In a familiar scene, coach Kevin Ollie stood on the sidelines on Sunday while his UConn squad let a much-needed win slip away.
“You’ve seen our games,” Ollie said. “You’ve been following us all year, right? You’ve seen it how many times?”
The latest defeat came at the hands of Houston in front of 9,667 at Gampel Pavilion. The Huskies led by as many as nine in the first half before surrendering eight unanswered points to close the half. After intermission, UConn could not sustain a run on offense (its largest scoring streak was an anemic four) and its defense disintegrated.
Coming into the game, UConn was holding opponents to 37.4 shooting — the third lowest mark in the nation. The Huskies allowed Houston to shoot 60 percent from the floor in the second half, 51.9 percent on the game. They faltered in almost every regard. They neglected to close on Houston’s shooters. They lost their marks off screens and on rebounds. In perhaps the most uncharacteristic letdown, UConn was lazy getting back in transition, allowing Houston to score 18 fast break points.
“I’m just disappointed,” Ollie said. “we couldn’t keep nobody in front of us; we couldn’t get back in transition; and we didn’t play with any heart. That’s the summary of the game.”
While the defense was the most glaring deficiency for the Huskies, they were also handicapped by poor shooting performances from the backcourt tandem of Sterling Gibbs and Rodney Purvis. The pair went 0-7 from three-point range. Gibbs scored five points on 1-5 shooting. Purvis scored six, going 3-9 from the floor, again missing several layups. UConn was outscored by 21 points during Purvis’s 24 minutes of playing time.
With the upperclassmen guards struggling, freshman Jalen Adams and sophomore Daniel Hamilton did most of the Huskies’ work on offense. Adams matched his career high in assists (six) for the second straight game. He also scored eight points, yet shot only 4-13. Hamilton scored 20 points for only the second time this season, serving as the Huskies’ only reliable offensive weapon on Sunday. Yet that wasn’t a satisfying consolation for his coach.
“It’s 20 points, but I don’t care he scored 40 points, can’t give up 60 percent shooting in the second half,” Ollie said. “So, I mean, if you want me to, yeah, I’ll clap for Daniel. That’s 20 points but we didn’t guard nobody in the half court and [Houston’s Damyean] Dotson got 22.”
To Ollie, UConn’s performance on Sunday, and throughout much of the season, was missing three things: leadership, focus and heart.
“It’s just the ups and downs that this team’s been going on,” he said. “There’s got to be some consistency. There’s got to be some ownership.”
“It just comes down to toughness and ‘I’m gonna stop my man.’ That’s pretty much what it comes down to, and a lack of effort that we showed coming out here, it’s very disappointing. But it’s been like that the whole year. You’re up high, then you go down low. There’s just a lack of focus, a lack of leadership. We’ve gotta get better the last two games.”
The Huskies will play their last true road game of the season when they travel to SMU on Thursday night. They will then close out the regular season against UCF Sunday back at Gampel Pavilion.
I’ve been critical of Ollie in the past, but I think he owns up to that criticism, but like he says he can’t make passes or easy layups or get inside their heads and to instill constant intensity/focus. The players have to want that. So, as a fan I share in Ollie’s frustrations, and if this doesn’t motivate I don’t think anything can. This team has the ability to show intensity and that fight for survival mentality when they choose, but then it seems to vanish from one moment to the next. I find it unfortunate with all our talent that 1/2 of the conference is capable of something were not: focus and determination and winning. Today’s loss was such a blown opportunity, and now we’re in same place we were last year. There are 2 games left and I pray we can show the type of focus and intensity we’re gonna need to do what we couldn’t do last year and make the tournament.
I was just thinking about how Geno gets his ladies to step up every game. He even told us earlier this season how he does it: he’s got a bench full of All Americans that will come in to do the job if the starters won’t.
It would be nice to have that same luxury here, but alas it isn’t so. I don’t know how else you make the statement to get on the floor and run your ass off for 40 minutes. Box out. Stick on your man. What does Ollie do? Bench Hamilton? We can’t really afford to give up those 20 points (this game, who knows where JCDH will be next game…).
It is very frustrating. I don’t cosign for the hitman order the Boneyard would have placed on Ollie, but I’m also not as cheery as No Escalators. There is a repeated problem here. I get that Ollie can’t make those layups, and stick to the shooter. But he can’t stick to the same rhetoric game after game, and only blame the players. “They aren’t playing with heart…” Sounds like you need to motivate them.