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Tuesday night was one of the worst performances from a UConn team in a long time.
UConn fell to 1-1 in the American Athletic Conference with its 55-53 loss to Temple. Josh Brown drove into the lane with a few seconds remaining and hit the winning shot, after UConn tied the game with 30.6 seconds left.
There was little that went well for UConn, and a whole lot that went wrong. The Huskies cannot be dropping games like this in conference play. They started strong, let Temple back in, looked ready to take control again and faltered.
Here are some thoughts on Tuesday's game.
Miller High Life
If you're looking for a bright spot in Tuesday's game, here it is. Miller was fantastic, scoring 18 points on 7 of 13 shooting while grabbing seven rebounds. He played 37 minutes against Temple, but it was often Miller against the world. He couldn't do it on his own, but he had to try to.
Daniel Hamilton Falters
Tuesday was an all-time bad game from Daniel Hamilton. The sophomore was good on the boards, grabbing nine rebounds, but he only shot 2-for-13 from the field, scoring six points. He didn't score until there was 8:33 to play. His offensive rating of 58 was the third worst of his career, the worst since Jan. 17, 2015 at Stanford (56). How bad is an offensive rating of 58? His season rating is 108.5.
About the Final Minute
UConn had a timeout to burn. UConn had a foul to give. With 50.7 seconds left, UConn took 20 seconds to get to the rim and get fouled. That gave Temple the chance for the last shot, and Josh Brown got there with ease. The Huskies looked terrible in the final minute.
Lack of Jalen Adams Late
WHERE WAS JALEN ADAMS? Halfway through the second half, he lit a spark for the Huskies. He drove to the rim, got big buckets. His seven straight points got the Huskies going when Temple was up eight. He then sat for the final 6:46. UConn missed nine of its 10 shots over the final 7:14. The only substitutions in that stretch were rotations of Phil Nolan and Kentan Facey.
Ollie said the coaching staff will evaluate the players who want to play at "Level 5." So what level was Adams playing at? After the game, he said Ollie's decision to sit him for the end of the game was the coach's strategy, and he supported it. Obviously, he's not going to speak out against the coach.
Adams did say he was itching to be out there. He should have been out there. Hot hand on an awful offensive night is sitting on the bench when the team needs points? How does that make sense?