Dan’l B noted that West Virginia is actually quite a good team who suffers from a low ranking because of losing a bunch of close games. UConn, up until today, had been winning a bunch of clos games. So it didn’t surprise me today that they lost in a close game against Villanova — one of these coin flips had to end up being tails. Here are the highlights, courtesy of ESPN:

Here are some quick thoughts I had. I’ll let Coach O affirm/negate my observations — perhaps he saw something different in person (if he ever made it to the game):

• Scottie Reynolds is so absolutely dangerous when he gets his shoulders square. He has one of the best-looking shots in the Big East.
• UConn typically plays a high post-low post game with Adrien in the high post and Thabeet in the low post. That makes sense superficially — Adrien is the power forward, is shorter, and has more basketball skills to make better decisions; Thabeet is 7’3” and is the center. But I think having Thabeet up top and Adrien down low is at least something to continue to try out. Thabeet surprised me with two great passes to Adrien down low, so perhaps his basketball skills aren’t that bad. Adrien is a better finisher than Thabeet and also can catch the ball in traffic. Here are two examples from the game:
  
  

  Both nontrivial passes — in the first one, he leads Adrien a bit, and in the second, he throws a left-handed, wraparound bounce pass.

• Villanova has the best jerseys in the Big East (although Marquette’s powder blue uniforms are pretty close). Syracuse and UConn have the worst jerseys.

Categories: Commentary, Connecticut, donald, Game Banter, Villanova
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