West Virginia 81-Connecticut 71
December 30, 2006 11:36 pm by donaldBig East conference play tipped off today as West Virginia handed Connecticut its first loss. It was UConn’s first away game of the season, and the first Big East game for four of Connecticut’s five starters. The inexperience showed; UConn was frazzled by West Virginia’s homecourt advantage. It wasn’t just West Virginia’s fans that made it difficult for Connecticut to get into a rhythm. It took a half for Connecticut to solve West Virginia’s 1-3-1 zone — Calhoun noted:
The 1-3-1 looked like a Rubik’s cube to us.
On offense, West Virginia backdoored UConn a few too many times. The loss exposed Connecticut as a team hyped for its promise and its Connecticut name. On the other hand, West Virginia looked impressive executing its precise offense. I’m not sure they’ll be able to dominate many other Big East teams with their zone defense, but it sure as hell worked today.
Some observations from the game:
- UConn will have even more problems with a 2-3 zone. They lack consistent outside shooters and a forward capable of flashing to the free throw line and making a quick pass behind the zone. I predict two rough mid-season games against Syracuse.
- Joe Alexander is a wonderful surprise for Mountaineer fans. After averaging 1.3 ppg in his freshman year, Alexander is scoring roughly 12 a game this year. The man with two first names is a man of many talents: today he played the backcourt position in the 1-3-1 a few times, blocked a Thabeet shot, and drained a three. I was impressed by his athleticism, especially his drive in the beginning of the second half where he went baseline and dunked.
- Thabeet isn’t a top ten draft pick and he’ll stay another year at least. He’ll be exposed again and again as being extremely raw. Among his flaws: bringing the ball down when he receives it in the post, inability to finish against any sort of defense (note the 0-3 performance today), taking too long to gain composure to go up for a score once he’s received a pass, tipping rebounds instead of grabbing them, and using elbows to clear out space instead of his ass. He also has a really small head that looks strange.
- AJ Price and Jerome Dyson throw looping, no-look passes when simple chest passes will do. In general, they play with too much flair and need to play with more substance. What happened to the good old days of UConn point guards like Kevin Ollie and Taliek Brown?
Read more about the game from a Husky and Mountaineer blog.
Categories: Commentary, donald, Connecticut, West Virginia
4 Responses to “West Virginia 81-Connecticut 71”
WVU has very quietly looked very good. They deserve more credit after this one, but not too much. It set up awfully well for them. I’m not the least surprised that UConn lost. The Husky frosh and sophs can handle weekly quizzes just fine but flunked the first exam. Next week’s trip to Louisiana will provide a similar test (albeit against an entirely different foe than the Mountaineers).
West Virginia looked very good, way better than anyone anticipated this year. Let’s face it, Beilein is a hell of a good coach. Also, the 1-3-1 zone was exactly the type of defense that is meant to torture inexperienced players. You could see as the game went on, that UConn’s guards handled it better every trip. But give WVU some credit, they’re a decent team, and their fans were very loud, some of the loudest fans in the conference, no doubt. Donald, be patient with the guards though. All three of these guards are way better than Ollie or Brown ever were. In their first Big East game they looked bad, but you know what? So did Allen Iverson, so did Richard Hamilton and so did many others.
Big Willie.
I don’t think Donald was saying that the UConn guards had no talent. He was just making the point that WVU’s zone exposed the inexperienced UConn backcourt–even Calhoun acknowledged this in his postgame comments. Certainly they have tons of promise…I don’t think anyone is disputing that. But their growth as bball players will be measured against teams like WVU and ‘Cuse, who will throw different defenses at them.
Dan’l B is right. With a bit more experience, the UConn guards may have been able to overcome the defense and change the outcome of the game. But this was a difficult matchup for the young backcourt, and it showed.
One more comment…somebody on UConn is going to have to step up and become an outside threat. Andersen, Brown, Gordon…all of these guys could keep defenses honest. On the current team, nobody is consistent enough to hit the threes. Thus, they’re dead last in the Big East (by a good margin) in 3PT attempts and makes, and their 3PT% is at a less-than-mediocre 35.5%. Watch for teams to exploit UConn’s aversion to shooting the three-pointer by packing in their defense…
….and not being accurate at 3-point shooting dooms your team nowadays. I do think they’ll get better with though. If they don’t, they’ll see alot of 2-3 zone this year.
Care to comment?