The college basketball season is now a week and a half old. All teams have played at least three games, and the oncoming rush of holiday tournaments will double that amount by the end of the upcoming weekend. The Connecticut Huskies are 2-3 after a Monday night loss to Oklahoma State in the quarterfinals of the Maui Invitational. Why has this team, led by a national championship-winning coach in Kevin Ollie, starting off so poorly? It’s been one of the leading headlines in the early part of the season and it could have been worse if UConn lost to Chaminade on Tuesday. They were lucky to survive and avoid what would have otherwise been a disaster. If things don’t turn around, this could put Ollie on the hot seat. Here’s why UConn has been such a mess to start the season.
Turnovers
There is a simple scouting report emerging on Connecticut in the early part of the season: If you can prevent the Huskies from running, you can and probably will stop them. Connecticut has struggled with halfcourt offense. It fails to get the ball into the paint. Big man Amida Brimah is not a skilled low-post scorer. The team doesn’t have a player who is especially adept at playing with his back to the basket and operating near the rim on offense. The Huskies have settled for a lot of jump shots and have not gotten the kind of ball movement they need to truly outflank an opposing defense. The offense bogs down. Player stand around. The Huskies make poor passes against active defenses and fail to do what they need on offense.
Taking a look at their close win over Chaminade, they had nine turnovers, which isn’t too bad, but they should be in a situation where they have more turnovers than Chaminade in any contest. In their other win of the season, they had 13 (against Loyola Marymount). On the season, they are averaging 12.75 turnovers per game, which ties them for 117th in the nation. That’s no good.
The Rebounding Isn’t Good Enough
When a team has trouble protecting the ball, it obviously loses possessions to other teams. More specifically, it loses possessions without getting shot attempts. When teams miss shots, they at least can chase down the misses and put them back. When they don’t even attempt a shot, they get fewer chances to score. Naturally, when a team loses possessions in one area of play, it has to find ways to compensate, so a turnover-plagued team needs to be really good on the boards. Yet, UConn is not there yet. The Huskies failed to register a large rebounding margin against Wagner in their opener. They haven’t improved much since then. Improving in all areas is obviously ideal, but if one category (turnovers) doesn’t improve, other areas such as rebounding have to get better to balance things out, but the Huskies have failed thus far.
Injuries Have Taken Their Toll
Two of the better UConn players are Alterique Gilbert and Terry Larrier, and they’re both out at the moment. Gilbert was injured in game three of the season against Loyola Marymount last week, and Larrier got injured Monday night in Maui against Oklahoma State. These players had been generating much of the production for the UConn offense, and while the Huskies did score 90 points against Oklahoma State in Maui, it is hard to see how they’ll be able to keep pace with opponents unless they get both Gilbert and Larrier back into the fold.
Amida Brimah Is Struggling
This member of the 2014 national championship team really should be a better and more dynamic player on both offense and defense, but he’s not, and it’s hurting UConn. Brimah did not consistently defend shots and drives at the rim against Oklahoma State. On defense, he should definitely be better than he is. If he at least rebounded and defended, his offensive weaknesses wouldn’t matter as much. However, he’s not rebounding or defending at the level the coaching staff needs. That has to change for UConn to have a big season. At this point, it doesn’t look like things will turn around but that will be on Coach Ollie to push the right buttons to get more out of him.
