I think all Purvis (more below) has to do is play within himself, limit his forced plays that cause TO's and let the game
come to him. If his handle is causing TO's... limit going to places with the ball, that amplify that. Take a quick look
when you receive a pass, if there's nothing there.. swing it back around.
Same with Hamilton, calm down and stop rushing things that aren't there. If you work the ball to each other in the
half court it forces the opponent to work harder on D and good shots open up. Tim Welch( former PC coach) was saying
before the game, that Uconn's biggest problem this year, is they don't know the difference between a good shot when
it's wide open or a bad one. They've been forcing way to many off balance ones or ill-timed rushed shots.
Hopefully the last 7-8 minutes of last night helps to turn a light-bulb on in their heads. And I'd hope to think the 3 pt%
was the result of making the extra pass and it's not a fluke. I was also impressed that the zone D, which has been a
problem for Uconn in recent years, was the thing that they attacked in precision fashion to extended the lead.
Here's a follow up story from the NHR with some interesting notes:
UConn pulls away late to tame Columbia Rodney Purvis had heard the chatter, on the Internet message boards and elsewhere. "I try not to read things, but I see
things, what people are saying," Purvis said. "I'm kinda tired of it, you know, so I had to take it upon myself to step it up.
I'm gonna step it up 'til I can't step it up anymore."
Also KO really lit into Hamilton during a timeout.
"He just basically said that he didn't want to go 'Crenshaw' on me," Hamilton reported, as he struggled through a tough
night for the first 32 minutes on Monday. "I got on him pretty hard in one timeout," said Ollie. "It was just on him to respond.
That's one of the layers of mental toughness, accepting call-outs from your coach and your teammates. Hamilton responded
by turning what looked like it might be a grisly stat line into an all-around effective night. He finished with 11 points, five
rebounds and four assists - most of them on his trademark lobs to Amida Brimah for dunks over the final minutes.
Maybe Boat will finally get some help..also pretty solid game from T-Sam too.
This post was edited on 12/23 7:47 AM by the Blades