Hoyas - UConn Post-Game Discussion

[FrostbackHoya]

I'm conflicted on the cutaway to Texas/Kansas. On the one hand, I missed the last few minutes of our blowout of UConn. OTOH, the cut us short because we were ANNIHILATING the Huskies, and Texas was CHOKING on a 16-point lead. I'd much rather miss our win then have Texas' issues.

Why the angst? We just hammered UConn. I had thought the 12 1/2 spread was seriously high, but we covered. How in God's name can a 13-point blowout of a team we haven't beaten in TEN YEARS be disappointing to y'all?

HOYA SAXA!!! #1 SEED for the BET!

[hoyainspirit]

We whupped ass today, baby!

[Hoya50]

i couldnt disagree more, essex. this was a solid win. don't underestimate uconn, they're among the best defenses in the league and the hoyas made them look pedestrian in the 2nd half. the offense was far more focused today, working the ball inside-out. roy and jeff were aggressive and ewing is playing at such a high level now. his perfect post feed to roy for the dunk and foul on kelly was textbook.

i do agree about summers. he played out of control and needs to let the game come to him. i'd love to see him in the post more often.

i think the hoyas are set for the be tourney. #1 SEED!!!!

[hoyainspirit]

Roy absolutely USED Thabeet today!

[mikeylikesit]

i think we're absolutely fine. roy played about as well as he ever has, he sometimes has trouble with comparably sized centers who can contest and/or block his shots, but he completely destroyed thabeet. jeff continues to impress, he was doing everything, how about that early block of a 3..he came out of nowhere on that one. ewing is really playing well, i'm very impressed. yes, summers and sapp have cooled down over the past few games, but i don't think it's anything to be overly worried about. shooting slumps happen...they'll work through it and it shows a lot that we have more than enough offense to offset slumping starters.

[sead43]

i'm sorry, but kenny and sead should've (and could've) gotten more than 55 seconds of playing time on senior day...the crowd was asking for it...JTIII let me down there. at least kenny made it count with a NICE block...

[bsure]

Congratulations to the 2007 Georgetown Hoyas and Coach Thompson, No.1 seed in the Big East tournament, Regular season Big East Champions, or Co-Champions depending on Pitt tonite. Who could have imagined 3 years ago?

[Nevada Hoya]

Jessie and DaJuan will be taking 5000 shots before the BET.

[MCIGuy]

I don't think Roy of the last one and a half seasons has as much trouble with big men as he does when the "small" guys guard him. In those scenarios he is often fronted, or double and trippled teamed and/or he may have a problem with the opponents' quickness (especially having to guard them away from the basket). But when he plays against guys his own size that tends to lead to the opposing coaches chosing to use man defense against him rather than zone or a collapsing defense. Still it all comes down to touches. Let Hibert touch the ball and try to score and likely good things are gonna happen. It still amazes me that this concept seems to have not yet completely caught on. Foul trouble or no foul trouble there is a problem with the scheme or the players when, in ANY game, Sapp has 19 fg attempts (even if he's making most of them) while Hibbert has 4. Period. End of story. Even if Syracuse had played a style of defense like Cincy in which the object was to deny Hibbert the ball at all costs, that
still would not justify Sapp taking fifteen more shots. Especially not in the type of share-oriented offense the Hoyas run. Yet I have a bad feeling that those types of games (in which everyone but Roy shoots) are gonna appear during the BET and NCAA tournaments. More games in which Hibbs' minutes on the floor are wasted by not getting him enough shots on one end. And when you take no shots you can't get the opposing frontcourt players in foul trouble, but they can get Hibbert in foul trouble on the other end because they themselves, unlike Roy, will be in a position to take shots.

Hey, its a complaint I made all season and only stopped bringing it up because people were complaining I was showing too much favortism towards Hibbert. Perhaps that criticism was true but my main motive was that I was/am thoroughly convinced the Hoyas are a better team when Hibbert is getting ten shots plus per game than when he is limited to four or five. Call me crazy.

[HoyaSpirit]

jmassera said:

i'm sorry, but kenny and sead should've (and could've) gotten more than 55 seconds of playing time on senior day...the crowd was asking for it...JTIII let me down there. at least kenny made it count with a NICE block...

I didn't see the game, but looking at the score I would tend to agree. JT3 is awesome, yet he waits to long to get the bench guys PT when we're way ahead and they end up getting too few minutes, particularly Macklin this year who would have developed faster with more PT. If Roy or Jeff get into foul trouble in the tourney, that will come back to bite JT3. Still - I love the guy and commend him on an outstanding coaching year.

What I love about JT3 is that he is an amazing recruiter, a strong practice coach (our guys consistently improve over time) and a good game coach (not amazing, but compared to his Dad he is much better at this). The other thing is that he seems to improve our team game, learning and strategy over time. With Pops, our teams at the end of the year often had the same major problems we had at the start of the year (common ones were poor FT shooting, inability to beat a zone d, etc.) yet with JT3 I think he's much better at seeing weaknesses we have and improving them.

[EasyEd]

On the subject of Roy getting too few shots - I just finished viewing the 1984 championship game when Georgetown defeated Houston 84-75. Ewing got 8 shots and at least 2 were offensive rebounds/put-backs. In the semis Ewing was 4 for 6 (don't know if any were put-backs). My point is that denying our center the ball is not new. Teams have been doing that for years as they know it's one way to try to beat us.

[EasyEd]

Congratulations to JTIII and the entire team, assistant coaches and support staff for bringing a banner to Georgetown, whether it's co-champions or champions. And, you did it with class.

[lichoya68]

AGREEE NOT GREAT OUTSIDE SHOOTING HATE TO SEE OUR THREE PERECNETAGES BUT we won we beat uconn on my freaking birghdaty for the first time in like TEN YEARS.. roy was back and killed the uconn big men.. jeff played great hustle in second half hopefully enough to convince the coaches of the poy vs. nichols.. shoot better and we will kill peopls go hoyas beat the next victims in nyc.. WE ARE FIRST SEED IN THE BIG EAST AND AT LEAST CO CHAMPS LOVE OUR HOYAS NO WHINING LIKE JIMMY CALHOUN GO HOYAS I LOVE YOU DREAMS DO COME TRUE ;D ;D ;D

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

Congrats to the team and coaches. You've made the Hoyas fans in Section 118 very proud.

Roy had a huge game - its almost funny to think how worried we all were about Thabeet at the beginning of the season.

Sapp and Summers have hit the wall with their conditioning their jumpshots are coming up short and they are a step slower in covering the shooters on the outside - I hope that they can use the time off between games to get their legs back. This is probably just a problem with them playing a lot more. HOWEVER, PE2 did an amazing job filling in for them - his 12 points were huge.

Calhoun did his best to bully his team back into the game. His classless exchange with a student at half time was a microcausm of the man's coaching style, program, and basketball philosophy.

[MCIGuy]

ed said:

On the subject of Roy getting too few shots - I just finished viewing the 1984 championship game when Georgetown defeated Houston 84-75. Ewing got 8 shots and at least 2 were offensive rebounds/put-backs. In the semis Ewing was 4 for 6 (don't know if any were put-backs). My point is that denying our center the ball is not new. Teams have been doing that for years as they know it's one way to try to beat us.

I don't think Houston tried to deny Patrick the ball in that game. And I think if the Hoyas were actually losing that game Patrick would have somehow gotten more touches.

Regardless I've watched Hoya greats such as Zo, Othella and Sweetney and none of them would have so many games in a season in which their shot attempts were five or fewer. And that's not to include all the times they went to the free throw line which are not considered shot attempts.

Moving on...part of me does hope either Jeff or Roy leaves early because III is back to being a bit stingy with playing time. I just don't hey believe he will regularly play nine guys let alone elevn or twelve. I just hope Wright doesn't lose all of his aggressiveness because there are enough GU players who are too hesitant when looking for shots (including Roy).

[BurleithBeast]

stpetersburghoya said:

Calhoun did his best to bully his team back into the game. His classless exchange with a student at half time was a microcausm of the man's coaching style, program, and basketball philosophy.

Let's not take this as evidence of Calhoun's character. The kid who was swinging his arms at Calhoun et al. was out of line. Calhoun shouldn't have had words with him, though, of course.

What exactly was said?

[washingtonhoya]

burleithbeast said:

stpetersburghoya said:

Calhoun did his best to bully his team back into the game. His classless exchange with a student at half time was a microcausm of the man's coaching style, program, and basketball philosophy.

Let's not take this as evidence of Calhoun's character. The kid who was swinging his arms at Calhoun et al. was out of line. Calhoun shouldn't have had words with him, though, of course.

What exactly was said?

Having been close to the scene when that happened, I can tell you that the two students are not one and the same.

[DanMcQ]

Brief post-game thoughts before we head out to dinner in Georgetown:

The first half was a defensive tractor pull, aided by unnecessary stoppages of play courtesy of Jim "I can miss a call even when I am a foot away from the play" Burr and Pat "I'll call this one because I am out of position" Driscoll. The Hoyas' offense was noticeably slowed by UConn's bump and grind defense and Jeff Green's early second foul. In defense of the refs, they made it pretty clear they were not going to call charging fouls today and Green would have been better off not trying to draw a charge.

Roy was clearly motivated today and made some impressively strong moves to the goal - his give and go pass to Jon Wallace for the layup was a thing of beauty.

Breakout game for PE Jr today: he was seemingly everywhere on defense, tipping balls, grabbing rebounds, and making steals when they were needed. DaJuan Summers had another off game on the offensive end but PEJr more than made up for it. Jeff Green and Jon Wallace were what you'd expect: guys who do whatever it takes to win.

Sweet block by Kenny Izzo on Dyson to end it.

On to the BET - a 3 game winning streak in MSG would be nice.

[Locker]

Ewing Jr. is the only player on this team who is an expert at making the post entry pass. It's not a coincidence that Roy's production rose today as Pat's minutes increased. He should see more and more of the PT at the three as we go forward.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

The straight on view from section 119 showed that the kid Calhoun yelled at and tried to get ejected was not swinging his arms (or even leaning over the rail). Calhoun is a jackass.