UCONN win hurt us, Cuse loss helped us?

[justabballfan]

I am watching the game on MASN and the announcer just said that he believes the game UCONN hurt us, and the Cuse loss may have helped us.

His reasoning was that we got too overconfident after the UCONN and thought they would all be that easy. He believed the Cuse game gave us our confidence back.

Interesting take. Thoughts?

[henlehoya]

I heard this too. Don't really agree with the overconfidence post-UConn bent. I remember the post-game press from that and Coach, DaJuan and Jessie all said they were being careful not to get too confident. I think I remember a specific remark from Coach that was to the effect of the guys would "get an hour to celebrate" then it was back to focusing on Pitt the upcoming week.

I think when everything clicks as well as it did against UConn, subsequent problems in-game become more jarring and difficult to recover from but I take issue with the implication our guys were arrogant or "over confident."

[jgalt]

i dont agree that the UCONN game hurt, the Cuse loss did though, but because of the comeback not because it was a loss

[justabballfan]

Feb 18, 2009 20:12:20 GMT -5 henlehoya said:

I heard this too. Don't really agree with the overconfidence post-UConn bent. I remember the post-game press from that and Coach, DaJuan and Jessie all said they were being careful not to get too confident. I think I remember a specific remark from Coach that was to the effect of the guys would "get an hour to celebrate" then it was back to focusing on Pitt the upcoming week.

I think when everything clicks as well as it did against UConn, subsequent problems in-game become more jarring and difficult to recover from but I take issue with the implication our guys were arrogant or "over confident."

Good point.

I think the Cuse loss is TBD. If we go on to win 3 games in a row, then we will be sitting here Monday night talking about the come back at Cuse was where it all started. If we go on to lose both games, the Cuse loss didnt mean .

[robbyt]

I totally agree with the announcer. We blind-sided UConn--they should have pounded us down low with Adrien and Thabeet and Co. but didn't because of poor decision-making, they won't make that mistake again, and we shouldn't have expected to roll that way over teams.

I think certain guys have been overconfident, namely the guys who are supposed to be leading, DaJuan and Sapp, and that is part of the reason for our problems thus far. I don't see any overconfidence in Freeman, Wright, Monroe, Clark, or anybody else. Since the Syracuse game the younger guys who are sick of losing are taking over the team, no longer waiting for or deferring to an upperclassman to step up.

[Filo]

Overconfidence that last through a 1-7 stretch? Yep, that makes a lot of sense.

[hoyas big supporter]

UConn comment = false imo
SUcks comment = hopefully true

[SFHoya99]

UConn did pound it down low with Adrien -- repeatedly. They don't pound it down low with Thabeet well against real competition -- the guy has no post game and is merely a finisher.

We're a good matchup to beat UConn because Greg took Thabeet outside and we shot well enough to make sure they didn't zone us. We simply outplayed them.

I have no idea why people insist on making all our good wins "lucky." Teams play better sometimes.

[dungeon ball]

These d-nozzles are the worst announcing pair I've ever heard, and I think this is the 2nd time we've had to put up with them. I was thinking about making a list of the absurd/incorrect statements, but there are way too many. It's definitely amateur hour with these lower profile games.

[hoyarooter]

I'm with filo. I think the overconfidence comment makes no sense. If it were true, the losses at SHU and Cincy should have disabused the players of any such notions. Four weeks of poor play doesn't result from overconfidence.

[sleepy]

I think the Pitt, Notre Dame, and Duke games just stripped the team of all their confidence, and that caused them to lose faith in themselves and each other, then even the "system" at times. That why I was so worried about the scheduling in the begginning of the year. Right now I think we are starting to see them regain some of their confidence, but if they are, it will be a different type of confidence from the begginning of the year.

[fsohoya]

I think Wenzel was right on target with UConn and I hope he is right about the 'Cuse. I would add, though, that the real breaking point was against SHU, where I think a lack of confidence ultimately became desperation.

[hoyarooter]

Feb 18, 2009 21:49:44 GMT -5 sleepy said:

I think the Pitt, Notre Dame, and Duke games just stripped the team of all their confidence, and that caused them to lose faith in themselves and each other, then even the "system" at times. That why I was so worried about the scheduling in the begginning of the year. Right now I think we are starting to see them regain some of their confidence, but if they are, it will be a different type of confidence from the begginning of the year.

I just can't quite buy this. The Notre Dame game was a game we could easily have won, on the road against a team that, up to that time, hadn't lost at home for two years. There is no reason that game should have resulted in a crisis of confidence. Ditto Duke, which never loses non-conference games at home, and benefitted from a horrendous technical foul call that crushed our momentum. Everyone points to the Duke game, but there is no reason why that game should have been viewed as a crushing loss.

Now the West Virginia and Seton Hall games are a different story. Those were two horrendous performances against teams that we figured to beat. If any games caused us to lose our confidence, I would say it was those two.

[sleepy]

Feb 18, 2009 22:21:37 GMT -5 hoyarooter said:

Feb 18, 2009 21:49:44 GMT -5 sleepy said:

I think the Pitt, Notre Dame, and Duke games just stripped the team of all their confidence, and that caused them to lose faith in themselves and each other, then even the "system" at times. That why I was so worried about the scheduling in the begginning of the year. Right now I think we are starting to see them regain some of their confidence, but if they are, it will be a different type of confidence from the begginning of the year.

I just can't quite buy this. The Notre Dame game was a game we could easily have won, on the road against a team that, up to that time, hadn't lost at home for two years. There is no reason that game should have resulted in a crisis of confidence. Ditto Duke, which never loses non-conference games at home, and benefitted from a horrendous technical foul call that crushed our momentum. Everyone points to the Duke game, but there is no reason why that game should have been viewed as a crushing loss.

Now the West Virginia and Seton Hall games are a different story. Those were two horrendous performances against teams that we figured to beat. If any games caused us to lose our confidence, I would say it was those two.

But they lost those games the same way which is the same way we lost the previous two games of the season. It was frustrating and you could see it on their faces. Games like WVU and Seton Hall don't happen because of loss of confidence during those games, it is something that is built up to with previous games. After that Pitt game you could see us slowly losing confidence every game, especially towards "crunch time".

[Hoya TMF]

I thought the UConn assessment was stupid. Maybe beating them made us overconfident, but that could not have lasted long since we followed those games up by getting spanked at home by Pitt and losing a winnable game at ND. Any overconfidence would have surely been deflated by then. Hopefully the game last Saturday will prove to be a turning point in our season. I really think we can go 4-1 down the stretch and claw our way back into an at learge bid, assuming we lose in the BET.

Taking care of business in these games is huge because if we have to make a deep run in the BET to go dancing, then we probably won't make a very good showing in the Big Dance anyway. Each of these next five games is very winnable, especially with our two toughest opponents at home. Go Hoyas!!!

[strummer8526]

Those commentators were pretty terrible. No comment on the actual point. It seems too vague to ever really know. But hopefully we have turned the corner.