Some Positives

[swish7]

I missed the first 10 minutes of the game. I was multi-tasking during the rest. I made a few hasty and bad obversations. My bad. So, taking the valuable considerations from yesterday's ever-polite, fair, and effective judgment(s) from the resident Posting Ethics Evaluators committe, I offer a look at the good things I noticed yesterday. I will hopefully not regurgitate obvious stuff.

Number 1, we officially learned to play without Fab. Nice team effort after he went out with foul trouble.

The 1st half

• Offensive poise early - Triche's 3, Kjo's 3, Melo's shots. Wow, missed all of those.
• Defensive intensity throughout - Fair's steal, Fab's block, Lamb's TO with JS and BMK in. I actually never had a problem with our D

Things I was really wrong about yesterday.

• KJo's turnover. I did not notice the UConn player knocked it out of his hands, off his thigh and out of bounds. I thought KJo had mishandled it, and dribbled it off his thigh. Thus my reaction to his non-reaction. Again, it was a comment about one small thing. Not sure why the PEE committee went all apopletic.
• Fair - In the parts of the game I missed yesterday, he was not lost. In fact, he was hugely involved on defense and offense. During one UConn possession, he got all twisted around in the zone. This led to a UConn dunk and a Joseph foul. This occurs at the 2:16 mark of the 1st half. For whatever reason, perhaps b/c I am anal, this stuck in my craw. Looking back at the game, the kid was a monster.
• The team's tude. While watching the game without interruption, I noticed we had a lot more poise and control than I originally thought. Yesterday, the game seemed to me to be an "unnecessary slugfest". Today, it felt like a toughish conference with an overmatched opponent, that got close once, but we had control of throughout.
• Scoop's shot selection in the 2nd half. Really solid. Not sure what I was thinking. Going back through the game uninterrupted, Scoop stepped up when all else was failing due to the loss of Melo.

Things I am still convinced of:

• Southerland's dagger shots, dagger us as much or more as they dagger the opponent. IMO, he's a footnote. It would not take much for him to be a multi-faceted contributor.
• Bad Scoop does not happen much, but is totally avoidable. He waves off Fab to throw an off target pass to KJO in a crowded lane. He throws an oop to Dion when 3 UConn players were in the lane. Why? Adds no value.
• Fab's 2nd half focus. After his "big block", he did a bunch of woofing. And then his play deterioriated over the next couple minutes to the point where he got himself in foul trouble, and was taken out. Later he was put back in to get his 4th fould about :30 seconds later.
• Triche getting lost on the bench in the 2nd half is weird, and I worry it will cost us long term. A lot of UConn's points during their run were scored from the position Triche would have covered in the zone. However, a lot of our points during our dagger run were scored by the same guy. What do you do? Take Dion out? No. Take Scoop out? No. Ya just go with the hot hand.
• Whomever Fab's backup is, and it appears to be BMK needs to be on top form. BMKs mistakes stand out, but his contributions are hader to see. His spazziness led to some fouls, but also some UConn mistakes.

Again, my bad on a few points from yesterday. I never felt my post was "over the top", still don't. I do recognize that some of my points were off. Not sure why the PEE committe reacts the way they do, but you can't control people. Unless it is the NC, wins are not some sacred "time out" period from criticism, at least not in my book. I'll keep my filter off, I like it that way, and am sure to make more mistakes in the future.