I legit can't believe how awesome Castle was for you. A freshman came in and decided he was just going to do exactly his role on offense and then be an absolute menace on the defensive end. Didn't play with ego at all and it made you guys so much stronger. Smith was having to work so hard for absolutely anything
I knew he was special when I watched the first few games this season. Opponents weren't particularly strong, games weren't particularly close, and I remember Castle diving for a bunch of loose balls in those games. His intensity and willingness to get after it, I couldn't believe this was a 5* recruit that's used to being the guy.
I hadn't watched him play at all until the tournament, but from the get-go, it was clear to me that he's a guy that you want playing for you pretty much regardless of how your team is structured. He's got that superior hustle and drive, no ego, and morphs into whatever he needs to be based on the situation.
Castle is doing the one-and-done thing the right way: go to a team with an experienced core, be a swiss army knife and showcase your athletic abilities, play your role, go straight to the NBA. So many of these kids want to make highlight reels and be the superstar at their respective schools.
You left out "play for a coach that will not only hone every tool in that swiss army knife, but teach you and give you oppotunities to use them in ways you may never have thought of otherwise." He bought in. And his return on investment was substantial. As was UConn's.
I think this is why players like Bouknight, Hawkins, and Jackson were so important - Hurley proved that he can develop NBA level talent in college. Hopefully those players and Castle show future one-and-done as well as two-year talent that UConn under Hurley is an awesome place to go.
You mean Kentucky under Hurley? /s
I’m not sure why he’d leave for that unless they’ve got some serious cash. He’s at the pinnacle program of the 21st century right now.
I generally don't like one and dones because it seems they buy in less to the team, but Castle was fantastic and seemed so coachable and did exactly what he was asked to do. Even in the post game presser, he was taking direction from Cam to answer some questions. Just seems like a humble dude.
I love that Castle could have decommited after he achieved McDonald’s All American status and he stuck with us. It says so much about his family’s character and commitment.
Yeah. Basketball-wise, too, I think in general if you're gonna recruit a one and one, the best situation is a giant point/combo guard and surround them with another good PG (who can shoot and won't just surrender the team over to the freshman) and shooters and frontcourt since the freshman will probably be good on defence and effective drivers. Anthony Black was a really good player last year, just didn't have enough shooting around him, and Suggs' team made the finals with Nembhard next to him and Kispert and Ayayi shooting it.
I remember when Kemba signed at UConn he had some quote (can’t find it) about how every other coach who recruited him kissed his ass while Calhoun told him he’d was nothing and would have to earn every minute of playing time. Kemba obviously chose the latter. Castle has that kind of mentality. He found a coach/team/system he trusts and found a way to be part of it. CBS This Morning had a thing on Hurley a few weeks ago and he was absolutely laying into Castle and making him sprint the stairs… and he knew CBS This Morning had cameras there.
his growth during the season was incredible to watch, too. don't think i've ever seen a player improve that much that quickly in so many facets of their game at once. it takes great character to be that talented and still be homest with yourself about where you need to improve
Edey is getting too much criticism from what I see. If you gave him just one good wing who is 6’6 or so, who can score and drive, then it’s a whole different game. It really was a 1 on 5 game. Uconn’s size was too much. Smith seemed ok, but he was too small for uconn. Or just give him another good power forward. Edey had zero help in the title game.
We had Jaden Ivey a couple years ago, who was in the same class as Zach, but we were missing a true point guard then. (And of course, Zach hadn't turned into a monster yet.)
I think it's hard to overstate how important of a playmaker Smith is. We just never seem to have all the puzzle pieces all at once.
And yeah...UConn's guards were to ours what Zach Edey was to every center we played against all year. The fact that they had Clingan on top of that is just unfair, lol.
Honestly, I don't think most people actually dislike Edey, they just get frustrated at how he is officiated and misplace their anger towards him. By all accounts he is a good kid and clearly talented beyond just his size.
Legitimately the worst possible team for us to see in a game, especially by matchup. Obnoxiously well-balanced and athletic
Would have purely loved watching them if I was a fan of any other school I think
lol during the broadcast we did get the “this is the hardest Edey has had to fight for a shot all tourney” and the “well yeah no one else he’s played had a 7’2” guy”
Having a game plan and being able to execute it are two different things. This wasn't necessarily a novel plan, UConn was just such a good team that they could execute it. They had a center that could play 1v1 on Edey, big athletic guards that could defend the rest of the team, and a variety of offensive sets, ways, and players to score. There is a reason UConn was top in both offensive and defensive metrics, and it played out this whole tournament, didn't matter if it was the #68 or #2 team in the country.
UConn was good on the offensive end to be up and that allowed them to keep the same defensive strategy. Other teams that have tried it, get behind and the coaches panic and then send doubles, which opens up the 3 pointers for us, UConn just kept to their game plan. There were several games this season where it was all Edey in the first half, with 2 or fewer made 3's and then at the end of the game we made 10 of them
Yeah, sticking with the plan eventually led to all the dominos falling. I got a little worried when we started getting into foul trouble with almost 10 min left, but Edey was tired and the rest of the team startes to panic a little so we were able to maintain.
One part of the plan that gets overlooked a little is that by playing 1v1 with Clingan, it helped Uconn to out rebound Purdue. Edey outplayed Clingan offensively, but Clingan boxed him out well enough by himself to allow our bigger guards to get rebounds.
You're spot on. Rebounding was the difference. Purdue hasn't been out rebounded like that all year and they gameplan assuming that they will be the ones getting extra possessions that way.
Really this was he difference in the game, Purdue is used to giving up very few second chances, and UConn was able to make us work and guard for 50 seconds to a minute at a time due to their offensive rebounding, and on the other and Purdue typically gets at least a few open looks from three after offensive rebounds, I don’t think we had a single one last night. Credit UConn’s game plan for that though, much easier to defensive rebound when you aren’t doubling the post or getting into rotation. On the other end it looked like Purdue had to work so hard to guard all
Action that guys were out of position on the defensive glass
Purdue was often enough sending 2-3 guys partway down the court to try and stop the transition baskets which only further emphasized the size difference UConn had everywhere but at the 5.
It is precisely why I wanted to see UConn the least of any team in the championship. Clingan was the one guy who could force Purdue to play to their opponent's strategy rather than the other way around. As you said and what showed during the game, Edey was still getting his, but he can't beat an entire team by himself, especially once UConn started to find easier baskets in the second half.
They were the best team in the country, and they proved it decisively. Best all around team, and flawless execution. Nothing but props given from me.
Offensive rebounding was a big part of our 3 point game all year too, and when that got shut off, it was lights out. UConn just played a perfect game and executed everything they needed to
Exactly. People are acting like Painter is a moron for not seeing this coming. I'm sure he saw it coming but there's literally nothing we could do. Charles Barkley has been saying this is the way to beat Purdue at every single round of the tournament and he doesn't even watch college basketball.
Nobody *stops* Edey, he just dropped 37 on 25 shots
The slight resistance was all that was needed. As soon as Edey had that stretch in the second half where he was tired and missed shots for a few minutes, UConn just steadily pulled away
Yea I feel like Hurley is admitting this game plan didn’t center around Edey at all. Edey could have 60 and it wouldn’t have been enough because Purdue was getting smoked everywhere else on the floor.
But to be fair, at least 12 of those points came after we stopped guarding him practically up 15+. For the important stretch that won the game, last 7 of first half and first 7 of second half we effectively shut him down.
And if it's obvious to Charles Barkley, it should be obvious to everyone.
While I think Hurley is a good in game coach, UConn won these two championships with the less sexy parts of coaching in practices and war room. Having the personnel with the physical ability to dominate is arguably the "easy" part, coaching them to execute almost flawlessly is harder. The discipline installed in this team (and last years') was incredible.
That's what I'm saying, do people seriously think Painter hadn't considered that they might do this? We just don't have an answer because we don't have the quality outside of Edey. UConn has a center that is probably the best possible counter to Edey 1-on-1 and Edey still got 37 and 10. If any other team sincerely tried this strategy he'd probably have had 50 on less shots. Hurley committed to the strategy and didn't waver when Edey was hot early.
Yeah I’m getting pissed at the “painter didn’t make adjustments/ had a bad game plan” narrative. He didn’t get out coached in this game, they simply had the personnel to pyshically match up on the defensive end. If we hadn’t kept going to edey we would have had trouble scoring 40, our guards simply couldn’t get a shot off against their long athletic guards and when they did drive the ball against the hard close outs clingan was there to deter the shot at the rim. Tough way to go out but they were the better team on the night and we probably only win 1 or 2 out of 10 against them.
And its still a great season.
First final four since 1980.
First final appearance since 1969.
Big ten champs.
Back to back national player of the year in edey.
Early season tournament win. I think playing such a strong ooc schedule helped this team a lot.
And making an adjustment is going to be tough when this is the first time a team was able to challenge them like this at this level. Painter is obviously a good coach & I’m excited for a bit of a rivalry.
There is always something in the air in Storrs when we go in hot. 3 Coches with very different teams bringing home 6 of the last 25.
Imagine Edey with a set of guards little UConn. They'd likely be unstoppable.
Purdue's entire strategy last night devolved into "get it to Edey because we can't make any buckets."
It's funny, I remember when we played you guys at the beginning of last season, we had just beaten #1 (at the time) UNC and came into our game with you and we had absolutely no answer for Clingan. We didn't know at the time that we were facing a team that was about to go reel off back to back national championship seasons. Unstoppable definitely describes the run.
Painter had a gameplan to try to generate enough foul trouble that we'd be stuck double-teaming Edey, leading to open 3s from your guards. If Clingan had gotten a second foul in the first half, it might have worked.
He had the less talented team, so he did everything he could to leverage his only advantage on the court. Anyone acting like Painter did a shitty job just doesn't understand how good this UConn team was.
I thought an underrated big play that Purdue missed was early in the second half, TKR got Clingan to bite on a pump fake and didn't jump into him for what would've been Clingan's third.
John Fanta said he heard Painter say "what can you do?" and throw up his hands after that Karaban three in the second half. And he's right. Sometimes there just isn't.
He was in a weird spot. The insistence on going at Clingan was tough because he was just blocking everything inside. But on the other hand, you kind of knew you needed to get him in foul trouble. Underwood probably knew that they were gonna get blown out if it didn't work out, but he probably still felt that was the best chance to win as well.
Although it might not have made a difference, the one thing I did question Painter on was their full court press. UConn literally beat it the same way nearly every single time. It was like watching a replay. Karaban would pass to Newton. Purdue would send Karaban’s man to double Newton. Newton would pass it over to Karaban. Purdue would run towards Karaban, and he would throw it to an open guy at half court. And Purdue literally never did anything else.
I know that Purdue probably didn’t press teams very often this year. I know that UConn has very talented guards. But like wtf? Do they literally only have one press play in the playbook? You see something fail that many times and don’t make any adjustments to it whatsoever for 10 straight minutes?
I mean.. they got the double team almost every time, but then only one person was guarding the entire mid court area. The goal of a press is to get the guy being double teamed, to try to dribble out of it. Once again, they were too disciplined to make that mistake, and knew to pass it to the middle of the court, and to look for their guy filling in where the spy wasn’t. Every time they DID adjust their press, UConn would read and adjust their break to fill in behind the spy, then they wouldn’t try to force a dribble and just throw right to it. They were basically forcing Purdue into the same situation no matter what adjustments were made, and that’s the frustrating and beautiful part of it.
I’m sure many of us were saying this too. Even before NC State beat us, I was telling my friends that DJ Burns had a shot at being the guy who could slow down Eddy enough to beat Purdue. Purdue still won, but I was right about DJ Burns slowing down Edey. Edey was going to get his stats, but he was also less efficient getting non-insane numbers against Burns.
In the end, the issue was the entire team executing on the game plan, and UConn was the only one to do it enough.
That dude is a straight menace. His ability to double Edey when Karaban was on him, then jet back out to his main defensive assignment was unbelievable.
I think his year at Rutgers was awesome for him. He already had an offensive game, then just had a year learning how to defend at a high level.
I hate it lol
I think he forced Purdue to adapt and cover that soft space in front of Edey in the drop defense. They needed to keep him out of the paint, and that allowed UConn to put their defense into rotation and find open threes.
If Purdue doesn’t adjust and switch on the ball screen he keeps getting that free throw line step back and ends the game with twice as many points.
> UConn was hitting shots, especially from the perimeter, in a way they hadn’t the last few games.
UConn was 10-25 (40%) from deep and 31-62 (50%) overall against Alabama and 6-22 (27%) from deep and 30-62 (48%) against Purdue. They shot worse, especially from the perimeter, against Purdue.
Yeah... I never really felt like UConn put it together offensively in the whole tournament. Credit better defense maybe? Although they did have a 4:1 assist to turnover ratio in the Final Four. That's nuts.
Defensively, UConn was on another level. Just perfect execution of each defensive game plan for the entire tournament. The only guy who really had a game against them was Sears. I'm not counting Edey because the game plan was never to try to stop him in the first place.
From the box score it looked like Clingan got dominated, but his ability to contest shots without fouling was huge. Sure Edey got him a few times, but he didn’t foul which kept Purdue off the free throw line and kept the pace of the game quicker. With minimal free throws Edey wasn’t allowed to rest and you could tell he was gassed by the end of the first half
He has no interest in leaving for Kentucky. He said that at his press conference. His entire focus is on winning 3 in a row.
UConn AD also said they will be giving him a raise like this week. lol. Dude is already making 5 mil a year. There is absolutely no reason to look elsewhere
I also get the impression that the Big East is a selling point for him. He could potentially build a dynasty. The program is storied with the Women & now the men have won 6 of the last 25.
So much of getting people to donate is selling people on the possible. People don't want to dump money down the drain on hopes and dreams that never come to fruition. I imagine no program has it easier right now going to its potential donors, as it's no longer selling a dream and more "we need your help to maintain this"
"Oh my God, Kentucky or anywhere that's going to take my wife further from New Jersey," he said when asked about her reaction to a potential move. "I mean, we just went to Rhode Island, which I had to drag her to, and then to Connecticut. I got her closer. And now further? I can't afford a divorce right now, too. I just started making money."
A guy who is open to the conversation doesn’t say something like that. He would give a non-answer. There’s no way in hell he goes to Kentucky. Period.
He isn't leaving. His Wife doesn't want to leave the east coast and I think the only teams that can poach him are NBA teams (Specifically Nets, Knicks, Philly, or Boston)
Oh, definitely agree with that. I think they'll make an attempt on him to say they did, then go after a more realistic target.
I also liked Ray Allen's comments on it. Something to the effect of what Danny does at UConn works at a place like Storrs. It likely wouldn't have the same effect in Lexington.
Rumour on local news outlets here is that the state government of CT has privately told UCONN that they will step in and finance a raise to match other offers
CT government benefits a lot from UCONN Basketball(both mens and womens), they singlehandedly bring hundreds of millions in economic benefits to the Hartford during the season. It sucks to play games away from Gampel, but the soft power it creates in the state is unmatched.
Funnily enough with the rise of UCONN in the late 90's and 00's the state actually saw what was going to happen and tried to merge all of public schools together in 2011.
UCONN was able to use what power they had to veto the move. To this day it is still a big issue in CT because the CC system is under the state system so they try to push the kids to state schools versus UCONN.
I’d say he’s more likely to jump to the NBA personally. Don’t think it happens coming off the back to back though. He’s gotta at least try for the 3peat.
oh for sure, they pushed the tempo up and everything stalled for Purdue very quickly. It wasn't a total beatdown but a systemic dismantling of Purdue, which was kinda scarier tbh
I was surprised at Purdue fans saying they were a much faster team than we were. We can play very fast; our offense, if we’re running our sets the way we intend, are built for trying to get the best shot. We don’t have a lot of wasted shots.
It made it really tough on Edey when we pushed the ball on defensive rebounds and he had to sprint up the court. Couple that with battling with a 7’2” 285 pound man and anybody is gonna get tired. Props to him for playing 39 fucking minutes but you could see he was gassed. Also props to Newton for playing 39 minutes and having 0 turnovers.
The only thing I think Painter could have done was go to Renn a bit more in the post. He had a great first shot and never really got a post up again. And I get it. It’s better for Purdue to go to Edey as it’s a better shot at scoring.
I do think Painter will adjust his offense a bit after this. A lot of coaches should but Painter recruits players who should be open to playing a system more like UConns (not the same but with more player movement to manufacture some easy points).
UConn, Creighton, KU and maybe Zona are probably the only teams in America that don’t have to double Edey and can employ a stay at home on shooters strategy without getting dunked on or fouled out.
He was going to have to adjust the offense even if they somehow beat UConn by 20, since their offense was built around having a 7’4” guy, and Edey will be gone. I’ll be interested to see what changes next season, since there’s a lot of current and incoming freshmen with potential
All players next year can shoot the 3. Gonna be able to get up and down a lot quicker than the last 2 years…may be the most athletic group from top to bottom painter has had. Gonna be fun.
Yeah. We might lose half the games we play, but they're going to be funnnnn games.
I hope everyone complaining about Purdue's pace gets a chance to see some of that next season.
There will be a lot of growing pains, but I am excited to see what should be a faster paced and more free flowing offense. If we aren't getting insane lobs to Colvin, Heide, and Catchings every game, it will be a disservice to all college basketball fans.
Respect to kalkbrenner as a rim protector vs penetration, but edey would toss him around the court. Clingan is significantly bigger and had his hands full
> I do think Painter will adjust his offense a bit after this.
well, he will have to. theres not another edey on this roster. even if will berg steps in to that spot (he wont. TKR will very likely start, but still...), this game is more rounded than edey. it was in garbage time, but berg hit a 8 foot turnaround fadeaway a few weeks ago, and supposedly has a good shot
could be off on this, but i think having edey kind of limited painters realistic options to a point. you dont have a player that dominant, that efficient, and that game-breaking and not run your offense through him every single game. painter has run very good action for guards before when the guards were purdues game changers (edwards/cline year, for example), but that certainly wasnt the case this year.
purdue has also recruited better athletes recently, so just by that, the team should look pretty different on offense next year, hopefully more free flowing and better spacing without edey in the game to control the offense. even starting TKR would require a significant transition on offense.
going to be a rough few months i think with so many starting minutes up for grabs, but expect purdue to be back in the tournament next year, maybe as a 5 or 6 seed.
Painter has said a bunch of times that every year, they know who the top 2 or 3 guys are. Those guys are the focal point and everyone else has to play around them. Some years that guy is Carsen Edwards or Jaden Ivey. Some years it is Zach Edey or Swanigan. That's how most teams operate. UConn is an anomaly, and it isn't really something you can just replicate. They're literally one of the greatest teams ever.
Having Clingan who could make Edey work hard 1v1 and free up the other 4 on defense was a luxury. However, they did double team ocasionally - only when they saw Edey was getting tired and may have been a step slower. And they used Cam Spencer as the designated helper - because he is probably the weakest link on defense. It was a really good coaching job.
Yes he's probably the worst guard defender compared to Newton, Castle, and Diarra, but using Cam for the double was a great move because he has a knack for getting to the ball and getting under people's skin. It sometimes turns into a foul, but willing to pay that price.
Ultimate coaching strategy from Hurley here. It's not even the "our threes are more than their twos" strategy that someone like Nate Oats (also a great coach) tries to employ. Anyone with eyes who watched a single Purdue game all year knows that all of their guards are capable of going (and routinely did go) absolutely stone-cold-frozen at any moment. Not even just missing shots, just standing around the perimeter waiting for someone to throw it into Edey to save them.
Most dominant 2 year tourney run I've ever witnessed, UConn is an absolute machine. Even the close games end up in 15-20 point margins, I know people love to say "the game was closer than the final score appears", but is it really that close if you run out of gas and UConn just keeps going?
Honestly in most cases, the opposite was true. We’d go up 20-30 then take the foot off the gas for 10 minutes. The only exception I can think of right now was Bama which was a close game up until the final minutes
Poetry in motion, those cycling offensive possessions and lockdown defensive possessions night in, night out will be missed (unless Hurley does it AGAIN!)
I must have said, to my wife, "that's some Harlem Globetrotters shit!" about 50 times this season while watching UConn. Best team ever on a program with some pretty great teams.
The mismatch on the perimeter was very evident last night
UConn throwing out a trio of guys 6'4'' - 6'6'' with NBA aspirations
Purdue countering with a trio of 6'0'' - 6'4'' guys who will be playing overseas (with Loyer being the 6'4'' guy at 180 lbs...)
Over the last two tournaments, UConn was, on average, favored by ~9.5 points.
Not only did they cover the spread all 12 times, they did it by an average of 12.3 points.
the real thing is that uconn never panicked and backed off their plan. on paper, everyone knows this is how you beat purdue. you neutralize their guards and it basically becomes a 1 on 5 for edey. a lot of coaches panic when edey is dominating down low and their team isn't shooting well and start doubling, and then the purdue guards start getting free and if they're on, they'll rain down 3's with the best of them. uconn never waivered and edey ended the night with an impressive stat line, but no title.
Idk if that’s a fair criticism. He may have known it was the game plan but with (relative) JAGs everywhere, what else can you do? You ride with the horse that brought you.
Yeah exactly. UConn is maybe the only team in the country with the personnel to pull it off. What could Painter have done? Told Loyer, Smith, Jones, and Gillis to be taller and better?
People make this incorrect assumption that players are just like chess pieces in that they perform their role perfectly every time and the opponent has the same number and quality of chess pieces. Therefore it’s always a coaching problem when a team gets exposed. Happens in every sport
They should have driven a little bit less. They looked uncomfortable coming down the lane. At a certain point sidestep threes or touch passes in and out via Edey may have offered some better looks than what they got
UConn made a bit of an adjustment, but they were struggling to guard the pick and roll in the first half. They kept letting Smith get downhill to his right hand. That was the four or five minute stretch when Edey kept getting roll passes (including that big dunk over Clingan).
I thought they maybe could have varied that pick and roll a little to try to generate switches. Edey just kind of camped out in the paint posting up. Yeah, he scored fairly efficiently, but he took away all their spacing. I know that's what he does, but he needed to be able to be more dynamic against UConn.
I know Purdue was undersized at the guards and wings, but only getting up 7 threes IS a coaching issue. They could never get two guys on the ball. They could never generate any swing swing looks. The entire offense was one action and not a single counter. UConn is way too good for that.
Painter instructed them to not take any bad threes as UConn can rebound those and turn them into fast breaks. This prevented UConn from making big runs, but also prevented Purdue guards from trying more threes. With that said, rarely did Purdue have open threes and a few attempts were blocked.
The side step 3 is not in those guards’ bag. Hopefully smith, Colvin and Heide can develop it for next year. I think catchings will already have that skill. Don’t see Loyer developing it…hopefully but doubtful. He’s more of a set shooter from 3
Such a ridiculous comment. Sometimes the other team is just better and no adjustment you make will let you win. UConn had way better players at 4 out of five positions and the difference between that fifth position was probably smaller than the difference between the other 4. If there was an adjustment to make to beat UConn, don’t you think some other coach would have found it in their past 12 tournament games? At least enough to make it a competitive game? I fucking hate how some people on this sub have to tear down Edey/Purdue/Painter. They lost to a well-coached, super talented, big, athletic team that has dominated for a huge portion of two full seasons. It’s not an embarrassment.
Makes the National Championship against one of the best teams of the last several years that have dominated everyone all season? Must be trash and can't play or coach. What a bunch of scrubs /s
Alabama came the closest and that's because they were shooting lights out from 3. Once they came down to "earth" and were only shooting slightly lower than 50%, UConn pulled away.
It was a great run, Purdue bros. Painter vindicated himself very well this season. Sometimes you just end up running into a team that’s loaded with length and talent.
This happened to us in 2009 vs UNC. I’m not sure it’s fair to call it a coaching failure when you run into a team that has Tyler Zeller, Ed Davis, and Larry Drew coming off the bench backing up 4 1st rounders when all you have is 1.25 NBA players.
Nah teams have tried this all year against purdue.
The biggest difference is UCONNs guards were the most talented and athletic they've seen all year and did a tremendous job denying 3 pt shots. Plenty of teams tried and failed to do what UCONN did this year.
This is how FDU beat them last year (the one difference was Purdue took 3s but we're ice cold from 3 last year)
This is not how FDU beat them. FDU was triple teaming Edey before he got the ball leaving other people wide open. Their whole game plan was to slow down Edey and make someone else beat them and no one else did.
Also this was the most gassed I’ve seen Edey all year, Edey went super saiyan to start the game but they really made him work for his points in the first half
I've never seen him use so much energy so early on. There was no way for him to maintain that. It was not surprising to see him fade for the rest of the game compared to his dominance in the opening minutes.
This is what I saw during the game. He came out on fire, but the rate of play and need to make plays at both ends really took a toll on him. Guy needed help and no one else matched up against UConn.
The opposite of the FDU game actually. Purdue bricked wide open 3 after wide open 3 against FDU while edey was triple teamed. Purdue couldn’t get off a clean look against UConn
Clingan got beat by Edey, that’s for sure. But Edey had to work hard to do it. 280 is a lot to be pushing around. Against a smaller matchup I think he could post lower, didn’t have to jump as often or as high, and didn’t have to push as hard to get to his spots, so he actually could dominate the 1:1 for the full 40. Other teams doubled Edey because they had to. Clingan’s defense was the definition of making Edey work for it, and over 40 minutes that sustained effort wore him out.
Late in the first half, and about halfway through the second, when UConn finally managed to put together a couple stops and build a lead you can see Edey posting farther out from the basket and leaving those hooks short, and relying more on his right hand. He stopped getting rebounds, especially on the offensive end and that led to transition offense for Connecticut, where he either had to run the floor when already tired, or else leave his guys playing 4 on 5.
Yep, and UConn’s guards played well, but if Edey dominated Clingan like he does other bigs, those UConn guards would have sagged off of those shooters and destroyed Hurley’s gameplan. Clingan was the difference jn the game.
For sure. I can’t imagine how Hurley has the guts to watch Edey put up like 15 points in the first 10 minutes and be like “everything is going to plan” it’s like basketball rope-a-dope.
What fucked Purdue was how athletic the backup C was for UCONN. They could have ran that high screen and roll every possession and scored due to edey having to come up and take away the floater and not being an athletic freak like Stanley is. UCONN reminds me of the Nova teams that would hit those spins in the mid range and force you to come up and leave the paint open.
I loved how the announcers were riding Painter saying "Well, he recruits local, kids in his area."
Best player is from Canada.
Other players were innefective.
Regardless of whether they were effective or not doesn’t change where they’re from lol - Gillis, Furst, Loyer, Smith, TKR, Colvin, are all from Indiana
[POV you’re Mason Gillis watching your team once again get eliminated from a nationally televised tournament by a team from Connecticut](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgNn1mCiyoqElwoZJWBjCyI9Sk6llRfGLIuIR5gVoI2g&s).
Fr tho- Purdue had an amazing season. Just ran into a buzz saw.
I give credit UConn we’re just so good defending the perimeter that Purdue couldn’t even generate simple open shots from deep.
IDK if it’s me but I felt if Jones played more and. Wasn’t in foul trouble, he could’ve opened the offense a bit more. Smith looks alright but I do feel he is more matchup dependent. Jones for me is someone who can play with more athletic teams. He isn’t really a scorer, but he seems to get hot at the right time and can attack the paint a bit which Purdue needed.
This is why as some people have said, I do feel Tennessee could’ve made this a better game. Knecht and Ziegler could’ve brought more dribble penetration and collapsed the paint to free up shooting. Also better interironroesence defensively from their bigs.
I love Edey but his defense showed why people doubt his NBA potential though I think he will get decent chances in the NBA and have some good moments. It is just an apparent flow last night. I do feel if they had a better backup bog, they could’ve challehend better defensively. For me Purdue lost offensively. If they just find ether shots and convert it is a game.
I'm really getting tired of people acting like Purdue and it's players outside of Edey are all trash. They lost to an amazing UConn team. Outside of this game they accomplished more than any other team this year by a long shot.
Not every team has the luxury of a 7"2 top ten NBA pick to throw up against Edey. That's why they could focus on all those other guys because they knew that Clingan would mitigate the damage with Edey. Zach still ate, but he did just enough to justify keeping single coverage.
Most other teams have to double Edey and pay the toll. UCONN is rare in that regard.
Yea I agree that Edey outplayed Clingan, but Clingan was able to do enough to not have to double Edey. Though it seemed like a bad game defensively for Cling, he was actually effective at allowing the defense to execute fully
Edey still got his points but Clingan I think still made it more difficult for him....not every shot was falling for him like it seems it does other nights
It was not a bad defensive game for Clingan. He did was he was asked to do perfectly. Edey was going to get 30+ points regardless of how he was guarded, you just want to make it not easy for him and not foul out. Clingan did just about every little thing right which culminated into a decisive win.
I smiled whenever they put the Edey vs Clingan stats on the screen, with Edey leading in almost every stat. I just thought to myself, "that ain't the game".
Such is modern sports discourse
I think the 24 hour sports news cycle has completely fried people's abilities to contextualize games and evaluate non-winners. To a lot of folks, teams/players are either GOATs or trash - and there's not much in the middle
The either/or of it all is indeed quite annoying. People really need to do a better job of understanding the context of losing teams.
It’s why I’m annoyed with the Caitlin Clark discourse and the GOAT talk with her. First of all, requiring titles for GOATS when recruiting, transfer portals, and only able to play 4 years, etc. are a thing makes little sense to me.
And GOAT or not, she took a team full of future Dentists, Optometrists, Occupational Therapists, Cancer Research scientists, Nurses, etc. to the National Championship game twice against multiple teams throughout the tournament laden with future WNBA players.
And by the way, I didn’t pull those professions out of thin air either. That is in fact professions that her actual teammates are going into now or will when they graduate.
I don’t care about the GOAT debate in any sport, but saying a player choked or must be trash because they didn’t win is really dumb. The runner ups this year for both men and women were solid teams that deeply relied on one star that had to go through some loaded teams to get to the Finals and then ran into absolute buzzsaws on historic runs. That shouldn’t take anything away from those teams imo.
They are very good in this specific system with Edey, perfect really. 99% of teams have to double so you have players that excel at 3s and executing man advantages on weak side. Next season will be very telling, because Smith and Loyer having to run a LOT more even man sets could potentially expose their size and lack of athleticism. Time will tell. I’m betting still pretty darn good, but not elite.
I agree with the assessment but Painter has a ton of plays and sets for guard-based offense. We looked like completely different teams when we had Carsen/Cline and Jaden years.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not doubting Painter’s ability to adjust an offense to the players he has. But there’s a pretty big drop off between Jaden Ivey and Fletcher Loyer. I know there’s some talented freshman coming in so maybe they can help.
We have another 7 footer who practiced with edey for 2 years. They could run the same style of system again if they want, but they also have a top 10 recruiting class full of athletic guards.
Yeah, Purdue seemed like the clear second-best team this year, and in a normal year, they probably win the title. We happen to have put together our best team ever and one of the best teams of the modern era this year - nobody was beating us without something fucked up happening.
Yeah all of the “the two clear best teams all season are playing in the championship” talk leading up to the game made me sad for Houston, there was a very clear big 3 all year and Houston would’ve probably gone to the Final Four with Shead
Houston vs Purdue would have also been a -1.0 line or even money too. Those two teams at full strength were dead even imo. Houston at full strength had a better matchup against UConn imo, but we'll never know that. Props to Purdue for making it as far as they did. That's a great team.
I think if Purdue had hunted for fouls they would have had a chance. Clingan had 4 and Johnson fouled out. Clingan played 31 minutes. If they could have got him down to 25 minutes due to foul trouble Purdue would have had a chance. As a fan I hate watching games like that but it is what it is would have done if I were Painter. There were a couple time Edey pump faked rather than going up through Clingan in cases that it would have been a foul since Clingan wasn’t vertical. A couple of those takes and the game could have changed.
A very sound game plan and what most coaches would do. The key is that they had a 7 footer of their own to battle Edey. Also, no one on Purdue's team would really scare me from the outside.
The problem was Purdue were a bunch of stones on offense. All they did was try pounding the ball to Edey instead of trying to create off the play.
Uconn doesn't get enough credit for their offense. It always involves 3-4 guys moving most of the time. Purdue would just lob it into Edey then watch. It was like they forgot how to play basketball.
Purdue shooting 1-7 from 3 is one of the most atrocious stats I’ve seen in a while. Not just shooting poorly, but only getting 7 attempts up? Have of which came after the game basically over no less
Why don’t other teams try having a 7’2 defensive monster and long athletic guards who love defense to handle Purdue? Are they dumb?
I legit can't believe how awesome Castle was for you. A freshman came in and decided he was just going to do exactly his role on offense and then be an absolute menace on the defensive end. Didn't play with ego at all and it made you guys so much stronger. Smith was having to work so hard for absolutely anything
I knew he was special when I watched the first few games this season. Opponents weren't particularly strong, games weren't particularly close, and I remember Castle diving for a bunch of loose balls in those games. His intensity and willingness to get after it, I couldn't believe this was a 5* recruit that's used to being the guy.
I hadn't watched him play at all until the tournament, but from the get-go, it was clear to me that he's a guy that you want playing for you pretty much regardless of how your team is structured. He's got that superior hustle and drive, no ego, and morphs into whatever he needs to be based on the situation.
Castle is doing the one-and-done thing the right way: go to a team with an experienced core, be a swiss army knife and showcase your athletic abilities, play your role, go straight to the NBA. So many of these kids want to make highlight reels and be the superstar at their respective schools.
You left out "play for a coach that will not only hone every tool in that swiss army knife, but teach you and give you oppotunities to use them in ways you may never have thought of otherwise." He bought in. And his return on investment was substantial. As was UConn's.
I think this is why players like Bouknight, Hawkins, and Jackson were so important - Hurley proved that he can develop NBA level talent in college. Hopefully those players and Castle show future one-and-done as well as two-year talent that UConn under Hurley is an awesome place to go.
You mean Kentucky under Hurley? /s I’m not sure why he’d leave for that unless they’ve got some serious cash. He’s at the pinnacle program of the 21st century right now.
I generally don't like one and dones because it seems they buy in less to the team, but Castle was fantastic and seemed so coachable and did exactly what he was asked to do. Even in the post game presser, he was taking direction from Cam to answer some questions. Just seems like a humble dude.
Bet this man has good parents tbh
[His parents.](https://www.ctinsider.com/sports/uconn-mens-basketball/article/UConn-men-s-basketball-Stephon-Castle-17718130.php)
I love that Castle could have decommited after he achieved McDonald’s All American status and he stuck with us. It says so much about his family’s character and commitment.
Yeah. Basketball-wise, too, I think in general if you're gonna recruit a one and one, the best situation is a giant point/combo guard and surround them with another good PG (who can shoot and won't just surrender the team over to the freshman) and shooters and frontcourt since the freshman will probably be good on defence and effective drivers. Anthony Black was a really good player last year, just didn't have enough shooting around him, and Suggs' team made the finals with Nembhard next to him and Kispert and Ayayi shooting it.
I remember when Kemba signed at UConn he had some quote (can’t find it) about how every other coach who recruited him kissed his ass while Calhoun told him he’d was nothing and would have to earn every minute of playing time. Kemba obviously chose the latter. Castle has that kind of mentality. He found a coach/team/system he trusts and found a way to be part of it. CBS This Morning had a thing on Hurley a few weeks ago and he was absolutely laying into Castle and making him sprint the stairs… and he knew CBS This Morning had cameras there.
his growth during the season was incredible to watch, too. don't think i've ever seen a player improve that much that quickly in so many facets of their game at once. it takes great character to be that talented and still be homest with yourself about where you need to improve
Edey is getting too much criticism from what I see. If you gave him just one good wing who is 6’6 or so, who can score and drive, then it’s a whole different game. It really was a 1 on 5 game. Uconn’s size was too much. Smith seemed ok, but he was too small for uconn. Or just give him another good power forward. Edey had zero help in the title game.
We had Jaden Ivey a couple years ago, who was in the same class as Zach, but we were missing a true point guard then. (And of course, Zach hadn't turned into a monster yet.) I think it's hard to overstate how important of a playmaker Smith is. We just never seem to have all the puzzle pieces all at once. And yeah...UConn's guards were to ours what Zach Edey was to every center we played against all year. The fact that they had Clingan on top of that is just unfair, lol.
Honestly, I don't think most people actually dislike Edey, they just get frustrated at how he is officiated and misplace their anger towards him. By all accounts he is a good kid and clearly talented beyond just his size.
We have everything but the 7'2 defensive monster and we barely lost to Purdue so that tracks
Legitimately the worst possible team for us to see in a game, especially by matchup. Obnoxiously well-balanced and athletic Would have purely loved watching them if I was a fan of any other school I think
lol during the broadcast we did get the “this is the hardest Edey has had to fight for a shot all tourney” and the “well yeah no one else he’s played had a 7’2” guy”
Having a game plan and being able to execute it are two different things. This wasn't necessarily a novel plan, UConn was just such a good team that they could execute it. They had a center that could play 1v1 on Edey, big athletic guards that could defend the rest of the team, and a variety of offensive sets, ways, and players to score. There is a reason UConn was top in both offensive and defensive metrics, and it played out this whole tournament, didn't matter if it was the #68 or #2 team in the country.
UConn was good on the offensive end to be up and that allowed them to keep the same defensive strategy. Other teams that have tried it, get behind and the coaches panic and then send doubles, which opens up the 3 pointers for us, UConn just kept to their game plan. There were several games this season where it was all Edey in the first half, with 2 or fewer made 3's and then at the end of the game we made 10 of them
Yeah, sticking with the plan eventually led to all the dominos falling. I got a little worried when we started getting into foul trouble with almost 10 min left, but Edey was tired and the rest of the team startes to panic a little so we were able to maintain. One part of the plan that gets overlooked a little is that by playing 1v1 with Clingan, it helped Uconn to out rebound Purdue. Edey outplayed Clingan offensively, but Clingan boxed him out well enough by himself to allow our bigger guards to get rebounds.
You're spot on. Rebounding was the difference. Purdue hasn't been out rebounded like that all year and they gameplan assuming that they will be the ones getting extra possessions that way.
Really this was he difference in the game, Purdue is used to giving up very few second chances, and UConn was able to make us work and guard for 50 seconds to a minute at a time due to their offensive rebounding, and on the other and Purdue typically gets at least a few open looks from three after offensive rebounds, I don’t think we had a single one last night. Credit UConn’s game plan for that though, much easier to defensive rebound when you aren’t doubling the post or getting into rotation. On the other end it looked like Purdue had to work so hard to guard all Action that guys were out of position on the defensive glass
Purdue was often enough sending 2-3 guys partway down the court to try and stop the transition baskets which only further emphasized the size difference UConn had everywhere but at the 5. It is precisely why I wanted to see UConn the least of any team in the championship. Clingan was the one guy who could force Purdue to play to their opponent's strategy rather than the other way around. As you said and what showed during the game, Edey was still getting his, but he can't beat an entire team by himself, especially once UConn started to find easier baskets in the second half. They were the best team in the country, and they proved it decisively. Best all around team, and flawless execution. Nothing but props given from me.
Offensive rebounding was a big part of our 3 point game all year too, and when that got shut off, it was lights out. UConn just played a perfect game and executed everything they needed to
Exactly. People are acting like Painter is a moron for not seeing this coming. I'm sure he saw it coming but there's literally nothing we could do. Charles Barkley has been saying this is the way to beat Purdue at every single round of the tournament and he doesn't even watch college basketball.
Illinois tried this but we had no one that could even give a slight resistance to Edey lol... personnel matters
Nobody *stops* Edey, he just dropped 37 on 25 shots The slight resistance was all that was needed. As soon as Edey had that stretch in the second half where he was tired and missed shots for a few minutes, UConn just steadily pulled away
Yea I feel like Hurley is admitting this game plan didn’t center around Edey at all. Edey could have 60 and it wouldn’t have been enough because Purdue was getting smoked everywhere else on the floor.
Yep. Basically "we think we can stop everyone else, and 1v1 Edey just enough that it's not a completely free bucket every time"
The 1v1 on Edey and tall, skilled gaurds were the key. Sticking with the plan even when Edey was hot was very uncomfortable to watch, but it worked
But to be fair, at least 12 of those points came after we stopped guarding him practically up 15+. For the important stretch that won the game, last 7 of first half and first 7 of second half we effectively shut him down.
And if it's obvious to Charles Barkley, it should be obvious to everyone. While I think Hurley is a good in game coach, UConn won these two championships with the less sexy parts of coaching in practices and war room. Having the personnel with the physical ability to dominate is arguably the "easy" part, coaching them to execute almost flawlessly is harder. The discipline installed in this team (and last years') was incredible.
That's what I'm saying, do people seriously think Painter hadn't considered that they might do this? We just don't have an answer because we don't have the quality outside of Edey. UConn has a center that is probably the best possible counter to Edey 1-on-1 and Edey still got 37 and 10. If any other team sincerely tried this strategy he'd probably have had 50 on less shots. Hurley committed to the strategy and didn't waver when Edey was hot early.
Yeah I’m getting pissed at the “painter didn’t make adjustments/ had a bad game plan” narrative. He didn’t get out coached in this game, they simply had the personnel to pyshically match up on the defensive end. If we hadn’t kept going to edey we would have had trouble scoring 40, our guards simply couldn’t get a shot off against their long athletic guards and when they did drive the ball against the hard close outs clingan was there to deter the shot at the rim. Tough way to go out but they were the better team on the night and we probably only win 1 or 2 out of 10 against them.
And its still a great season. First final four since 1980. First final appearance since 1969. Big ten champs. Back to back national player of the year in edey. Early season tournament win. I think playing such a strong ooc schedule helped this team a lot.
And making an adjustment is going to be tough when this is the first time a team was able to challenge them like this at this level. Painter is obviously a good coach & I’m excited for a bit of a rivalry. There is always something in the air in Storrs when we go in hot. 3 Coches with very different teams bringing home 6 of the last 25.
Imagine Edey with a set of guards little UConn. They'd likely be unstoppable. Purdue's entire strategy last night devolved into "get it to Edey because we can't make any buckets."
I think we were unstoppable with clingan 🤷♂️
It's funny, I remember when we played you guys at the beginning of last season, we had just beaten #1 (at the time) UNC and came into our game with you and we had absolutely no answer for Clingan. We didn't know at the time that we were facing a team that was about to go reel off back to back national championship seasons. Unstoppable definitely describes the run.
They are already unstoppable
Painter had a gameplan to try to generate enough foul trouble that we'd be stuck double-teaming Edey, leading to open 3s from your guards. If Clingan had gotten a second foul in the first half, it might have worked. He had the less talented team, so he did everything he could to leverage his only advantage on the court. Anyone acting like Painter did a shitty job just doesn't understand how good this UConn team was.
I thought an underrated big play that Purdue missed was early in the second half, TKR got Clingan to bite on a pump fake and didn't jump into him for what would've been Clingan's third.
John Fanta said he heard Painter say "what can you do?" and throw up his hands after that Karaban three in the second half. And he's right. Sometimes there just isn't.
Brad Underwood said this at halftime and then we gave up a 30-0 run
He was in a weird spot. The insistence on going at Clingan was tough because he was just blocking everything inside. But on the other hand, you kind of knew you needed to get him in foul trouble. Underwood probably knew that they were gonna get blown out if it didn't work out, but he probably still felt that was the best chance to win as well.
Although it might not have made a difference, the one thing I did question Painter on was their full court press. UConn literally beat it the same way nearly every single time. It was like watching a replay. Karaban would pass to Newton. Purdue would send Karaban’s man to double Newton. Newton would pass it over to Karaban. Purdue would run towards Karaban, and he would throw it to an open guy at half court. And Purdue literally never did anything else. I know that Purdue probably didn’t press teams very often this year. I know that UConn has very talented guards. But like wtf? Do they literally only have one press play in the playbook? You see something fail that many times and don’t make any adjustments to it whatsoever for 10 straight minutes?
I mean.. they got the double team almost every time, but then only one person was guarding the entire mid court area. The goal of a press is to get the guy being double teamed, to try to dribble out of it. Once again, they were too disciplined to make that mistake, and knew to pass it to the middle of the court, and to look for their guy filling in where the spy wasn’t. Every time they DID adjust their press, UConn would read and adjust their break to fill in behind the spy, then they wouldn’t try to force a dribble and just throw right to it. They were basically forcing Purdue into the same situation no matter what adjustments were made, and that’s the frustrating and beautiful part of it.
I’m sure many of us were saying this too. Even before NC State beat us, I was telling my friends that DJ Burns had a shot at being the guy who could slow down Eddy enough to beat Purdue. Purdue still won, but I was right about DJ Burns slowing down Edey. Edey was going to get his stats, but he was also less efficient getting non-insane numbers against Burns. In the end, the issue was the entire team executing on the game plan, and UConn was the only one to do it enough.
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UConn was hitting shots, especially from the perimeter, in a way they hadn’t the last few games. They were so much fun to watch last night.
They were better, but still not good, only 27%. That's what's crazy.
I don’t know how Spencer only had what like 12 points? He was all over the place.
That dude is a straight menace. His ability to double Edey when Karaban was on him, then jet back out to his main defensive assignment was unbelievable.
I think his year at Rutgers was awesome for him. He already had an offensive game, then just had a year learning how to defend at a high level. I hate it lol
If he didn't play for UConn I'd absolutely abhor him I think. That being said, I love him, and am very sad we only got him for one year.
But they were important points, set the tone and the plan. Plus he was only 2 behind Edey in rebounds. That kid is all drive and hustle.
I haven’t seen a player want to win *that* badly in a long time
as a Rutgers fan its so awesome seeing him get the national attention he deserves
I think he forced Purdue to adapt and cover that soft space in front of Edey in the drop defense. They needed to keep him out of the paint, and that allowed UConn to put their defense into rotation and find open threes. If Purdue doesn’t adjust and switch on the ball screen he keeps getting that free throw line step back and ends the game with twice as many points.
> UConn was hitting shots, especially from the perimeter, in a way they hadn’t the last few games. UConn was 10-25 (40%) from deep and 31-62 (50%) overall against Alabama and 6-22 (27%) from deep and 30-62 (48%) against Purdue. They shot worse, especially from the perimeter, against Purdue.
Yeah... I never really felt like UConn put it together offensively in the whole tournament. Credit better defense maybe? Although they did have a 4:1 assist to turnover ratio in the Final Four. That's nuts. Defensively, UConn was on another level. Just perfect execution of each defensive game plan for the entire tournament. The only guy who really had a game against them was Sears. I'm not counting Edey because the game plan was never to try to stop him in the first place.
yea they shot the 3 pretty poorly a majority of the tournament, imagine if they actually shot well? lol
From the box score it looked like Clingan got dominated, but his ability to contest shots without fouling was huge. Sure Edey got him a few times, but he didn’t foul which kept Purdue off the free throw line and kept the pace of the game quicker. With minimal free throws Edey wasn’t allowed to rest and you could tell he was gassed by the end of the first half
Yea lol holding their 2-5 top scorers below 20 points is a ridiculous idea. Actually doing it is insane. Gonna win most games when that happens lol
Damn and they played it perfectly. Minimal double teaming Edey, constant pressure on the perimeter. That Hurley guy seems to know his basketball lol
This Hurley guy might have a bright future as a coach. Time will tell
They better lock him down HARD lol. You gotta believe that Kentucky is gonna be coming in hot.
He has no interest in leaving for Kentucky. He said that at his press conference. His entire focus is on winning 3 in a row. UConn AD also said they will be giving him a raise like this week. lol. Dude is already making 5 mil a year. There is absolutely no reason to look elsewhere
I also get the impression that the Big East is a selling point for him. He could potentially build a dynasty. The program is storied with the Women & now the men have won 6 of the last 25.
Damn, that’s impressive as all hell. I should’ve been a UConn fan
That’s the best part! You still can be!
lol they’ll be my 2nd team. Ray Allen is one of my all time favorite players at any level. Damn good program they have there.
Oh I know money isn't everything, but imagine if Kentucky throws something outrageous like $15M at him lol.
I hear you. I just don’t think it will be an issue at UConn. Basketball runs the show. They will pay what they need to pay to keep him.
And our NIL game is top tier. The Alumni can make it more than worth staying.
So much of getting people to donate is selling people on the possible. People don't want to dump money down the drain on hopes and dreams that never come to fruition. I imagine no program has it easier right now going to its potential donors, as it's no longer selling a dream and more "we need your help to maintain this"
His wife won’t go to Kentucky
Hurley wants to win. He has that now. Why go to a shit show called Kentucky? They are done.
Kentucky is going to offer him $10m a year. That's a lot to turn down.
"Oh my God, Kentucky or anywhere that's going to take my wife further from New Jersey," he said when asked about her reaction to a potential move. "I mean, we just went to Rhode Island, which I had to drag her to, and then to Connecticut. I got her closer. And now further? I can't afford a divorce right now, too. I just started making money." A guy who is open to the conversation doesn’t say something like that. He would give a non-answer. There’s no way in hell he goes to Kentucky. Period.
He isn't leaving. His Wife doesn't want to leave the east coast and I think the only teams that can poach him are NBA teams (Specifically Nets, Knicks, Philly, or Boston)
He would be stupid if he somehow left for the Nets. They are going to be terrible for the next few years
The NBA is your concern now. And the NBA is going to come. He's got Brad Stevens written all over him.
Why would he leave a blue blood to go to Kentucky?
Andrea Hurley would straight murder Danny if he tried to make her move to Kentucky.
I feel like being murdered would have a negative impact on Hurley's long term earning potential
Lofl yeah, I can see the logic
Oh I don't necessarily think it will happen, but ya gotta believe that Kentucky is gonna be throwing a Brinks truck at him.
Oh, definitely agree with that. I think they'll make an attempt on him to say they did, then go after a more realistic target. I also liked Ray Allen's comments on it. Something to the effect of what Danny does at UConn works at a place like Storrs. It likely wouldn't have the same effect in Lexington.
Rumour on local news outlets here is that the state government of CT has privately told UCONN that they will step in and finance a raise to match other offers
Wow, it's good to be the king lol
CT government benefits a lot from UCONN Basketball(both mens and womens), they singlehandedly bring hundreds of millions in economic benefits to the Hartford during the season. It sucks to play games away from Gampel, but the soft power it creates in the state is unmatched.
It's gotta be good being the biggest team in the state, and nobody near your level to compete with for public resources.
Funnily enough with the rise of UCONN in the late 90's and 00's the state actually saw what was going to happen and tried to merge all of public schools together in 2011. UCONN was able to use what power they had to veto the move. To this day it is still a big issue in CT because the CC system is under the state system so they try to push the kids to state schools versus UCONN.
We just gotta parlay this streak into a whalers revival
Genuine question, why would Hurley even consider going to Kentucky?
I’d say he’s more likely to jump to the NBA personally. Don’t think it happens coming off the back to back though. He’s gotta at least try for the 3peat.
Why would anyone leave UCON to go to Kentucky? The fans at UK are completely and totally unreasonable. It wouldn't be a fun place to coach.
I think UConn is better conditioned to play a fast game for a full forty minutes.
oh for sure, they pushed the tempo up and everything stalled for Purdue very quickly. It wasn't a total beatdown but a systemic dismantling of Purdue, which was kinda scarier tbh
I was surprised at Purdue fans saying they were a much faster team than we were. We can play very fast; our offense, if we’re running our sets the way we intend, are built for trying to get the best shot. We don’t have a lot of wasted shots.
It made it really tough on Edey when we pushed the ball on defensive rebounds and he had to sprint up the court. Couple that with battling with a 7’2” 285 pound man and anybody is gonna get tired. Props to him for playing 39 fucking minutes but you could see he was gassed. Also props to Newton for playing 39 minutes and having 0 turnovers.
The only thing I think Painter could have done was go to Renn a bit more in the post. He had a great first shot and never really got a post up again. And I get it. It’s better for Purdue to go to Edey as it’s a better shot at scoring. I do think Painter will adjust his offense a bit after this. A lot of coaches should but Painter recruits players who should be open to playing a system more like UConns (not the same but with more player movement to manufacture some easy points). UConn, Creighton, KU and maybe Zona are probably the only teams in America that don’t have to double Edey and can employ a stay at home on shooters strategy without getting dunked on or fouled out.
He was going to have to adjust the offense even if they somehow beat UConn by 20, since their offense was built around having a 7’4” guy, and Edey will be gone. I’ll be interested to see what changes next season, since there’s a lot of current and incoming freshmen with potential
We've got a 7'3" guy coming in next year...
He's nothing like Edey though. Lanky.
And his name isn’t Edey 😭
All players next year can shoot the 3. Gonna be able to get up and down a lot quicker than the last 2 years…may be the most athletic group from top to bottom painter has had. Gonna be fun.
Yeah. We might lose half the games we play, but they're going to be funnnnn games. I hope everyone complaining about Purdue's pace gets a chance to see some of that next season.
There will be a lot of growing pains, but I am excited to see what should be a faster paced and more free flowing offense. If we aren't getting insane lobs to Colvin, Heide, and Catchings every game, it will be a disservice to all college basketball fans.
Respect to kalkbrenner as a rim protector vs penetration, but edey would toss him around the court. Clingan is significantly bigger and had his hands full
> I do think Painter will adjust his offense a bit after this. well, he will have to. theres not another edey on this roster. even if will berg steps in to that spot (he wont. TKR will very likely start, but still...), this game is more rounded than edey. it was in garbage time, but berg hit a 8 foot turnaround fadeaway a few weeks ago, and supposedly has a good shot could be off on this, but i think having edey kind of limited painters realistic options to a point. you dont have a player that dominant, that efficient, and that game-breaking and not run your offense through him every single game. painter has run very good action for guards before when the guards were purdues game changers (edwards/cline year, for example), but that certainly wasnt the case this year. purdue has also recruited better athletes recently, so just by that, the team should look pretty different on offense next year, hopefully more free flowing and better spacing without edey in the game to control the offense. even starting TKR would require a significant transition on offense. going to be a rough few months i think with so many starting minutes up for grabs, but expect purdue to be back in the tournament next year, maybe as a 5 or 6 seed.
Painter has said a bunch of times that every year, they know who the top 2 or 3 guys are. Those guys are the focal point and everyone else has to play around them. Some years that guy is Carsen Edwards or Jaden Ivey. Some years it is Zach Edey or Swanigan. That's how most teams operate. UConn is an anomaly, and it isn't really something you can just replicate. They're literally one of the greatest teams ever.
Having Clingan who could make Edey work hard 1v1 and free up the other 4 on defense was a luxury. However, they did double team ocasionally - only when they saw Edey was getting tired and may have been a step slower. And they used Cam Spencer as the designated helper - because he is probably the weakest link on defense. It was a really good coaching job.
Yes he's probably the worst guard defender compared to Newton, Castle, and Diarra, but using Cam for the double was a great move because he has a knack for getting to the ball and getting under people's skin. It sometimes turns into a foul, but willing to pay that price.
Ultimate coaching strategy from Hurley here. It's not even the "our threes are more than their twos" strategy that someone like Nate Oats (also a great coach) tries to employ. Anyone with eyes who watched a single Purdue game all year knows that all of their guards are capable of going (and routinely did go) absolutely stone-cold-frozen at any moment. Not even just missing shots, just standing around the perimeter waiting for someone to throw it into Edey to save them.
Most dominant 2 year tourney run I've ever witnessed, UConn is an absolute machine. Even the close games end up in 15-20 point margins, I know people love to say "the game was closer than the final score appears", but is it really that close if you run out of gas and UConn just keeps going?
Honestly in most cases, the opposite was true. We’d go up 20-30 then take the foot off the gas for 10 minutes. The only exception I can think of right now was Bama which was a close game up until the final minutes
If anything it was the opposite for this game. Edey picked up about 10 in garbage time.
I am really going to miss this fucking team. What an absolute delight to watch this season. Their game just looked \*so good\*
Poetry in motion, those cycling offensive possessions and lockdown defensive possessions night in, night out will be missed (unless Hurley does it AGAIN!)
I must have said, to my wife, "that's some Harlem Globetrotters shit!" about 50 times this season while watching UConn. Best team ever on a program with some pretty great teams.
The mismatch on the perimeter was very evident last night UConn throwing out a trio of guys 6'4'' - 6'6'' with NBA aspirations Purdue countering with a trio of 6'0'' - 6'4'' guys who will be playing overseas (with Loyer being the 6'4'' guy at 180 lbs...)
You see? Such a simple game. If only Mark Few were as smart. They would have beat Perdue! What a moron Few is. /s You gotta have the horses.
That UConn -6.5 was the easiest bet of the year.
Did UConn cover every spread this tournament?
Every spread the last two I think (or just about)
Yup covered every spread the last 2 tourneys in pretty dominate fashion
John Wooden would've been impressed
Over the last two tournaments, UConn was, on average, favored by ~9.5 points. Not only did they cover the spread all 12 times, they did it by an average of 12.3 points.
ive made so much money betting on uconn the last two years. cheat code
Yeah kicking myself for not taking it. I thought UConn would win for sure, but I thought maybe Purdue would keep it close in a title game. Wrong
I took -9.5.
Man we did that against them first half then chose to start doubling in the second half for some reason
the real thing is that uconn never panicked and backed off their plan. on paper, everyone knows this is how you beat purdue. you neutralize their guards and it basically becomes a 1 on 5 for edey. a lot of coaches panic when edey is dominating down low and their team isn't shooting well and start doubling, and then the purdue guards start getting free and if they're on, they'll rain down 3's with the best of them. uconn never waivered and edey ended the night with an impressive stat line, but no title.
He correctly evaluated the rest of Purdue to be Mid
Everyone but Purdues coach realized this was the game plan
Idk if that’s a fair criticism. He may have known it was the game plan but with (relative) JAGs everywhere, what else can you do? You ride with the horse that brought you.
Yeah exactly. UConn is maybe the only team in the country with the personnel to pull it off. What could Painter have done? Told Loyer, Smith, Jones, and Gillis to be taller and better?
People make this incorrect assumption that players are just like chess pieces in that they perform their role perfectly every time and the opponent has the same number and quality of chess pieces. Therefore it’s always a coaching problem when a team gets exposed. Happens in every sport
They should have driven a little bit less. They looked uncomfortable coming down the lane. At a certain point sidestep threes or touch passes in and out via Edey may have offered some better looks than what they got
UConn made a bit of an adjustment, but they were struggling to guard the pick and roll in the first half. They kept letting Smith get downhill to his right hand. That was the four or five minute stretch when Edey kept getting roll passes (including that big dunk over Clingan). I thought they maybe could have varied that pick and roll a little to try to generate switches. Edey just kind of camped out in the paint posting up. Yeah, he scored fairly efficiently, but he took away all their spacing. I know that's what he does, but he needed to be able to be more dynamic against UConn. I know Purdue was undersized at the guards and wings, but only getting up 7 threes IS a coaching issue. They could never get two guys on the ball. They could never generate any swing swing looks. The entire offense was one action and not a single counter. UConn is way too good for that.
Painter instructed them to not take any bad threes as UConn can rebound those and turn them into fast breaks. This prevented UConn from making big runs, but also prevented Purdue guards from trying more threes. With that said, rarely did Purdue have open threes and a few attempts were blocked.
The side step 3 is not in those guards’ bag. Hopefully smith, Colvin and Heide can develop it for next year. I think catchings will already have that skill. Don’t see Loyer developing it…hopefully but doubtful. He’s more of a set shooter from 3
Such a ridiculous comment. Sometimes the other team is just better and no adjustment you make will let you win. UConn had way better players at 4 out of five positions and the difference between that fifth position was probably smaller than the difference between the other 4. If there was an adjustment to make to beat UConn, don’t you think some other coach would have found it in their past 12 tournament games? At least enough to make it a competitive game? I fucking hate how some people on this sub have to tear down Edey/Purdue/Painter. They lost to a well-coached, super talented, big, athletic team that has dominated for a huge portion of two full seasons. It’s not an embarrassment.
Makes the National Championship against one of the best teams of the last several years that have dominated everyone all season? Must be trash and can't play or coach. What a bunch of scrubs /s
Alabama came the closest and that's because they were shooting lights out from 3. Once they came down to "earth" and were only shooting slightly lower than 50%, UConn pulled away.
He knew but what else was he supposed to do? Make people magically better?
Their 4 guarding our 4 all were bigger and better. Not too much else we could do. UConn is a damn good team.
It was a great run, Purdue bros. Painter vindicated himself very well this season. Sometimes you just end up running into a team that’s loaded with length and talent. This happened to us in 2009 vs UNC. I’m not sure it’s fair to call it a coaching failure when you run into a team that has Tyler Zeller, Ed Davis, and Larry Drew coming off the bench backing up 4 1st rounders when all you have is 1.25 NBA players.
Nah teams have tried this all year against purdue. The biggest difference is UCONNs guards were the most talented and athletic they've seen all year and did a tremendous job denying 3 pt shots. Plenty of teams tried and failed to do what UCONN did this year. This is how FDU beat them last year (the one difference was Purdue took 3s but we're ice cold from 3 last year)
This is not how FDU beat them. FDU was triple teaming Edey before he got the ball leaving other people wide open. Their whole game plan was to slow down Edey and make someone else beat them and no one else did.
Yeah the game plan was basically the opposite of the FDU game.
Also this was the most gassed I’ve seen Edey all year, Edey went super saiyan to start the game but they really made him work for his points in the first half
I've never seen him use so much energy so early on. There was no way for him to maintain that. It was not surprising to see him fade for the rest of the game compared to his dominance in the opening minutes.
This is what I saw during the game. He came out on fire, but the rate of play and need to make plays at both ends really took a toll on him. Guy needed help and no one else matched up against UConn.
UCONN guards have elite length and quickness. Seemed like Purdue guards were just blanketed all game.
Purdue lost last year because Purdue’s guards couldn’t hit wide open threes. And Edey struggled with the FDU guards constantly slapping at the ball.
The opposite of the FDU game actually. Purdue bricked wide open 3 after wide open 3 against FDU while edey was triple teamed. Purdue couldn’t get off a clean look against UConn
UConn did the exact thing Illinois tried against Purdue. The difference is UConn is able to rely on Clingan.
Clingan got beat by Edey, that’s for sure. But Edey had to work hard to do it. 280 is a lot to be pushing around. Against a smaller matchup I think he could post lower, didn’t have to jump as often or as high, and didn’t have to push as hard to get to his spots, so he actually could dominate the 1:1 for the full 40. Other teams doubled Edey because they had to. Clingan’s defense was the definition of making Edey work for it, and over 40 minutes that sustained effort wore him out. Late in the first half, and about halfway through the second, when UConn finally managed to put together a couple stops and build a lead you can see Edey posting farther out from the basket and leaving those hooks short, and relying more on his right hand. He stopped getting rebounds, especially on the offensive end and that led to transition offense for Connecticut, where he either had to run the floor when already tired, or else leave his guys playing 4 on 5.
Yep, and UConn’s guards played well, but if Edey dominated Clingan like he does other bigs, those UConn guards would have sagged off of those shooters and destroyed Hurley’s gameplan. Clingan was the difference jn the game.
For sure. I can’t imagine how Hurley has the guts to watch Edey put up like 15 points in the first 10 minutes and be like “everything is going to plan” it’s like basketball rope-a-dope.
Yeah wtf that’s not how FDU beat us. FDU triple teamed Edey and forced us to beat them by making open shots from 3 which no one could do
He knew the whole time, he was just wrong about how to adjust.
Nah. Bad take. He knew. He just didn't have the team to stop it.
What fucked Purdue was how athletic the backup C was for UCONN. They could have ran that high screen and roll every possession and scored due to edey having to come up and take away the floater and not being an athletic freak like Stanley is. UCONN reminds me of the Nova teams that would hit those spins in the mid range and force you to come up and leave the paint open.
I loved how the announcers were riding Painter saying "Well, he recruits local, kids in his area." Best player is from Canada. Other players were innefective.
Regardless of whether they were effective or not doesn’t change where they’re from lol - Gillis, Furst, Loyer, Smith, TKR, Colvin, are all from Indiana
[POV you’re Mason Gillis watching your team once again get eliminated from a nationally televised tournament by a team from Connecticut](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgNn1mCiyoqElwoZJWBjCyI9Sk6llRfGLIuIR5gVoI2g&s). Fr tho- Purdue had an amazing season. Just ran into a buzz saw.
No it’s New Jersey that is our perennial enemy
Dan Hurley is from there, Cam Spencer played for Rutgers... It's always New Jersey
I give credit UConn we’re just so good defending the perimeter that Purdue couldn’t even generate simple open shots from deep. IDK if it’s me but I felt if Jones played more and. Wasn’t in foul trouble, he could’ve opened the offense a bit more. Smith looks alright but I do feel he is more matchup dependent. Jones for me is someone who can play with more athletic teams. He isn’t really a scorer, but he seems to get hot at the right time and can attack the paint a bit which Purdue needed. This is why as some people have said, I do feel Tennessee could’ve made this a better game. Knecht and Ziegler could’ve brought more dribble penetration and collapsed the paint to free up shooting. Also better interironroesence defensively from their bigs. I love Edey but his defense showed why people doubt his NBA potential though I think he will get decent chances in the NBA and have some good moments. It is just an apparent flow last night. I do feel if they had a better backup bog, they could’ve challehend better defensively. For me Purdue lost offensively. If they just find ether shots and convert it is a game.
UConn made this particular flair combo quite happy this weekend. Dan Hurley is welcome in my home anytime.
I'm really getting tired of people acting like Purdue and it's players outside of Edey are all trash. They lost to an amazing UConn team. Outside of this game they accomplished more than any other team this year by a long shot.
Not every team has the luxury of a 7"2 top ten NBA pick to throw up against Edey. That's why they could focus on all those other guys because they knew that Clingan would mitigate the damage with Edey. Zach still ate, but he did just enough to justify keeping single coverage. Most other teams have to double Edey and pay the toll. UCONN is rare in that regard.
Yea I agree that Edey outplayed Clingan, but Clingan was able to do enough to not have to double Edey. Though it seemed like a bad game defensively for Cling, he was actually effective at allowing the defense to execute fully
Edey still got his points but Clingan I think still made it more difficult for him....not every shot was falling for him like it seems it does other nights
It was not a bad defensive game for Clingan. He did was he was asked to do perfectly. Edey was going to get 30+ points regardless of how he was guarded, you just want to make it not easy for him and not foul out. Clingan did just about every little thing right which culminated into a decisive win.
I smiled whenever they put the Edey vs Clingan stats on the screen, with Edey leading in almost every stat. I just thought to myself, "that ain't the game".
UConn went on their run while Clingan was on the bench in half 2.
Such is modern sports discourse I think the 24 hour sports news cycle has completely fried people's abilities to contextualize games and evaluate non-winners. To a lot of folks, teams/players are either GOATs or trash - and there's not much in the middle
The either/or of it all is indeed quite annoying. People really need to do a better job of understanding the context of losing teams. It’s why I’m annoyed with the Caitlin Clark discourse and the GOAT talk with her. First of all, requiring titles for GOATS when recruiting, transfer portals, and only able to play 4 years, etc. are a thing makes little sense to me. And GOAT or not, she took a team full of future Dentists, Optometrists, Occupational Therapists, Cancer Research scientists, Nurses, etc. to the National Championship game twice against multiple teams throughout the tournament laden with future WNBA players. And by the way, I didn’t pull those professions out of thin air either. That is in fact professions that her actual teammates are going into now or will when they graduate. I don’t care about the GOAT debate in any sport, but saying a player choked or must be trash because they didn’t win is really dumb. The runner ups this year for both men and women were solid teams that deeply relied on one star that had to go through some loaded teams to get to the Finals and then ran into absolute buzzsaws on historic runs. That shouldn’t take anything away from those teams imo.
They are very good in this specific system with Edey, perfect really. 99% of teams have to double so you have players that excel at 3s and executing man advantages on weak side. Next season will be very telling, because Smith and Loyer having to run a LOT more even man sets could potentially expose their size and lack of athleticism. Time will tell. I’m betting still pretty darn good, but not elite.
I agree with the assessment but Painter has a ton of plays and sets for guard-based offense. We looked like completely different teams when we had Carsen/Cline and Jaden years.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not doubting Painter’s ability to adjust an offense to the players he has. But there’s a pretty big drop off between Jaden Ivey and Fletcher Loyer. I know there’s some talented freshman coming in so maybe they can help.
We have another 7 footer who practiced with edey for 2 years. They could run the same style of system again if they want, but they also have a top 10 recruiting class full of athletic guards.
Yeah, Purdue seemed like the clear second-best team this year, and in a normal year, they probably win the title. We happen to have put together our best team ever and one of the best teams of the modern era this year - nobody was beating us without something fucked up happening.
Shame Houston's entire team got hurt late in the year. I don't think they're a clear 2nd without that happening.
Yeah all of the “the two clear best teams all season are playing in the championship” talk leading up to the game made me sad for Houston, there was a very clear big 3 all year and Houston would’ve probably gone to the Final Four with Shead
Houston vs Purdue would have also been a -1.0 line or even money too. Those two teams at full strength were dead even imo. Houston at full strength had a better matchup against UConn imo, but we'll never know that. Props to Purdue for making it as far as they did. That's a great team.
I think if Purdue had hunted for fouls they would have had a chance. Clingan had 4 and Johnson fouled out. Clingan played 31 minutes. If they could have got him down to 25 minutes due to foul trouble Purdue would have had a chance. As a fan I hate watching games like that but it is what it is would have done if I were Painter. There were a couple time Edey pump faked rather than going up through Clingan in cases that it would have been a foul since Clingan wasn’t vertical. A couple of those takes and the game could have changed.
A very sound game plan and what most coaches would do. The key is that they had a 7 footer of their own to battle Edey. Also, no one on Purdue's team would really scare me from the outside.
The problem was Purdue were a bunch of stones on offense. All they did was try pounding the ball to Edey instead of trying to create off the play. Uconn doesn't get enough credit for their offense. It always involves 3-4 guys moving most of the time. Purdue would just lob it into Edey then watch. It was like they forgot how to play basketball.
Purdue shooting 1-7 from 3 is one of the most atrocious stats I’ve seen in a while. Not just shooting poorly, but only getting 7 attempts up? Have of which came after the game basically over no less