Our Bench

[imno1]

I really thought the haircut was going to be a boost for Jalen.

 

[UConnSwag11]

Jackson/Whaley/Sanogo can never be on the floor together at the same time. Sanogo will be down low which leaves Whaley outside, where he is useless. And Jackson is already a useless scorer. The spacing is so bad when those 3 are out there and we are just entirely ineffective. Polley or (ideally) Hawkins needs to be in for Whaley in those situations, and then just slide Martin to the 4 and play smaller

Disagree about Jackson but agree that if we’re making baskets Whaley is invisible on the offensive end. His entire offense comes from missed shots. We should have Martin post up his man more

 

[aburks41]

Whaley also just looked so much more comfortable on the offensive end when Sanogo was getting a breather during stretches in the last 10 minutes. Two other things - one positive and one negative… Zay’s free throws were clutch and pure last night. Also, he (and the rest of the guys) continues to bite on almost every pump fake. Used to have so much more discipline defending the paint.

Yup and smart teams like Nova will take advantage of that all day long. They really need to stay on their feet. If someone drills a 3 with your hand in their face, so be it. Just stop jumping unless they're driving into the paint lol

 

[CL82]

I’d prefer Hawkins gets all of Polley’s minutes. Hawkins is a better shooter. Polley doesn’t rebound or play defensive much better than Hawkins anyway.

Hawkins seems to do better in short bursts.

 

[Nebraskan18]

This team will get as far as Polley/Hawkins play allows us to. We know relatively what we'll get with RJ, Sanogo, Whaley, Martin but if we can get Polley and Hawkins to catch fire then we could be looking at a final four team. If they don't give us anything and we run into a team that can stop Sanogo then we could get bounced first round

 

[bendm]

Completely different. Akok brings a positive contribution to the team when he’s out on the floor. He has to get better on defense as he gets caught flatfooted often but he can recover for a blocked shot. He also can run the floor for dunks and can hit a three. Johnson should get playing time while akok is out if needed

akok is a redshirt junior idk how much room for improvement there is left... regardless we need to bring in a starting caliber PF next year if we're going to be legit and i'd rather samson be second on the depth chart. much higher ceiling than akok at this point but he needs PT. akok is averaging 3-3 in 15 mpg. samson is giving us 2-1.5 in 6mpg.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Polley and Hawkins should be around 20 mpg or more, Akok should play 10+ minutes every game, and Gaff has to give us something. Otherwise, Hurley is going to burn out the starters.

 

[auror]

I know it only happened because Whaley had 2 fouls and Hawkins/Polley were playing well on both ends of the floor, but our offense looked so much better in the 1st half playing with only 1 big on the floor. That's the type of thing that needs to keep happening regardless of foul trouble

Over the season, our offense has been almost exactly the same with 1 of Whaley or Sanogo (and no Akok) vs. both (117.7 vs. 117.2 adj Off ). Defense slightly better with both.

 

[SlicinNDyson11]

I know it only happened because Whaley had 2 fouls and Hawkins/Polley were playing well on both ends of the floor, but our offense looked so much better in the 1st half playing with only 1 big on the floor. That's the type of thing that needs to keep happening regardless of foul trouble

Interestingly enough our starting lineup with Polley replacing Whaley is #5 in the country in adjusted offense against top 100 competition, the threat of shooting obviously helps open the floor up for driving and post touches for Sanogo. Replace Sanogo with Whaley with the same lineup and we're still 27th in adjusted offense still pretty freaking good.

Obviously defensively there is a huge trade off, 250th and 180th in adjusted defense, we all know replacing one of our bigs with Polley hurts us on the boards and just overall defensively. It makes the lineup matchup dependent (see Polley getting attacked in isolations and our rebounding troubles in the first half against Creighton).

That said these two lineups are 21st and 41st in net rating against top 100 competition, so we do have some good success with them. The lineup with Polley replacing Whaley is 2nd in the country in net rating when you include all games played. It's had less success in conference play (44th with Polley/Sanogo and 30th with Polley/Whaley in adjusted offense just in conference games) due to the physicality and familiarity of the conference.

You would think this lineup would thrive in March once we get outside of conference play where games should be less physical and our opponents don't know us as well. Really good to have in the back pocket for higher tempo games and for when we might need a little more offensive firepower.

 

[imno1]

Disagree about Jackson but agree that if we’re making baskets Whaley is invisible on the offensive end. His entire offense comes from missed shots. We should have Martin post up his man more

When Tyrese is engaged and aggressive he looks like an all BE player to me. I wonder what our record is when he has 8 or more rebounds

 

[superjohn]

We're 7 deep now with Akok out and Gaffney being totally unplayable. Hurley's gotta find a few minutes for Diggins and Samson. Foul trouble/fatigue/injury is inevitable.

 

[navery12]

When Tyrese is engaged and aggressive he looks like an all BE player to me. I wonder what our record is when he has 8 or more rebounds

11-5 since he got to UConn, 6-1 this season

 

[Jaydumo20]

We're 7 deep now with Akok out and Gaffney being totally unplayable. Hurley's gotta find a few minutes for Diggins and Samson. Foul trouble/fatigue/injury is inevitable.

Do you recall when Hurley said that if the benched freshmen were really killing it practice, there'd be mutiny if he didn't give them minutes? I wonder, are they really that bad? I agree with you that I'd love to see them get time. But I'm starting to think that they can't be very promising. I always respect your insights on this team. Do you think Hurley is looking at those roster spots as ones he wishes he could have back? I've seen boneyarders jump ugly when anyone suggests johnson/diggins/springs being busts, but I've never seen such glaring lack of playing time from touted talent, especially, in Diggins case where the guy in front of him has played pretty poorly.

 

[superjohn]

Do you recall when Hurley said that if the benched freshmen were really killing it practice, there'd be mutiny if he didn't give them minutes? I wonder, are they really that bad? I agree with you that I'd love to see them get time. But I'm starting to think that they can't be very promising. I always respect your insights on this team. Do you think Hurley is looking at those roster spots as ones he wishes he could have back? I've seen boneyarders jump ugly when anyone suggests johnson/diggins/springs being busts, but I've never seen such glaring lack of playing time from touted talent, especially, in Diggins case where the guy in front of him has played pretty poorly.

No, I don't think he views those as roster spots he wishes he had back. I think they just are probably taking longer than Hurley thought they would. I agree it's strange how little opportunity they've been given.

The decision he wants back is not hitting the transfer portal harder than he did. He looked at some kids but I don't think there was the necessary urgency because he thought Gaffney would be fine at shooting guard and backup point guard. He clearly miscalculated and and it's holding this team back. He has to know now he can't rely at all on Gaffney and Akok and I expect he'll address it in the offseason.

 

[Jaydumo20]

No, I don't think he views those as roster spots he wishes he had back. I think they just are probably taking longer than Hurley thought they would. I agree it's strange how little opportunity they've been given.

The decision he wants back is not hitting the transfer portal harder than he did. He looked at some kids but I don't think there was the necessary urgency because he thought Gaffney would be fine at shooting guard and backup point guard. He clearly miscalculated and and it's holding this team back. He has to know now he can't rely at all on Gaffney and Akok and I expect he'll address it in the offseason.

Yeah. When one or 2 key predicted starters/big minute guys don't pan out for whatever reason, it screws things up a bit. So few players in basketball, and yet it's easy to still try and liken it to baseball and football where teams can barely miss a step when starters go down. Way less room for error, 2nd only to golf.