Better, better

Let's get a couple of things out there before we get into the meat of this post: Providence isn't really any good. In fact, they are crappy. First, they had 10 loses coming into last nights game. Second, not only do they have loses to the good teams of the Big East, they also posted L's against fellow BE bottom feeders like Seton Hall (by 10 at Seton Hall), South Florida, and Rutgers, and have non-conference slip-ups against Boston College and La Salle. That's right, La Salle.
Finally, Providence seemed incapable to playing a tough zone last night and while I would like to think that Uconn's stellar attack against their defense forced them to play more man-to-man, the reality is Providence just doesn't have the horses to play a zone that makes you sweat.
All of that fed into the 75-57 win at Gampel last night.
But, as I have said in the past, the Big East is really about survive and advance. You don't get style points in a league where almost anyone can beat anyone else on any given night. You just win, and Uconn did.
Yet, there a lot of positives from last nights game, and I'm not even including the Lazarus act by Jamal Coombs-McDaniels. The reason I'm not including that is because I don't know how much of McUsuallsucks' play is transferable to another game, or the rest of the season. Maybe it is. Maybe Jamal has finally figured out  how to use his 6-7 frame for more than just hoisting up bad three pointers. If he can provide a spark, offensively, March looks like a much brighter month. It gives Uconn much more depth, and takes pressure off Jeremy Lamb and Roscoe Smith, both of whom proved last night that freshmen can still have freshmen games.
Even if we assume that Jamal Coombs-McAwesome goes back to be Jamal Coombs-McTakeabadshotthenturntheballover in the coming weeks, there is still a lot to like about this game.
It starts with Kemba Walker, who played perhaps his most complete game of the season. He scored 22 points on 7-10 shooting. He had seven assists and five steals, and everything felt under control. Somewhere between NYC and Gampel, Kemba found his mid-range jumper, the most important weapon in his arsenal, and he utilized it last night. He also played like a point guard, finding the open man instead of running headlong into the teeth of the defense, hoping for the best but usually producing the worst.
In the Seton Hall game, they showed a clip of Kemba running down the floor with Roscoe Smith to his right. As Kemba approached the three-point line, three defenders converged, yet Kemba didn't give up the ball, instead choosing to look for a seam in the defense like a running back looking for a lane. Of course, the move went no where, Kemba was forced to give up his dribble, and an easy scoring opportunity for a teammate was wasted.
That didn't happen last night. Instead, Kemba found the open man. When someone (McNasty usually) flashed to the open spots on the baseline, Kemba roped a laser pass in to take advantage. He was the leader in every facet, and the team was the better for it.
Then, there was a the defense. The offense with this young team has always been up and down, that's just the way it is. They miss open shots, they dribble too much, and they make poor decisions from time to time. The reason, however, that Uconn has 19 wins overall, 7 in the Big East, and an NCAA resume right now is because they played defense. That's what is probably so distressing about the last two weeks and, particularly, about their loss to St. Johns. Th defense was lacking.
It returned last night.
I have no idea if Uconn's offense would have been able to handle zone or man-to-man if the team across from them was Georgetown, not Providence last night. What I do know is, had it been Georgetown trying to score the ball, I don't think they would have had any more luck than the Friars in that second half. Uconn was lock-down. They were legit. They contested every shot. Charles Okwandu proved yet again that he is a solid option in the middle with his rebounds and blocks. Providence had no answer.
Again, offense, even on good teams, will come and go, but if the defense stays tight from tip to buzzer, Uconn will once again find themselves in every game with a chance to win.
I think it is also important to point out that while Providence might not be very good, they have also beaten some very good clubs (Louisville and Villanova) and lost by two to Georgetown at Georgetown, by four to Pittsburgh, and by six to Syracuse at the Dome in a game where Providence led much of the way. In other words, they haven't been a pushover.
Sure, the Friars were the appetizer to the main course meal on Wednesday when the Hoyas come calling, followed by a weird Friday night game at Louisville. If we look up this time next week and Uconn has two more loses, a 7-7 record in the Big East, and a 2-7 record in their last nine games, with March right around the corner, a win against Providence is going to seem meaningless. But every climb back to the top has to start at the bottom, and last night Uconn began the climb back up.
They got some unexpected help in the process, but it was needed and now, if they could just find a way to split the next two games, March dreams will once again begin to swirl.

Now comes the crossroads

This is the moment of truth for the University of Connecticut Men's Basketball Team. Thursday night is when this team hit the bottom of a pit that has been dug with bad shots, shotty defense, and erratic play over the last seven games. It isn't where they lost, or to whom, they lost, but how they lost.

Beaten on every hustle play, skewered by fastbreak points as they halfheartedly jogged back on defense, outmuscled for rebounds, carelessly passing balls telegraphed for steals, allowing sure-fire dunks and layups to become strips in the lane as big men inexplicably made themselves smaller by putting the ball on the floor, all aided in the defeat.

At the head of the disaster was Kemba Walker, who's performance in Maui, where he averaged 30 points a game and had everyone minting his name on the Player of the Year award, seems like a fading rumor carried away with the winter snow drifts. Gone is the mid-range pullup jumper that seemed to always find the bottom. Gone is the quick start-and-stop move that seemed to create just enough space for him to get off a shot. Gone is the fade-away, high-arcing shot that seemed destined to make Walker a viable starting point guard in the NBA.

The guts are still left, as Walker continues to barrel down the lane in an attempt to get to the free throw line. The clutch play still remains, as Walker's shots against Texas and Villanova, and his “we won't lose” mentality that helped the team overcome a 14-point deficit against Seton Hall, will receive rerun treatment in Uconn archives for years to come. But, the magic of a top player, of someone capable of taking over a game, is gone.

More upsetting is the shadow of Alex Oriachki, who is quickly becoming one of the more frustrating players to watch, and another example of a disturbing trend under Calhoun – the lack of progression by quality athletes.

Like Walker, Oriachki walked out of Maui a beast. He was a double-double machine, and he had done it against big competition in Michigan State, Kentucky, and Wichita State. These weren't small front lines filled with weak, second-tier talents. These were big, tough bruisers, and Oriachki proved himself to be the biggest and the toughest. Since then, Alex O has done a wonderful disappearing act. Sure, he's awaken for some big moments against Texas (21 rebounds) and even Villanova, but in his last five games he's failed to grab double-digit rebounds and, in four of those games, failed to score double-digit points. His 12-point, 8-rebound game last night, a game where he was manhandled in the low box by a smaller Johnnies squad, was probably his best performance of the last two weeks. That tells you all you need to know about his play recently.

But, Walker and Oriahki's slide is simply symptomatic of the time's downward trend. Over the last four games, in which the team has gone 1-3, the play has deteriorated in stages. It began in the Louisville game, where the Huskies played well against the Cardinals' zone defense for more than 30 minutes. Then, down the stretch, their offense became nonexistent, with Walker and headache-inducing freshman Shabazz Napier playing a mindless game of two-man touch, wasting time clock, and lofting 30-foot three-point jumpers that had no chance. It helped the Huskies blow a lead twice, once in regulation and then again in overtime. Against Syracuse, the same problems materialized, and while Uconn played well against a hungry Orange, who were coming off four straight loses, their inability to score against the zone stopped any comeback hopes dead.

Against Seton Hall, the team played terribly into the second half, then found a defensive gear, and enough around-the-rim offense to prevent a disaster. On Thursday, all the chickens came home to roost. Uconn couldn't score against the zone, they didn't hustle back on defense, they didn't box out on rebounds, and they found themselves down by 25 points to a team that wasn't going to let them come storming back (no pun intended).

So, now, Uconn is at the crossroads. The season has been a rollercoaster ride. It began with little, if any, expectations. The Huskies were picked to finish 10^th in the Big East. They weren't ranked. At the very best, expert analysts thought an appearance on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament would be the peak for their season. Then, the Maui Invitational came, and Uconn, behind the virtuoso performances of Walker and Oriachki, swept through the field. It was champagne wishes and caviare dreams, with a jump from unranked all the way to number seven in the country, rising as high as number four.

When Big East play began, it seemed the young Huskies didn't know how to play in the rough-and-tumble elements. Pittsburgh handled them with relative ease, South Florida, a bottom feeder in the conference, pushed them to overtime, and Notre Dame took advantage of sloppy, boneheaded play to squeak out a victory. Uconn had begun conference play 1-2, and many were questioning whether their Maui Invitational run was a fluke.

A trip to Texas corrected that thinking. In perhaps the best road victory this year in college basketball, Walker hit a game winner with only a few seconds left, and the Huskies improbably began a six-game winning streak. They easily ran through Depaul and Rutgers, outlasted a top-10 team in Villanova, then went on the road and beat a very good Marquette team. All was right with the world. This little team of Kemba Walker and a bunch of youngsters was playing like a veteran club that had been together for years.

That was before the second half of the Louisville game.

Now, having lost three of their last four, bunched up tightly in the middle of the Big East pack, dreams of a regular season Big East Conference title all but squashed, Uconn finds itself at a third crossroads. Can they resurrect their season the way they did after the Notre Dame loss? Certainly. Will they? That's another story.

The road back begins against Providence on Sunday, a team that has notoriously given Uconn problems. With seven games to go, and contests remaining against Louisville (at Louisville), Georgetown, Marquette, and Notre Dame, the Huskies can't afford a slip up. They have to beat Providence, Cincinnatti, and West Virginia, then hope for a couple of wins against those other four formidable opponents, two of whom will be rematched where they will want revenge.

Of course, college basketball is about March. If the Huskies were to struggle to a 3-4 record down the stretch, yet make a run in both the Big East and NCAA Tournament, no one would care about a mid-February drought. It would be viewed as a necessary evil in the evolution of a young team. But, despite what some may say, seeding is always important, and Uconn's next seven games, and performance in the Big East Tournament, will determine on what line they end up. A three or four seed is within their grasp, but a downward spiral could plunge them to an eight or nine seed, and a difficult road past the first weekend of the tourney.

Plus, Uconn's MO over the last several years has been a disconcerting one. For most of his career, Jim Calhoun's squads were known as slow starters, top finishers. Get the Huskies in December and January because, in February and March, they will be firing on all cylinders. That hasn't been the trend over the last six or so seasons. In each of those years, Uconn started hot and faded in the end. The team hasn't won a Big East Tournament game since 2005. It has failed to make the NCAA Tournament two of the last four years (although, to be fair, in the last five years the Huskies have managed two number one seeds, a number two seed, a trip to the Elite Eight, and a trip to the Final Four, so it hasn't exactly been a total loss when it comes to the big dance).

It is hard to know what to expect from this group, now. They are one of the youngest teams and, had you offered any Uconn fan an 18-5 record at this point in the season back in November, you would have gotten a unanimous “Yes” back. But, seasons don't play out on paper. Expectations in November are only useful for about a month. Uconn set the bar high. They showed a much more talented team than had been anticipated. They showed that 18-5 was about right where they could, or should, be for this time of year. Whether or not the team was “expected” to do anything before a single game was played means nothing. Expectations, real expectations, should stem from play, not predictions. And, right now, a collapse and early exit from both the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament would be rightly viewed as a failure.

In 2006 I wrote that the Huskies' inability to play well down the stretch, and overcome an inferior George Mason team, would hurt for years because you don't often get the chance to bring the best team, the most talented team, into the tournament. It doesn't come around that often. It isn't a guarantee. You don't just lineup the teams, decide who has the most talent, and slot the final four accordingly. It takes a lot. So, when you have the team, the players in place, take advantage. Uconn, that year, had the team to win a third national title. They played distracted, selfish basketball. They lost.

This incarnation of Uconn isn't nearly as talented as that 2006 squad, yet they have already shown an ability to beat anyone, anywhere, on any given night. To slip up now, when the sport's world's attention turns to college basketball in earnest, would be a shame.

Uconn has the talent, this year, to make a run. Maybe not at a title or even a Final Four, but a run that gets Connecticut excited again, and puts Uconn squarely back on the map. It would be ashame if the Uconn high-water mark for the season ended up being a game in Texas in January, rather than a run in March.

Ugly, frustrating, nerve-wracking, and ultimately.......rewarding

Before I get into Uconn, Seton Hall from last night, let me just lament for a second the fact that, here in the East Coast it is 12:41 in the afternoon and we are already in hour 3 of the Super Bowl pre-game on NFL Network and ESPN. This, after two weeks, TWO WEEKS, of breaking down one game. I know it will never change. I know the Super Bowl has become a monster that no longer can be constrained. But, it is stretching it each Sunday when the hour-long pre-game shows break down more than a dozen games. Spending this amount of time on one game? It actually hurts.

Anyway, that's my Super Bowl lament. Prediction: Steeler 27, Packers 21

On to Uconn.

Last night's game is a tough on to digest. The BIG negative is that it was an ugly game from every angle, from poorous defense to mindless offense to terrible free-throw shooting. Throw in the fact that Uconn got out rebounded by Seton Hall and was down by as many as 14 points in the second half, and this game was difficult to watch.
The BIG positive is that Uconn proved, again, an uncanny ability to come back. Last year's team, as I have said in the past, had a glass jaw. Hit them in the mouth and they usually folded. This team? Exact opposite.
They played their worst game of the year, statistically. They did nothing well, really. Yet, they simply willed their way to a win. They just wanted it more.
There are things that worry you if you're a Uconn fan. Kemba Walker's shooting is still sporadic, at best, and the shots that were falling early in the season are, many times, banging off the rim. Alex Oriakhi continues to play wildly inconsistent and an inside offensive game remains all but nonexistent. Shabazz, well, he remains the most entertaining and frustrating player on the team, capable to dagger threes and killer turnovers, all in the span of a few minutes. The maturation of Shabazz has not happened as quickly as one would like. And, finally, for some reason, the team goes away from Jeremy Lamb for long stretches in games, even though, right now, he is obviously the second-best scorer on the team.
However, here is all you need to know about the Big East: it is survive and advance. Beating Seton Hall isn't anything in which to get excited about. They only beat one ranked team all year (Syracuse) and are at the bottom of the league. However, if the Hall, Providence, St. Johns, and others have taught us is that any team can beat any other team on any given night. With perhaps the exception of Depaul, there is no gimme game. There isn't any place to take a breather. And, getting down by 14 points to virtually any team on the road can happen.
I have been expecting Uconn to hit a lull. This is a team of freshman. It is lead by a junior, but it is young and has never been through the battles. Every game on the schedule represents new territory. Every day the calendar turns over is another new beginning for the team. Losing to Louisville and Syracuse is no great shame, even though they were both home games and, at least in the Louisville game, had things in hand. But, yesterday would have been a bad loss. It would have been a "young team" loss, one of those that are facilitated by having a lot of freshman in important spots. Usually, with young teams, they get down and they are out. Winning comes with time. It becomes muscle memory, and muscle memory takes time.
maybe it's having Kemba on the team, a guy who went to the NCAA Tournament as a freshman, played one of the great games in the Elite Eight against Missouri, and went on to a final four. Maybe it is having that kind of leadership from a guy who knows what winning and losing looks like. But, this team plays tough. It plays veteran. It can erase a 14-point deficit without playing their best, in a hostile environment, against a team just itching to spoil someone elses fun. Last night's game was the kind of game the 2009/2010 team loses. It's the type of game young teams usually lose.
The one thing we take out of yesterday, through the turnovers and terrible rebounding, is that Uconn is tough. They aren't going away. They aren't quitting on a game. And, when you have talent, and you have a great coach, and you have a great player, that's the kind of personality that can mean the difference between greatness and disappointment.