"We just want to be respectful human beings and push in our chairs."
✂️ Respectful human beings
25 seconds · Clipped by Alex Craig · Original video "Press Conference: Regional Finals UConn vs. Illinois Pregame - 2024 NCAA Tournament" by March Madnessyoutube.com
If someone finds a superclip of all the chair pushes, please post it.
Yes , Clingan can get a bit antsy when he can't pass out of the post pretty quickly. He had five balls plucked from him last night trying to dribble in the post . Karaban shot has been mostly off for a month , looks like he's releasing off the side of his hand because it's doing like a corkscrew in the air. You'll see tomorrow. Castle might shoot a 3 per game but isn't a real outside threat. Newton and especially Spencer are the concerns. Spencer uses a lot of pump fakes and is pretty fearless going against bigger more athletic guards. I wonder if you all might just back him down?
Though to be fair, UConn is also undefeated on neutral courts.
The kind of play Alex Caruso makes wandering away from his man because he sniffs something out. Reading of the game, athletic ability, and the guts of a burglar.
100%. That was the moment when I knew we were up and were going to be in this game. I wasn't certain we'd win, but I knew we were locked into game mode and were ready to go.
Domask played better than his statline. As expected, ISU doubled him frequently, so his role was to pass out (ideally a skip pass) and let the rest of the team run 4-on-3.
They're kinda sensitive about incredibly innocuous coach-speak. Underwood saying postgame that he they hadn't really scouted UConn yet (surely a lie) and today that we've seen other teams run similar sets drove a bunch of them batty. Being national champs and the dominant #1 seed doesn't seem to be enough, they seem to want the Illini to ugly cry about the prospect of having to play them and to constantly vow that what they do on a basketball court is something orders of magnitude above anything anyone else has even conceived within the sport since James Naismith put up a peach basket at the YMCA.
Having better quality players around you can help with that. You elevate your play and don't have to carry others as much.
So in other words, a lot of insecurity. Interesting.
He went from playing on a KenPom 151 offense last year at Rutgers to a top 2 KenPom offense this year. That helps create much better looks for a 44% 3 point shooter.
One of their fans got all hot and bothered about how Cam Spencer was going to flummox our coaching staff. I don't really put much stock into how he played at Rutgers, but responded. "Our coaches are quite familiar with Cam Spencer. He was in the Big Ten last year." Surely, the next thing he did was check Spencer's stats against us, and that was the last I heard of him.
It's heartwarming really.
His per-40 numbers are nearly identical from last year to this year. His dud in Champaign was an outlier. Maybe he had the flu.
Free throw shooting was a major concern for the fanbase coming into the season as well as during the early noncon, but since then, we've been one of the best teams in the B10 as far as percentages go. We shot 76% from the line in conference play and our starters look like the following:
It was more than that, though. He had really good metrics even at Rutgers, averaging 43% from 3, true shooting of 59%, 2-1 assists:turnovers, and a couple steals/game.
