MBB OGT: NCAA Tournament -- (1) FLORIDA v (8) UConn -- March 23, 2025 -- 12:10 PM [CBS]

Agree on all counts. UCONN is extremely well coached and they buy into that system and execute very well. They had the game at their pace and kept us from runouts and east baskets. We acted like the undersog trying to beat the 2 time defending national champs instead of a #1 seed for most of the game. Missed a ton of free throws in the second half and still toughed it out the last 4 minutes and pulled it out. Credit to our guys for pulling it together to get it done. We face Maryland next and have to play 40 minutes of solid basketball to beat them.

 

Just a terrific game. Lots of posters show up in postseason game threads who don't follow the team or college basketball closely. Pointless to engage that crowd.

For my money, we really played right into their hands the first half. We failed to do just about everything we needed to do (at least what I thought Golden wanted to do): limit their threes, turn them over, keep them off the glass, speed up the tempo, and take care of the ball. We were fortunate they could not hit the broad side of a barn that half, and that it took a Diarra three just to tie it. They scored zero points off turnovers despite 9 committed by us.

Our defense was actually worse in the second half. They picked our switching apart with their cutting. In retrospect, we should have switched things up, maybe with a little drop coverage to make them hit some mid rangers. Fortunately, the tempo picked up as the game went on. Only 30 possessions in the first half, but 37 in the second half. As the pace quickened, we got immensely better. From the 9:20 mark or so, when we were down 6, we went on a 28-14 run to take that 8-pt lead. Clayton scored 11, Richard had a big 6, we got some key offensive rebounds, and only turned the ball over twice in that 9 minutes. Our veteran guards made big play after big play--and their guards did not (with the exception of the Ball three). Condon was an absolute monster down the stretch. He contested everything, had some great defensive rebounds, and made terrific passes to Richard and Chinyelu for dunks. Haugh had some terrific plays on loose balls. Very much felt like the close of games against UNC, South Carolina in Columbia, UGA in Athens, and Mizzou in the SECs. That's what a team with several veteran guards and a deep stable of bigs can do to you.

This wasn't the best game for our post guys. Reed and Johnson are pretty long and physical, and Johnson dominated us in the first half on the glass. Chinyelu was the only one who looked comfortable against him, but he was in foul trouble. Once Reed and Johnson picked up their third and fourth fouls, things opened up massively for us with our dribble weave action and horns sets, and our bigs slipped to the rim for some easy buckets.

Eventually, we will likely lose. Those are just the odds. It could have been today. We have weaknesses, and good teams with matchup advantages can exploit those. We really need Aberdeen, Klavzar, and Handlogten to give us a little more production off the bench. They have been very productive over the last month, and we will need more of that to keep playing the next two weekends. But today was all about those three senior guards willing this team to a win. Great to see. That first half is why we got Martin.

 

They've been good offensively all season. It's a complex offense that's hard to defend, and they run it well with good pieces who can make plays. If it weren't for our turnovers in the first half and the funky Diarra 30-footer, we probably walk into the half with a double digit lead. We turned it up the last ten minutes or so and kept them to less than a point per possession during that 28-14 run.

 

SEC bias

 

Respectfully disagree. You can’t just run into people running away from you.

 

Had he been running away as opposed to deciding at the last minute to get out of the way but not reacting fast enough

 

I saw the same thing as vax. Clayton cut him off causing the collision. Foul for sure. I was even wondering if it was intentional.

 

Yes

 

Nah, that distinction stays with Douche Kanell

 

Clayton wasn’t exactly running away from him though, he was angling to block his path and not in legal guarding position. It was a foul. Just not smart on our part there.

There were several bizarre plays that went against us. I thought the one where Richard slipped and then the guy tripped was a crazy call because Richard was already on the deck and stayed perfectly still. Guy dribbled and tripped over him on his own accord.

The worst of all was probably that “over the back” highlighted above. Ridiculous missed call. Esp with Chinyelu ending up with foul issues.

 

I was already preparing my "this is because they didnt gove us the #1 overall seed" complaint.

 

It was a joke.

 

Now that is a funny post

 

So many bizarre and unlikely plays went against us, it was hard to watch. Then Martin somehow ended up with that missed free throw all alone under the hoop at the end, and I thought, well we deserve that at least.

 

I immediately said, wait ..do we have a foul to give? (Even though I actually knew we didn't.)

We simply should have been 2 steps off of everyone.

I asked my 14 year old what his coach would have told him there. He said "no fould, play him honest".

Walt should have never given the ref the chance to call that.

 

And yet their coach is yapping at how the refs screwed them over!

 

I really had some bad vibes in this game, many on this board really didn't want to play Uconn and I see why, they have had our number and regardless of how many players they lost, they were still defending champs and were on the rise after a poor start to the season! We showed some real mental toughness to overcome all of this, bring on Maryland!

 

Just fitting that the last team to win back to back titles would take out the current one. Just one of those weird things.

 

Yeah, it was crazy how many bounces went against us.

Then finally at the end we got a couple: Richard had one fall into his lap for a 3 (after two gators ran into each other) and Martin got that other one that led to a dunk to ice the game (errr… almost ice the game).