Basketball: What a difference confidence can make

Connecticut Huskies forward DeAndre Daniels celebrates with the trophy after defeating the...
Connecticut Huskies forward DeAndre Daniels celebrates with the trophy after defeating the Kentucky Wildcats 60-54 in the championship game of the Final Four in the 2014 NCAA Mens Division I Championship tournament at AT&T Stadium. Credit: Bob Donnan...

ODT Online sports contributor Jeff Cheshire reviews the March Madness national championship game between the Connecticut Huskies and Kentucky Wildcats. 

What confidence can do

If this March Madness showed us anything, it was the way a team's self-belief and confidence can help them do great things. This was a Connecticut team that few rated highly, it was only a month ago that they lost to Louisville by over 30 points, the most recent of eight losses for the season.

But all of that goes out the window when it comes to tournament. As long as you make it, you just have to put together six wins and that can come from a hot run of form as this team has displayed. They were a team that always had potential to upset some of the more fancied teams, with a handful of top, experienced players, notably Shabazz Napier, who is a notorious big game player. These men all stepped up and made some big time plays at crucial moments.

New Zealanders have seen it all too often, notably from the French at the Rugby World Cup. They turn it on, sometimes halfway through a game after having looked average in the lead up, and ultimately their confidence and belief enables them to do things no one thought possible.

It is one of the great things about sport and just goes to show that anything can happen when it comes to one-off knockout games like this.

Free throws and rebounds

You can argue the two most important things in avoiding a loss in basketball are making your free throws and limiting opposition offensive rebounds. And so it proved, with Kentucky missing 11 free throws, while Connecticut missed none. That is 11 points that Kentucky left out on the court and to some extent, it almost cost them the game.

When you factor in the one-and-one rule where in the bonus you only get the second shot after making the first, missing this many free throws really is a cardinal sin.

While it was undoubtedly a high pressure environment, free throws are shots that are the same every time you shoot them, so naturally you should be good at them, because you know what you are going to have to do and can practice them accordingly. They are points that are there for the taking and to miss nearly half of them in one game makes it tough to win.

Rebounds too were crucial, as Connecticut were aggressive and held their own against a much bigger and athletic Kentucky line up. Down the stretch Connecticut grabbed a couple of massive offensive rebounds, which really plunged the dagger into Kentucky's hopes.

Connecticut back court

Shabazz Napier and Ryan Boatright were both huge. When it comes to the big moments, it is the best players that will step up and seize the opportunity, which is what these two did. Both used their quickness to get the better of their talented opponents. Through this they shut them down, especially in the first 15 minutes where they jumped out to a 30-15 lead, which in the end was too much for Kentucky to pull in. 

Boatright showed some silky one-on-one moves and shot an efficient five from six from the field, while Napier hit a series of big shots and attacked the basket aggressively.

This is not to say the Kentucky back court did not play well. Andrew Harrison improved as the game progressed and the team looked at their best when he was being aggressive on offence. James Young too had a big second half and was the best of the Kentucky players on show, getting to the hoop strongly and keeping Kentucky in check when Connecticut begun to pull away.

Did occasion get to freshmen?

In the post-match press conference Kentucky coach John Calipari suggested that the occasion may have gotten to his freshmen in the initial stages of the game. Indeed it is hard to imagine being an 18-19 year old and having to deal with the amount of media coverage, hype and pressure that comes with playing the National Championship game.

Consequently they started slowly, while the more experienced Connecticut team built a 15 point buffer with five left to play in the first half. From this point Kentucky began their comeback, but it is always going to be a tough ask after giving a quality team a 15 point head start. Ultimately they will be much better for the experience, now that they have had a taste of the big time.

While it is true that two years ago Kentucky won a National Championship with a handful of talented freshmen, they also had the likes of Terence Jones, Darius Miller and Doron Lamb, who had all been the Final Four the previous year. This year's team featured seven freshmen and a sophomore who was part of the team that did not qualify for the tournament. This makes a huge difference in those initial stages of a game such as this and goes to show once again how important experience can be in sports.

Kentucky and Calipari deserve credit

In saying all of this, Kentucky's run has been nothing short of remarkable. They entered the season as the No. 1 ranked team in the nation, based on the recruiting class many were calling the best ever. As the season begun though they did really look like a bunch of high school players playing against college players. They were making basic mistakes, things they would have gotten away with in high school, but not at this level where everything is so much faster and there is less room for error.

They developed into a far more mature team though and came right in the last month of the season, where they became the team many expected them to be from the start. You have to give John Calipari plenty of credit here. While he is recognised as one of the top recruiters in the nation, his ability as a coach is perhaps understated. To teach his players and turn a team around as much as he did this season is a tough ask in any sport and does not happen without a good coach offering the right advice.

To make the National Championship game in any year is a tremendous achievement, but particularly when you do it from an eight-seed. To get there Kentucky went through Kansas State, an unbeaten Wichitia State, defending champions Louisville, Big Ten regular season champs Michigan and a Wisconsin team that pushed them so close. That is one tough run and despite what happened earlier in the year, you cannot question this team's quality after knocking off all the names on that list one after the other.

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