ATTACK MODE

[northdakotahusky]

I'm in the middle of watching the Assumption game for the first time. I'm not nearly as disappointed as some of us. The defense stinks, but I'm seeing a lot of guys attacking the rim. I like it.

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

Do you realize the opponent was a bad division 2 team? With no size that was even with UConn on the boards?

 

[northdakotahusky]

We went right at a small team with a our ball handlers. We played to their strength. We worked on our strength which is individual skills and ball handling. I love it.

Boat, Cassell, TSam, Hamilton and Purvis can all handle the ball well. I don't think we have ever had a collection of ball handlers like we do this year. At this point I want them all working on their one-on-one games. I want to see ball hogging. Crashing into charges (like Purvis did). Etc...

Furthermore, playing tight games even against bad teams has it's benefits. Let the team feel some pressure. Let them feel the pressure of an underdog keeping the game close.

D and rebounding stunk, but I'm pretty happy with how they played.

 

[Ozzie3178]

Exactly great stuff NDH... Like I said I am not worried one bit. We will board better than last year and have guys attacking and putting pressure on other D's which will get us to th FT line and that is how we won down the stretch last year but now with overall more talent. As long as we stay healthy we will have a good to special year

 

[Dominicfrank]

I love the optimism but I have sincere concerns after what I saw for two games against poor competition.

 

[northdakotahusky]

Our driving ability will translate into fouls on the other team. Shooting will improve as well. Then all we need is to get Nolan and Brimah to not suck and we are good

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

2 games shooting 60% on FTs will not help win games on the line, and 31% from 3 point land is not setting any shooting records. The optimism is nice but it needs to be matched by production. I also noted that T-Sam, a "pass first" point guard, failed to record an assist in the 2 games. I had a pretrial conference today with someone who was a "scoring" point guard in division 2 and asked him if he ever went assistless for 2 games, and he said no.

These things can and hopefully will improve, but until they improve, there is no real basis for enthusiasm other than the general past history of UConn teams which have in some years seriously sucked in the early season. I was at the opener in 2003-04 and it was a real suckfest against Yale and left that game not understanding why UConn was ranked #1 in the country. But at the end they were #1.

 

[northdakotahusky]

My optimism is not based on nothing. It's based on our 5 good ball handlers. That's probably 2 more than we have ever had. Certainly one more. I'm not sure I have ever seen a team with 5 good ball handlers. When I watched the Assumption game I didn't see anything that took away from that significant advantage. In fact, Hamilton is better than expected. Purvis had some charges, but I thought he looked good as well. Cassell was about as good as I expected.

When Kobe Bryant was a young NBA player he was horrible. He turned the ball over. Smashed into double teams. Played really stupid. During that time Phil Jackson never yelled at Kobe. Phil's favoritism was so noticable an assistant coach (Brian Shaw I think) asked Phil about it. Phil said, Kobe is always in attack mode. I never want him to lose that mindset. I don't want Kobe to second guess himself. That's what I thought of when I saw Purvis play against Assumption. That's why I named the thread as I did.

 

[northdakotahusky]

Eventually kobe figured it out, but only after some learning pains.

So let the guards play reckless for a period if time. Let them turn it over. In the end it will improve their game.

 

[northdakotahusky]

When i say cassell is as good as expected i was referring to his ball handling ability only. As a shooter he's been better than expected...as others have pointed out.