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Erik 'I Wanna Be The Hero' Stevenson...Run The Damn Play: UW 76 UCLA 81
IceManLikeGervin
Member Posts: 331
UCLA (11-2/7-0) came out flat in the first half and the UW (1-11/0-7) had a chance to steal a victory on the road but couldn't execute on offense during the last minute of the game.
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UWDawgPound https://www.uwdawgpound.com/2021/1/16/22235037/husky-upset-bid-falls-short-81-76-at-ucla-uw-washington-huskies-basketball-quade-green
UCLA played their worst game of year
We still lost
It really doesn’t get any worse than this
In the final minutes, Marcus Tsohonis came off the bench to drop midrange floaters. Hameir Wright drained a three-point dagger from the corner.
And Quade Green flipped in an acrobatic shot before crashing to the Pauley Pavilion floor to put the Washington men’s basketball team in position to win a game for the first time in six weeks.
Still, the Huskies trailed UCLA by three points with 23 seconds left and needed one more shot at the end.
After a timeout, Mike Hopkins drew up a play for Green, but the Bruins’s tight defense forced Erik Stevenson into a contested 22-foot three-pointer that sailed long and hit the back of the rim.
Washington, which led by 12 points in the first half, played its best game of the season, but Saturday’s result was all too familiar — an 81-76 defeat.
The Huskies (1-11, 0-7 Pac-12) have lost eight straight, which ties for the third longest losing streak in school history. (Last season, UW lost nine in a row. The 2016-17 team lost 13 straight before Hopkins’ arrival.)
“Those guys came out tonight, and they were fighting,” Hopkins said. “We were fighting right from the get go. That’s a great sign for us moving forward. There are no moral victories here. We played better and better defense, but we got to close games.”
No moral victories for sure, but statistically speaking, the Huskies made major improvements considering they barely offered any resistance during Thursday’s 95-68 defeat at USC.
Washington has lost by at least 14 points in seven games and appeared headed toward another blowout against UCLA, which entered game with the Pac-12’s most efficient offense which averaged 78.1 points while shooting 48.6% from the field and 44.6% on three-pointers.
The Huskies stymied the Bruins early and raced out to a 39-27 lead at the start.
“We just took it on our shoulder that we ain’t going to get blown out by 30,” said Green, who rebounded from a five-point performance Thursday and finished with a game-high 25. “That’s what it was. … If they were missing shots, we would have won this game.”
For only the second time this season and the first time in its past seven games, Washington led at the break and took a 39-29 lead into halftime.
Hopkins tweaked UW’s 2-3 zone defense and the Huskies might have delivered an early knockout if the Bruins hadn’t connected on 5 of 12 three-pointers to offset their 31.3% shooting from the field.
Aside from the perimeter defense, it was a flawless half for Washington, which converted over 53% of its field goals, including 6 of 15 three-point attempts.
UCLA made a few runs after the break.
The Bruins scored 10 straight points to start the second half tie the score at 39-39. Following Jamie Jaquez Jr’s dunk for a 61-54 lead with 8:28 left, UCLA seemed as if it would take control for good.
That’s when Wright, who had a career-high 15 points, seven rebounds and three three-pointers, Tsohonis and Green took over during the Huskies’15-6 run that put them up 69-67 with 4:16 remaining.
UCLA answered again with a 10-1 run to go up 77-70 followed by four straight points by backup center Riley Sorn (10 points) to cut UW’s deficit to three in the final minute.
“For the most part we battled,” Hopkins said. “We competed and we warded off runs.”
Down 77-74 with 23 seconds left, Hopkins drew up a play on the sideline for Green that had him driving to the rim or passing outside for an open three-pointer.
However, Stevenson, who finished with 11 points and converted 3 of 6 three-pointers, was smothered by Jaylen Clark and couldn’t pass the ball. As the clock ticked, Stevenson launched a three-pointer that missed the mark with 12 seconds left.
“They blew the play up,” said Green who hit 10 of 16 shots and had five assists and five rebounds. “We trust E with the ball. He made the play that he made. He felt like he could make it. I never knew E to shoot a shot that he can’t make. They blew the play up and we had to find another option.”
Jules Bernard scored 20 points, Jacquez 15, Cody Riley 14 and Campbell 11 for UCLA (11-2, 7-), which has won six in a row and 15 straight games at Pauley Pavilion.
Meanwhile, Washington capped a four-game road stretch and return home for games next week against Colorado and Utah.
The Huskies believe they’ve closer to snapping their losing streak following what the described as a productive team meeting on Friday and a Saturday’s five-point defeat.
“There was a lot of positive,” Hopkins said. “I thought our guys stuck together tonight, which was big. Becoming closer and becoming more of a team.”
Green added: “Everything starts today.”
Matthew Loves Ball: UW vs UCLA Full Game Highlights
“Run The Damn Play” ...
The play was a down screen for Quade to hopefully be able to catch and shoot on a curl action
The screen actually isn’t bad and there’s some space to get the pass to Quade but the defender does a great job of recovering putting the pass in a tight time window for success. The more telling action here is that Hameir is WIDE OPEN by himself in the corner. Good lesson here in watching hoops is pay attention to how often the screener actually finds himself open.
The original poster would try to tell you here that Stevenson was trying to be a hero and didn’t run the play. From my perspective, that’s not really what happened ...
One thing is pretty clear watching this clip is that Stevenson doesn’t have great handles. The ball often is stuck to him in ways that make it difficult for him to make timely passes ... which is why the design of the play to Quade failed. Also important to note that Hameir’s man initially shows as part of a loose double that allowed Stevenson’s man to recover at an able that disrupts the timing of the pass to Quade. Once Stevenson missed the timing of the pass to Quade combined with Stevenson’s inability to get the ball out from under him to make a skip pass to Hameir, the play was effectively destroyed.
Once the play broke down and you start looking at the options you realize how poorly coached the team is. Instead of aggressively cutting to a spot to get the ball Quade fairly passively clears to the wing to create space. Bey and Tsohonis are basically non factors in every way possible (no movement, don’t appear to be ready to shoot, etc). So effectively at that point you’re down to 1 on 1 play and doing so with a guy that doesn’t really look to have the skills to create open space for himself or others. All things being considered the look he got was far closer than I would have expected given the title.
In the end, this play is a great example of everything wrong in the program. The design of the initial play was fine but overly simplified such that UCLA was able to adequately defend without too much of a problem. When the initial action broke down the lack of basketball IQ within the players to get themselves out of it showed as everybody looked around. And finally, there’s clear mismanagement by the staff in that there’s got to be a secondary design to the play given the time remaining. Perhaps the secondary element was Hameir but that’s probably less than ideal for a number of reasons. The right play in that situation is a couple of actions to get a clean look at 3 (Stevenson and Quade) and if they aren’t there is to have Hameir cutting to the hoop (easier pass for Stevenson) and you get the quick 2.
Just poor poor poor design by the staff and mediocre at best execution by the players involved
Quade Green was open at the top of the key area even the game announcers noticed that tenable fact. You can watch the above linked video to see that fact for yourself and hear the game announcers comment to the very same effect.
Stevenson could have easily made the pass to Green but he decided for whatever reason(s) to shoot a hero ball shot instead. Mike Hopkins was seen visibly having an intense discussion with Erik Stevenson until the end of the game concerning his decision to shoot that hero ball shot.
The UW didn't even need a three point shot, especially one from that extra deep distance, at the time. They could have gotten a higher percentage two point shot attempt off then played the foul game.
Mike Hopkins, who mismanaged that last timeout and was barely able to get the decided upon play communicated to his team with Quade screaming for the play as the refs called the teams back onto the court, choked under the pressure as well.
Home Games
Colorado (1/20)
Utah (1/24)
WSU (1/31)
UCLA (2/11)
USC (2/13)
Stanford (2/18)
California (2/20)
Road Games
Oregon (2/4)
OSU (2/6)
Arizona (2/25)
ASU (2/27)
WSU (3/6)
PAC-12 Standings
1. #24 UCLA Bruins (7-0)
2. USC Trojans (5-1)
3. #21Oregon Ducks (4-1)
4. Colorado Buffaloes (5-2)
5. Stanford Cardinal (4-3)
6. Arizona Wildcats (4-3)
7. Oregon State Beavers (2-3)
8. Washington State Cougars (2-4)
9. Utah Utes (2-5)
10. Arizona State Sun Devils (1-3)
11. California Golden Bears (2-6)
12. Washington Huskies (0-7)
1) My initial comments noted that Quade had a window of being open. It also noted that Quade’s defender made a solid recovery into position as well as Stevenson’s defender hedging against the reverse action of a pass (solid IQ play there. Add all of that to some real obvious lack of handles and awareness from Stevenson and you get a missed opportunity to get Quade the ball.
2) Stevenson made a poor decision and I’ve got no issue calling it that. At the end of the day his poor decision was driven by poor original execution on the play combined with stagnant movement after the play broke down. Hop can have as many discussions as he wants but the reality is the play drawn up was basic at best and nobody gave Stevenson any alternative options to work with. Part of basketball is how do you react when the play you want to run gets broken down. The reality is that this roster has few players capable of making plays in this situation ... and that’s on Hop.
3) Read the bottom of my comment criticizing the poor play design given that with the ball out on the side with 20+ seconds you should be running a couple of quick actions for good looks from 3 with the ability to take an easy 2 built in.
4) How many different ways do I need to spell out that Hop drew up a downright piss poor play and the execution by his players a testament to whatever coaching they are getting?
Thanks for telling me in effect that I’m an idiot and then literally agree with everything I said fucktard