UConnumdrum; Huskies lose to Notre Dame 50-48

As I settled into my front row seat right behind the scorers table with blog follower Mike Davis, we both felt the excitement in the air generated by a full house at the Civic Centre and the news that Ryan Boatright had been cleared to play in today's game by the NCAA. Now we'll see the real Huskies take the Irish apart. It was clear from the opening possession that Notre Dame's fine coach Mike Brey was planning to dictate a slow pace through long offensive possessions and neutralize the Huskies transitional, running game. The Irish, who have won three straight Big East games to improve to 6-3 in conference play, have a very disciplined, experienced team, with four starters who played 37 minutes or more and a balanced attack in which the five starters all scored between 8-13 pts. Compare this to the Huskies whom I can only describe as a team that is currently in disarray. Once again two players scored in double figures led by Lamb with 16 and Drummond with 15; Napier had the worst game of his UConn career, was 0-7 from the floor and scored four points. The frontcourt got even worse for the third straight game; Between Daniels, Giffey, Smith, Olander and Oriakhi the frontcourt (other than Drummond) contributed 7 pts. Boatright had 6 and was steady, although he looked a little rusty after his most recent layoff.
Despite all this UConn managed to leave the floor at the break with a 24-21 lead on the strength of Drummond's strong play inside and their smothering man to man defense. Lamb, who was blanketed for most of the first half came alive for 5 quick points near the half time buzzer. When boatright went into the game after 9 minutes the Husky offense looked better and optimism was restored: then came the disastrous start of the second half. UConn was scoreless for seven minutes while the Irish scored 13 unanswered points to take a 10 point lead. The Huskies finally started trapping and managed to close the gap to the final two point deficit.
Ironically, UConn shot better from the field but the difference was that Notre Dame had 7 treys to UConn's 3 and managed to dictate a slow pace for the entire second half.
So what is the conumdrum? Are the Huskies as bad as they looked today in this desultory loss? Is their frontcourt as hapless as it seemed today? The worst aspect of today's loss was the complete regression to their weak half court sets where the guards dribble aimlessly and there is absolutely no movement off the ball. The Huskies are now 4-4 in the Big East and will surely drop out of the top 25 in both polls for the first time in 28 weeks. I am trying to take heart from how bleak things looked last year at this time but there are some major differences. While this year's team just suffered their third straight loss last year's squad never lost more than 2 games in a row. Perhaps of greater significance is that it is becoming obvious that Jeremy Lamb is no Kemba Walker and is having trouble taking over games when need be.
On Wednesday, the Huskies travel to the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. to take on a good Georgetown Hoya five. Don't lose heart but we may have all been fooled by the Huskies ridiculously easy non-conference schedule.
"You Heard it Here First"
Steve