Well, that was terrible. UConn dropped its home conference-opener against Temple on Tuesday night, 55-53. The Huskies played poorly in the first half (trailing by three at intermission) and poorer in the second, collapsing on both ends of the court and disappearing down the stretch, culminating with a relatively easy game-winning floater for Temple’s Josh Brown.
The loss is the Huskies’ fourth this season and its worst. They allowed Temple to shoot 47.8 percent in the second half while going 8-26 (30.8 percent) themselves. UConn was out-rebounded. UConn was out-hustled. And UConn was, frankly, out-coached.
Daniel Hamilton had one of his worst games in a UConn uniform, matching a season-low with six points. He was 2-13 from the floor — though he did lead the team with nine rebounds. After the game, coach Kevin Ollie put Hamilton on blast. “I didn’t see no energy out of him,” said Ollie. “I don’t know what it was but I didn’t see no energy ‘till the end of the game.”
Earlier in the press conference Ollie stated, “if some of our best players don’t show up, it’s going to be hard for us to win.”
The comments caught the room off-guard. Ollie rarely publicly criticizes his players and Ollie had a bit of a rough game in his own right.
Mired in a scoring drought and struggling without Hamilton’s contribution, Jalen Adams came in and provided a much-needed spark. Adams scored seven consecutive points for the Huskies (probably because he read our article from earlier in the day). With 6:46 remaining, and following a missed jumper, Ollie sat Adams and let him stay on the bench for the remainder of the game. In that final 6:46, UConn would miss seven of their final eight shots and score only five points.
Similarly, freshman Steve Enoch contributed in the first half, scoring on a nice inside move, grabbing four rebounds and providing some physicality on defense. He played only one minute after halftime as Phil Nolan took over. Temple out-rebounded UConn 18-12 in the second half.
Strategically, Ollie chose not to foul Temple on the deciding possession despite having a foul to give. The Huskies also had a timeout remaining. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but it would have been wise to foul to limit Temple’s time to run a play and call a timeout to set up the defense.
Perhaps luckily, only 11,319 people were in attendance to witness the alleged basketball game. The program is averaging only 9,303 tickets sold per game this season, a number that will improve during the conference season, but is still…what’s the word we’re looking for?
Terrible.
Shonn Miller played well — 18 points and seven rebounds. Rodney Purvis had a great first half and stretched his double-digit scoring streak to an even 20 games, scoring 11 points. Adams had that nice run in the second. As a team, the Huskies were 13-14 from the free-throw line, including a pair of super clutch attempts by Hamilton (atoning for the infamous Temple game from a year ago). Otherwise, everything was terrible.
Things may be less terrible on Saturday night when Memphis visits Gampel Pavilion. Tip is at 7pm and the game will be on a real television network: ESPN2.
Game Photos
January 5, 2016. All images © A Dime Back.Recap: http://adimeback.com/that-was-terrible-temple-beats-uconn/
Posted by A Dime Back on Tuesday, January 5, 2016
need new coach, his recruits are overrated, especially what is arriving next annum, only calhoun could get him a head coach slot because he is not qualified, just see the no plan offense he puts on floor, burr carlson did a better job than this man
I agree with Elmo. We can’t point the finger at Kevin Ollie for Daniel Hamilton’s bad shooting night or Sterling Gibbs poor performance. But, we can point the finger at Coach Ollie for just about everything else. Offensively, this team does not run good sets, defensively they do not get down in a stance and dig in. I find myself wondering how good of a coach Ollie is for UCONN. I also agree with Elmo that Ollie’s ability to recruit has question marks. Sterling Gibbs?? I know he hit a few shots at Tulane the other day, but other than that, there has not been one game that he has impressed me. I don’t think he is that good. Definitely disappointed with this team.
This season is done. NO TEAM CHEMISTRY
That play when DHam grabs the board, dribbles up the court, and has about a 2 second window to pass the ball to an open Purvis streaking down the court. He passes that ball, Rodney puts it in, and they are up 2. Instead he waits till the last minute and throws a lob out of bounds. What happens next, they both angrily yell at each other and then they walk away. Jim Calhoun would have called a timeout and LIT into them. Ollie? He gives us that “oh my god im about to crab my pants” look.
I re winded that play three times to make sure I saw it correctly.
I knew then- this team is going NOWHERE this year…
I think Uconn would be a better team if they use their post players more (Miller, Facey, Enoch). I like Hamilton but it takes him so many dribbles to get by his defender. I don’t blame Ollie, he can’t have heart and the will to win for them. Enoch and Adams were struggling on defense.
The problem with Uconn is that us fans over hype players and when they don’t do as expected, we place blame on the coach. Before the season everyone had Hamilton, Gibbs and Adams as the most important players on the team and all of them have been inconsistent offensively and defensively. They been getting great shots that they just miss.