Tom Moore was talking about marbles. A hyperkinetic basketball coach talking marbles? You've got to think he was talking about losing them, right?
No, the Quinnipiac coach was talking about allocating them judiciously.
"I got this from Coach Calhoun and Tom Izzo," Moore said after his Bobcats defeated Hartford 65-61 Saturday in the season-opening Connecticut 6 Classic at Chase Family Arena at the University of Hartford. "They talk about every coach getting 100 marbles they can work with their team, every day, every week."
"You can't make a deal with the basketball devil and get 200 marbles. So how do you want to allocate the 100?"
Moore said that Quinnipiac didn't become statistically one of the top five rebounding teams in the nation the past three years without allocating marbles there. The way his staff scouted Hartford's motion offense, he committed a lot of marbles to his halfcourt defense. He's still trying to tighten his man defense, too. There were enough marbles left to prepare properly for the 1-3-1 that John Gallagher threw at the Bobcats.
"I thought they'd play a little more traditional man and a 2-3 matchup," said Moore, the longtime UConn assistant. "I give John a lot of credit. You've got to be pretty confident to stay in it against a team that rebounds like us. They tested us. They tested me. We failed the test in the first half."
Afterward, Gallagher was talking about marbles, too. And, yes, he was talking about not losing them.
"Going into my third year, obviously we don't do everything for results here," Gallagher said. "We're trying to build a program. Overall, I'm excited about the effort. I want them to be disappointed. I don't want a locker room that's like, 'We almost had them.' That's ludicrous. We want them to feel a little pain right now. They've got to realize winning and losing matters."
Hartford, 20-43 under Gallagher, didn't lose a little at the start of last year. They lost them all until Jan. 5. The Hawks started 0-13. Gallagher, that little ball of combustible optimism, was called on to use every particle of that positivism. It was rough. From that 0-13 start, however, the Hawks finished 9-9, and with virtually everybody back except for point guard Andres Torres, this group — very young, improving and led by Mark Nwakamma — should be humming by March of 2014 and 2015.
"When you're starting a program and building it and building it, you don't want quick fixes," Gallagher said. "Every year is a different feel. You want them right now to realize, hey, it's not OK to lose to Quinnipiac at home. It's not OK. This is not OK! There's no other way I can say it …"
"I know they're picked first [by the Connecticut 6 coaches] in the state. We're picked sixth. That has no bearing on my coaching or my leadership in navigating this program to where we have to get it. I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to set the bar of expectations."
Hartford was picked for seventh in the America East. LIU is the cream of the Northeast Conference, but Robert Morris, Wagner and Quinnipiac are bunched together after that. And, holy biceps, Moore looks like he's dressing a football team.
Yet it was the Hawks who found themselves up 49-44 in the second half after a basket by Wes Cole. Gallagher is unusual in that he often calls timeouts after his team scores. Gallagher said he has worked under seven coaches and the one guy who's especially good at attacking defensive timeouts is Phil Martelli of St. Joe's. Many moves work for the imaginative Gallagher. On Saturday, this one didn't. His team got caught for a three-point play when he trapped out of the timeout and the Bobcats went on an 11-2 run to turn around the momentum.
To that point, the 1-3-1 had been a pain in Moore's side. Those marbles were dropping on his team's head. It was an interesting zone, with a little U of H guard almost hidden under the hoop. At a certain angle, it almost looked like Gallagher was playing four guys.
"We weren't going to let them get inside," said Nate Sikma, who finished with 11 points and a Hawks' high nine rebounds. "That's their M.O., pound you on the glass. Our 1-3-1 was to make them beat us from the outside."
In the second half, Moore said he helped changed matters by getting his two big guys more active, moving them up the lane a little bit more.
"Once we threw to them, we tried to X down, with the other big guy sitting on the guard at the bottom of the 1-3-1," Moore said. "They were hiding a little too much in the first half. So we got them up near the elbow a little more and we were a little more active on a string with our wings once we threw it to the big guy inside. I take responsibility for our lack of organization in the first half."
"Philosophically, the 1-3-1 is supposed to take the inside out," Gallagher said. "Working with [former Hawks coach] Dan Lebovitz, that's where we got it. We're not playing it great right now. There are angles we're not attacking from the right way."
Gallagher said he'd like to play the 1-3-1 zone 30 percent or 40 percent this season.
"It's a curveball," Gallagher said. "We're not built to throw fastball, fastball, fastball. We have 10 freshmen and sophomores. So am I going to go home tonight and go crazy?"
You mean, lose your marbles?
"No, I'm not," Gallagher said. "I understand what's happening, but I also understand the expectations have to be changed. That's where I'm at in the process."
Nwakamma led Hartford with 15 points, but he missed nine shots, including some that Gallagher said he never misses. He easily could have had 20 points. This Hawks team can't shoot 4 of 15 from the three-point arc, including three good second-half looks from Cole, and shoot 15 of 25 from the foul line and expect to win.
Gallagher said he feels his offense is a "hitch" off. By the end of last year, Gallagher and Torres were on the same wavelength. That process has to improve with his young guards and should improve with game repetition. The truth also is there were some well-run plays that ended with missed shots.
"I told my team we have to make seven threes a game," Gallagher said. "They were there today. They were wide open."
"Look, I'm pleased. I absolutely don't want them to be pleased. I was chippy to them afterward. I did it on purpose. If you watch that game, you wouldn't say we were worse than them. You have to win with juniors and seniors. I'm playing freshmen and sophomores. If I play that team a year from now, we're ready."
Another game of marbles awaits.
