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MBB Open practice - First Look

the Blades

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Gold Member
Jan 20, 2003
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I took a ride up to Gampel, since it's been awhile in the building because of this crazy couple of years. Much more enjoyable, for a basketball purist than the MBB & WBB shows they put on at the recent first nights and God awful scrimmages with both on the court together, which are more like lay-up lines, that you pray no one gets hurt at. ( So thanks to who ever screwed up the basket at 1st night that had Dan add this for students and season tix holders)...also bunch of camera guys filming, don't know for who or if public ?

They worked on some drills first and then ran three 10 minutes periods with serious D throughout, shutting down most of the offense in 1st session, which DH grabbed the mike after it ended:


Interesting groups of.............
( Rahsool, who has been injured along with Tyler, both ran good minutes)


Overall the D ahead of the offense, with AJ's group leading most of the scrimmage and won it despite the starters (blue group, mostly from last year) comeback in the 3rd. Most of the beat writers covered alot in their tweets and stories. But I can add Samson has a little bigger version of Donyell Marshall in him looking to have a good stroke from 3( hit 2 from long range) and he was nailing them smoothly in shoot around. Along with a Yell looking drive when trapped at the 3pt line by beating around it with a drive on a long swooping reverse lay-up.


AJ ( they said he had 16 pts in the game) seems better running the point and on the attack than RJ was. Plus his shot still looks weird but he hit a 3pt buzzer beater and then matched a 3 by the blue when they were closing the lead in the 3rd. Biggest thing I took from this is regarding the still question of who's gonna get buckets when needed. Martin has a lot of skills and some driving ability but his passing is very limited, RJ can get swallowed up because he's not necessarily fast and is tiny. But AJ, Gaf and even 17 year old Floyd Jr. showed some good work off the bounce which will be needed in crunch time, so that could be a key this season. And yeah.... serious depth in the front court including even good minutes from Richie. I'll add these

 
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It was good that the starters got beat. They know that the guys behind them can play. Let the competition for minutes begin and let the best guys start. As far as AJ he needs to raise his shooting up to respectable which to me means 32% on 3s or better. If he can do that he can start based on his D, rebounding and passing.
 
Hurley said that this team is "elite" defensively and the question is how much they will score and where the scoring will come from. In other words this is shaping up as a somewhat classic old school UConn team. The team is deep enough that more consistent pressing of other teams in order to create TOs and transition offense would seem warranted.

It doesn't look like the team will be tested until the Auburn game at the Battle of Atlantis. I expect Auburn to be a very stiff test and a losable game. Auburn is ranked #22 by Three Man Weave, and are in other Top 25s like UConn. The team that loses this game drops out of the Top 25, the winner moves up pending other results. You don't want to be in the loser's bracket to rack up 2 wins, you want to win out.
 
In other words this is shaping up as a somewhat classic old school UConn team. The team is deep enough that more consistent pressing of other teams in order to create TOs and transition offense would seem warranted.
They were using a full court trap for pretty much all of the scrimmage. Not intense pressure just double teaming the ball forcing an opposite side passes that also made the offense take more time to get into their sets. I could see them taking it up another notch, especially with the depth available.
 
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