uneblinstu's Post Game Chatter: Vol 9, Ed 22 - Michigan State

[Norm Peterson]

2 hours ago, aphilso1 said:

And really, the thing that was bothersome is that you used a pithy response to try dismiss the conversation altogether.  That happens all over the internet, but not usually on HHC.

 

You must have missed some of my better posts over the years if you thought that was pithy.  And when it comes to pith, I'm  a mere piker compared to some of the other guys on this board, including guys in this very thread.  So, anyway, I thought the charts were funny, not pithy, and made the point that you can't necessarily draw causation conclusions from correlating data.

 

And my problem with pointing the finger at Coach Mo, using only correlating data, is this:  I've read this critique of him time after time over the years he's been here but NO ONE HAS EVER EXPLAINED WHAT IT IS WE'RE DOING DIFFERENLTY UNDER HIM THAT IS CAUSING OUR 3-POINT PERCENTAGE D TO LOOK SO BAD.  (Or has it just magically gotten worse because he's on staff?)

 

People keep saying it, but no one has explained it.  Which is why I don't know that you can necessarily draw the conclusions from the data that people are trying to draw.

 

IN FACT, the BEST explanation I've heard or seen from anyone, anywhere, at anytime about why our 3-point D has struggled was what Miles said on the post-game last night.  You should try to find it and take time to listen to it.  He goes into a bit of detail about things our kids are failing to do that allow great ball movement by teams like Michigan State.

 

The ironic part is that some of the people who blame Coach Mo's arrival for our struggles with 3-point defense are the same people who criticize Coach Miles for not playing the freshmen and letting them play through their defensive lapses.  Listen to what Miles said about what we were failing to do last night and you might just have a better understanding about why Jeriah Horne got pulled at various times last night and why Jack and Isaiah have seen their share of time on the bench.

 

We have some real Jekyll and Hyde people on this board who want Miles to let our freshmen play through their defensive lapses and yet complain that our 3-pt D isn't very good.  I think those two positions are inconsistent.

[49r]

Norm, FYI, I had to look up "pith" in the dictionary thanks to your post.

[AuroranHusker]

PITHY describes m'mood, atm. Ughhhh

[Norm Peterson]

5 minutes ago, 49r said:

Norm, FYI, I had to look up "pith" in the dictionary thanks to your post.

Do you remember my post a year or so ago where I made up that conversation in Olde Englishe betweene twoe Neighborse where one thought witchcraft was to blaim for our struggles?

 

That post was pithy.

[AuroranHusker]

8 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

Do you remember my post a year or so ago where I made up that conversation in Olde Englishe betweene twoe Neighborse where one thought witchcraft was to blaim for our struggles?

 

That post was pithy.

 

Normy=Pith personified.

[atskooc]

9 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

Do you remember my post a year or so ago where I made up that conversation in Olde Englishe betweene twoe Neighborse where one thought witchcraft was to blaim for our struggles?

 

That post was pithy.

Can I be pedantic and say that is nowhere near Old English...even jokingly Old English?

 

 

 

[atskooc]

3 minutes ago, AuroranHusker said:

 

Normy=Pith personified.

He's too long-winded to truly be pithy.

 

But alas...

 

How about that three-point percentage?

[AuroranHusker]

Just now, atskooc said:

He's too long-winded to truly be pithy.

 

But alas...

 

How about that three-point percentage?

 

True dat.

 

 

 

 

Bah-zing.

[AuroranHusker]

Whereas, the pith personified for Normy:

 

(of a fruit or plant) containing much pith.

 

 

 

 

I kid, I kid.

[huskerbaseball13]

31 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

You must have missed some of my better posts over the years if you thought that was pithy.  And when it comes to pith, I'm  a mere piker compared to some of the other guys on this board, including guys in this very thread.  So, anyway, I thought the charts were funny, not pithy, and made the point that you can't necessarily draw causation conclusions from correlating data.

 

And my problem with pointing the finger at Coach Mo, using only correlating data, is this:  I've read this critique of him time after time over the years he's been here but NO ONE HAS EVER EXPLAINED WHAT IT IS WE'RE DOING DIFFERENLTY UNDER HIM THAT IS CAUSING OUR 3-POINT PERCENTAGE D TO LOOK SO BAD.  (Or has it just magically gotten worse because he's on staff?)

 

People keep saying it, but no one has explained it.  Which is why I don't know that you can necessarily draw the conclusions from the data that people are trying to draw.

 

IN FACT, the BEST explanation I've heard or seen from anyone, anywhere, at anytime about why our 3-point D has struggled was what Miles said on the post-game last night.  You should try to find it and take time to listen to it.  He goes into a bit of detail about things our kids are failing to do that allow great ball movement by teams like Michigan State.

 

The ironic part is that some of the people who blame Coach Mo's arrival for our struggles with 3-point defense are the same people who criticize Coach Miles for not playing the freshmen and letting them play through their defensive lapses.  Listen to what Miles said about what we were failing to do last night and you might just have a better understanding about why Jeriah Horne got pulled at various times last night and why Jack and Isaiah have seen their share of time on the bench.

 

We have some real Jekyll and Hyde people on this board who want Miles to let our freshmen play through their defensive lapses and yet complain that our 3-pt D isn't very good.  I think those two positions are inconsistent.

 

Huskers.com has not posted any post game feed that I can see.  Can you summarize Coach Miles thoughts on the matter?

[royalfan]

Try soundcloud baseball.  Should be on there. 

[royalfan]

As for the 3's, all I know for sure is that it is frustrating.  I think some of it is randomness where we are running unlucky.  How much of the problem is that, I don't know.  Each game that goes by with it happening again, makes me think there is a bigger issue.  When we go to double, we aren't getting as many steals off of the doubles as I would like.  Also seems as though we just play a scheme.  We try to rotate to all guys the same way, rather than really forcing guys to take them that are worse shooters.  Hard to quantify this stuff, but that is how it seems.  It is very tough for a mid to bottom type program to make a jump forward when we are in the bottom 15 percent in both 3 point shooting and defending 3 point shooting.  We are getting more dudes.  But we also need to make sure we are getting enough guys that can shoot in the process. 

[uneblinstu]

I know one of the things they've done differently is that they've moved the pack line closer to the rim. It's not a huge amount, I don't think, maybe a foot (or maybe that is a huge amount, IDK) but that extra space might be part of the explanation.

[huskerbaseball13]

15 minutes ago, royalfan said:

Try soundcloud baseball.  Should be on there. 

 

 

Thanks found it...he talked about some of it is mistakes, game plan mistakes...not closing out...getting lost in transition ETC.  Also said compared to previous years it's a personnel difference.  Less length and quickness at some spots.  I'm not really sure I would agree with that, but if so...hopefully the addition of Palmer and Copeland will go a long ways in that regard.     

[ajb5856]

We'll see if Coach Mo is let go after the year.  I know that Miles and Molinari haven't coached together for years and years, but they sure are buddies. I think Molinari is Miles' Banker if you know what I mean. As in Mark, not the person who works at a bank.

[Fullbacksympathy]

58 minutes ago, ajb5856 said:

We'll see if Coach Mo is let go after the year.  I know that Miles and Molinari haven't coached together for years and years, but they sure are buddies. I think Molinari is Miles' Banker if you know what I mean. As in Mark, not the person who works at a bank.

 

Totally disagree.  Coach Mo is a huge reason why we are having so much success getting kids here from Chicago.  His connections there run very deep.  

 

I agree, though, that the defense is definitely a head scratcher right now though.  We also don't have Morrow, which is a real thing.  

[Norm Peterson]

2 hours ago, huskerbaseball13 said:

 

 

Thanks found it...he talked about some of it is mistakes, game plan mistakes...not closing out...getting lost in transition ETC.  Also said compared to previous years it's a personnel difference.  Less length and quickness at some spots.  I'm not really sure I would agree with that, but if so...hopefully the addition of Palmer and Copeland will go a long ways in that regard.     

He talked about a few different things. 

 

First, he talked about personnel.  Can't remember all the names but it was something like when you take out former players A and B and you insert current players D and E, and when you take out Terran Petteway and you put in current player F, you're not as quick or as long on the perimeter.

 

Second thing was he talked about MSU getting good ball movement, and he went through a list of things that you're not doing if the other team is getting good ball movement.  Not getting hands up, etc. etc.  And, by the way, he didn't blame assistant coaches or players for this.  He said he needed to do a better job of coaching, so it's not like he's passing the buck. 

 

But it was the best explanation I've heard for why our 3-point D is struggling.  And none of it has beans to do with Coach Mo.

 

Further, I'm going to go with what I see.

 

When we didn't double the post, Ward goes in and scores easily.  So, the coaches made an adjustment and started throwing the double team at Ward.  At first it worked well because he wasn't good at finding open teammates, so he would have to dribble out of the post, pass it off and reset the offense.  But then they started kicking to open guys and reversing the ball and the guy who's doubled the post has to recover to the weak side to find the open man but there was occasionally some miscommunication and we were standing in the gaps instead of finding the shooters.  We were getting caught between shooters and ended up with two guys trying to close out on one player.  Leaving another guy wide open.  They ended up finding a bunch of guys for corner kicks because of that and wound up draining a lot of those corner threes.  Especially during that second half run.

 

So ... I'm still not sure we can blame Molinari.

 

[PimpMario]

.
 
So ... I'm still not sure we can blame Molinari.
 

Can we blame Miles?

[Norm Peterson]

9 minutes ago, PimpMario said:

 

Can we blame Miles?

 

Absolutely 

[ajb5856]

4 hours ago, LK1 said:

 

Totally disagree.  Coach Mo is a huge reason why we are having so much success getting kids here from Chicago.  His connections there run very deep.  

 

I agree, though, that the defense is definitely a head scratcher right now though.  We also don't have Morrow, which is a real thing.  

Coach Mo does have real connections in Illinois recruiting. There's no arguing that. I'm not taking a side in the Molinari's fault/not Molinari's fault for the poor 3 point defense. I'm just stating that there's a real possibility that Mo isn't a part of the staff next year should Miles remain the man (I think he will).

[throwback]

LJS had a nice breakdown on this and what Coach Miles had to say on it after the game

 

http://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/life-in-the-red/driving-for-a-deep-dive-into-nebrasketball-s-three-point/article_9c273b9f-e399-5d0d-8747-f57c586d8a4f.html

[throwback]

Went back and watched all of MSU's 3s again (yes, I hate myself right now). Thought I would see a pattern, but there wasn't an easy one to see. It wasn't one guy making a mistake for us. It wasn't one guy getting all of the shots or assists for MSU. It wasn't off any one particular offensive action. MSU didn't even hit every wide open 3 they had.

 

And I think MSU was like 3-of-7 on 15-ft-plus 2-pt shots, at least 5 of which were wide open. So maybe there was some dumb luck in their excellent 3-pt shooting

 

If I had to draw any conclusions, there would be three of them:

• 1 - That maybe we were trying to help a bit too much inside and playing a bit too far off the men away from the ball. MSU did make several cross-court passes to find open guys for 3s, which I believe is kind of what we'll let them have in this defensive scheme, hoping to get a tip and steal on the long pass, so that's to their credit. Maybe we're over helping inside because Morrow isn't in there, and we feel like MJ & Jordy need more help in the post because of their foul issues (as mentioned in LJS article above).
• 2 - Not having hands up when defending on catch and shoot. I believe coaches would like our guys to have both hands up as the guy is catching the ball, so even if we're a step late, they're looking at two hands. That didn't happen often. We closed out with a hand high on all of the 3s, but didn't have two hands up as the catch is being made (at least on the 3s that MSU shot).
• 3 - MSU just made 3s, - tough ones, open ones, it didn't matter. That doesn't happen for every college team. And they did a great job of finding the open guy with pin-point passing so the catch and shoots were in rhythm, which, for my money, is a very under-rated skill in the game. Accuracy of passing is tough to measure, but it's so important in getting wide open shots in rhythm. Although I was hoping to find some pattern on NU's end, honestly, MSU just deserves a lot of credit for playing really well offensively.

Some of the numbers:

• Only 1 MSU 3-pt attempt came out of transition (a make)
• From my judgment, MSU made 6 of 8 on 3s where the guy was wide open (ie, had time to gather and shoot)
• Consequently, where we had pretty tight D or it was a tough shot off dribble, they made 3 of 3
• MSU was 2 of 3 on 3s vs the 1-3-1
• Only one of MSU's 3s came really late in shot clock (a make) - they did have one other 3 that was waived off on a shot clock violation late in the game (a miss)
• It's impossible to know if one of NU's defenders was covering for someone else's mistake, etc, so this count may not tell us much, but the NU defenders closing out late were: MJ 2, Horne 4, McVeigh 3, Webster 3, Taylor 2, Watson 1, Roby 1 (only 16 because I missed one somewhere in the second half). For example, even though Horne had the most, it's tough to blame him on at least 2 of them, one in transition and one where he was in no man's land, trying to guard two guys in the 1-3-1 after good ball movement by MSU. So I don't know how much these numbers actually say.

 

Here's each of them, if you want to read it (well, 16 of the 17. I missed one in the 2nd half somewhere, but MSU actually missed that shot. (I am NOT going back and watching it again to find the missing one. I don't hate myself that much.)

 

(** made 3)    (% vs 1-3-1)

 

 

1^st HALF

1. **16:55 – #22 top of key, after holding the ball for a few seconds, rose up for 3 (MJ had tight defense with hand up)
2. **13:02 - #3 in transition, left wing off assist, catch and shoot, open for 3 (Horne late getting out to him, but it was in transition, so tough to blame him, have to guard the paint first)

    

3. **9:12 - #1 right wing off assist, catch and shoot for 3 (Horne was in OK position, maybe a step slow in closing, needs hands up on the catch)
4. 5:17 - #22 left wing off pass, catch and shoot, missed 3 (McVeigh was in OK position defense, maybe a step slow in closing, needs hands up on the catch)
5. % 3:31 - #5 left wing off pass, catch and shoot, open, missed 3 (Horne late to get out, but had to cover 2 guys on that side of floor in 1-3-1) 
6. 1:01 - #20 right baseline off pass, pump fake and dribble, wide open, missed 3 (Webster way too far off initially, went flying past him on pump fake)

    

2^nd HALF

1. **18:14 - #1 left baseline off assist, catch and shoot for 3, wide open (Taylor trying to help in post, way too far off)
2. **16:48 - #22 top of key off dribble and screen, wide open (McVeigh went under screen, Jordy did not help on shooter – maybe a moving screen? OK no maybe about it. An offensive lineman would’ve been proud of the block on McVeigh) (this one was especially bad, we had just closed to 37-35, crowd on feet, never got back to within 2 again)
3. 15:29 - #22 top of key off assist on screen and pop, double clutched, open, missed 3 (McVeigh was late closing out after trying to help on the dribbler)

    

4. **14:29 - #3 left baseline off assist, catch and shoot, wide open (MSU had penetration in the lane, we collapsed, leaving 2 guys open at 3-pt line, Webster was way off his man, trying to box out for anticipated rebound after pump fake in the lane, actually closed fast with hand up pretty well, all things considered)
5. **13:53 - #5 off screen and roll, dribbled to top of key, rose up for 3 (MJ helped on screen, followed him to top of key then bailed, Watson followed screener on roll but was just a step slow in closing)
6. **12:45 - #5 off dribble from left wing, used jab step and rose up for 3 (MJ had switched onto him, had good defense) (only :02 left on shot clock, kind of a desperation move)
7. **10:34 - #3 off assist from left wing, catch and shoot, wide open (Webster closed late with hand up but tried to help on driver after coming off his original man as NU rotated, this was just great ball movement by MSU, started when we doubled down on the post and 3 passes later they had a wide open 3)
8. ** % 6:00 - #11 off assist on left wing, catch and shoot, wide open (Horne closed late, he was trying to help after the ball got into the lane, but MSU had 2 guys vs one defender on that side of the floor vs 1-3-1
9. ** % 4:19 - #1 off assist on left wing, catch and shoot, wide open (Taylor closed late, he was helping down in the lane too far off in 1-3-1)
10. 3:42 - #22 on left wing off pass, catch and shoot, he was part of a double screen & roll, then popped out to 3 pt line, wide open (Roby closed late, but he went with roller initially, Jordy followed dribbler, Glynn got caught in the wash, just a really good play call out of a timeout, something MSU hadn’t shown yet)
11. Missed one somewhere in the 2^nd half for #14 that he did not make

 

Two other game flow things: 

Geez we had some bad luck in the 1^st half. Twice we had shots in close rim away on our end followed by a missed tip in in traffic. Then MSU went immediately back both times in transition and missed shots in close but tipped both back in while in heavy traffic [and I’m not sure we didn’t tip one of those in]. Then late in half vs 1-3-1 we block a shot at the rim, falls right into hands of another MSU player who lays it in, gets fouled, and makes FT – that’s like a 7 to 11 pt swing. (I’m sure MSU had some bad luck too, but I don’t care.)

And 2nd biggest play of the 2nd half -- outside of the 3 MSU hit at the 16:48 mark -- may have been at 15:22, Webster drove for lay-up, would’ve been an and-1 to make it a 2-pt game, officials call foul out on the floor, wave off basket, horrible call, not even close as McQuaid didn't even start guarding Webster till he was in the lane and rising up for the shot. We subsequently miss a shot and MSU scores to go up 7.

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2017 by throwback

[Norm Peterson]

 One thing I have noticed is that McVeigh tends to play too far off his man because he is afraid of getting beat on the dribble drive and, as a result, he gives up the three point look.   Happened to or three times at least in the Michigan State game. 

[throwback]

4 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 One thing I have noticed is that McVeigh tends to play too far off his man because he is afraid of getting beat on the dribble drive and, as a result, he gives up the three point look.   Happened to or three times at least in the Michigan State game. 

Agree that he's a bit hesitant in those situations, so I'd imagine this is the scenario coaches are talking about when they want guys to have two hands up as the catch is being made, so he can play off a step to protect against the drive, but have hands up so the offensive player hesitates about rising up for a 3 off the catch.  (And I'm sure it's not just McVeigh who they're talking about having 2 hands up, it's a common problem, just using him as an example.)

Edited February 4, 2017 by throwback

[throwback]

And I don't want to make it seem like NU was just helpless vs MSU's 3 pt shooting onslaught.

 

8 wide open 3s are way, way too many. You're going to give up a few, everyone does, but when they get 8 and none of them were in transition, we're doing something wrong.