I'm tired of hearing cheap excuses from our team. How often does UConn play a game in which they are not motivated? Or don't know what they're doing? Or are confused on defense? Pretty much never. They come out every game and put the hammer down. We come out most games and dork around like some high school team. It is embarrassing--has been embarrassing for years. UT plays far too much ugly, bad basketball...and has for for YEARS, going back before PS retired and continuing through HW's tenure.
How many times since Warlick took over the program have we heard her cite a lack of effort or motivation by the team? A TON. Many, many times. Too many times. If players are unmotivated, then your first problem is the players who are not giving 100 percent. Those players should be benched--and stay on the bench until they are prepared to be motivated. Play walk-ons if you have to. This applies to everybody. That said, if you have a consistent problem with motivation, then there is a disconnect between the coach and the players. Either you've got player(s) with a bad attitude--or you have a coach that needs to be replaced. Lack of effort/motivation seems to be a consistent problem, and that means we have a serious problem with a specific player or two, or the coach, or both. Ultimately, the coach is responsible for motivating players--and HW doesn't seem to know how to do that.
All these players played together all last year! There is /no excuse/ for being confused on defense. So, defensively, we either can't defend--and there is some of that--or we're dumb, or lazy. I'd say all three apply. We've definitely had lazy defensive players in recent years. Massengale was lazy. Reynolds can be lazy on defense. DD can be lazy. Others. There is no excuse for it. Three-quarters effort = lazy. When you don't try to fight past picks, you're being lazy. You don't just let other teams put you in mismatches--and yet we do that quite often.
I agree with the original poster about Reynolds. She can and should be more aggressive on the court. She is capable of scoring more--and needs to. She's not a big scorer, of course, but she's capable of scoring more. And he could probably be a better leader, too. She has been underachieving for two years. Part of the problem with Reynolds and with everyone is that we're still terrible against a zone defense. Lack of movement, lack of confidence, lack of basketball IQ. We are not a good half-court offensive team and haven't been for, oh, 15 years. We are better playing up tempo--and should try to. The fact that we're not great defensively, and don't really have the depth to press other teams, makes it harder to play up-tempo, but we should try. If you have athletic players, you should always try to play up-tempo. When we are in slow tempo games, and teams are playing zone against us, we have problems.
I also agree with the OP about Nunn. She's probably playing out of position and simply isn't showing much right now. We should be starting either Dunbar or Jackson and not Nunn.
What the hell is Warlick talking about when she tells our players to "read the defense." That is a weird, unnecessary concept that probably results in confusion with our players. You read whether a team is playing man or zone, but that is pretty obvious and pretty basic. You make reads if you see mismatches--if you see that an opposing guard is now on Russell, then you try to take advantage and get the ball to Russell. You read defenders and whether they can guard you off the dribble or not. But that is all elementary basketball and should be instinctive--stuff you learn in 9th grade. So I find it a bit odd that Warlick is telling the team to "read the defense." These players have practiced together, what, scores of times. The should all have chemistry--and they should all have a fundamental understanding of the game. Too often, we don't. BB is a game in which, if you expect to win consistently, you must 1) play hard and 2) play smart--meaning play good, fundamental basketball. You need more than those two things--but those are the absolute starting points. We are deficient on both, so it's no wonder we lose games.
