled and it takes less than a second off the clock. They drive down for an uncontested lay-up, taking four seconds off the clock. They could get up to 12 possessions in a minute that way. At least make them take a few seconds to get up the court.

As an aside, I hate that about the end of basketball games. A great game drags out forever. I'm for switching to calling intentional fouls for fouls that are intentional.

 

[Uconn77Duke74]

and let me say that there were thousands of CT people who paid a lot of money and effort to support their team. I dont know how it looked on TV but I have no idea what KO was doing fromlike 13 minutes left. EVERYONE in my section realized--we played with NO center for almost 13minutes!!!!! The entire middle was open and what couldve been a blow away game ended up scary. It almost put a bitter taste in mouth's though we move on. I cannot in any way imagine we will do that again--but what we did was try to match up with Iowa State when what we had was working!!! It was lay up city for them horrible to watch --people may not realize how many points Daniels had in that 2nd half to help us and if Giffey didnt hit that 3 we mightve lost a game and it wouldve been on KO . I guess I needed to express frusteration with a great overall win. But Im still perplexed on what happened --why that game became close--it shouldve been a 25 pt game blowout

I was at the game as well and had the exact same thought about the missing center. Would have preferred giving up a few three point attempts to prevent relentless easy layups. (At least mix it up for a minute or two occasionally to throw off their rhythm). Brimah was altering shots the entire first half and they weren't converting many easy hoops inside. I thought we also had a few questionable early shot clock launches later in the game when we should have worked the clock a bit. The good news is we seemed ot be able to get off any shot we wanted to all night. Not sure if our offense is really playing that well or if ISU/Villanova defense is that's bad.