Jan. 10, 2009
(7:11 p.m.): Little bit of a different tone from the Bearcats today after their 81-72 loss. They were, in a word, optimistic and hopeful (Yes, wise guy, I realize that was three words). Probably because UC, until the final few minutes when the team ran out of gas, had a real chance to win the game.
“We made some strides and played hard,” Deonta Vaughn said. “We came out there and did what we had to do. We played hard and we competed. We didn’t try to give them anything easy.”
For the most part, the Bearcats didn’t. Although UConn shot 58 percent from the field – a better percentage than even Marquette and Providence – Mick could take solace in his team’s effort in defending the Huskies.
“The guys gave a tremendous effort,” he said. “We definitely got fatigued in the last 10 minutes of the game. A.J. Price’s 3s at the end of the first half put us behind the eight-ball. Those are big time shots, way behind the line, and we could have had a halftime lead. We could never get over the hump with them. We gave our best effort; it just wasn’t enough.
“We still have struggled defensively. Part of that is your opponent, part of it is our inexperience. It was definitely not our effort today. Yancy, at times, he doesn’t see the ball and the man. At times, he doesn’t see both. The same thing happens with the freshmen. It doesn’t happen to Mike or Deonta.”
I touched on this briefly in the katzonthecats live blog, but I wanted to continue the conversation for a second about Dion Dixon’s end of half defense on A.J. Price when he sunk two 3-pointers to give UConn a four-point lead. Well, I’ll let Mick talk about it.
“That was out of the 2-3 zone,” Mick said. “Dion was hustling, he had him, (Price) passed it back to the middle and (Dixon) jumped back to the middle. A veteran guy says I’m not letting Price get the ball again, but Dion was hustling. If he was lazy, he would have stayed next to Price. Just inexperience. That’s a prime example.”
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Mick also relayed a story from the postgame locker room. On a blackboard (or a whiteboard or a projector like in high school; I don’t really know; I wasn’t there), Mick wrote the numbers 17-30 and 56.7 percent, and 3-5 (from the 3) and 60 percent. He asked Vaughn what he thought about those numbers. Vaughn said that showed him the Bearcats had to play better defense. No, Cronin said, those are our numbers. That, in fact, is what UC shot in the second half.
The point being: the team shouldn’t lose when it shoots that well.
“Offensively, we can’t play much better,” Mick said. “That’s what I told the guys. You have to get to a point if you play that well offensively, you have to win.”
“Basically, I’m learning how to play against bigger guys,” Gates said. “It’s more of a physical battle in the paint. I’m learning to adjust my shots, getting it over taller players and trying to compete against them. I still think I could have done better in the game. For a freshman, it was OK.”
I was interested to see how Gates played in a game like this, and I know Mick was too.
“Definitely,” he said. “It’s one thing to play (those) guys as freshmen, but you spent three years of high school watching them on ESPN. And now they’re standing next to you. You’re learning how to compete against them.”
Williams also made him adjust his strategy. The plan was to elongate the hedge of the center who would help double-team the guard with the ball at the top of the key. That meant, another Huskies player was going to have to defend two Bearcats at the same time. Williams wouldn’t let him do it because he shot jumpers so well, so Calhoun had to change his strategy.
“He made us make that individual adjustment,” Calhoun said. “He’s a really good basketball player.”
