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uneblinstu's Post Game Chatter: Vol 9, Ed 28 - Illinois

hhcmatt

By hhcmatt
in The Haymarket Hardwood

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hhcmatt

hhcmatt

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Illinois brought the same sort of defensive effort tonight that allowed them to sweep Northwestern in Feb and hold a 3rd straight opponent under 70 points.  We came out in the second half with some double teaming in the post. For the first possession that worked...after that? Straight fire from Illinois.

 

- Tai reportedly was held out of most of the practices after the Michigan St game with a leg injury. For the most part didn't effect him though his poor 3pt shooting in conference has him below 30% on the year.

- Watson completely shut down tonight. Somewhat of a surprise.

- Ed solid on the boards today. Blocked by the rim more than by anyone from Illinois. Really got up for that dunk.

- I don't think Jack felt like he had it when he missed those 2 threes. Changed it up by driving in. Good to see he can provide value when he isn't hitting 3s.

- Jordy got out experienced by Morgan at times. Growing pains game.

- Horne was a welcome addition tonight. Just needs to play with a little bit more discipline at points. Once he figures it out he's going to be a force...Malcolm Hill wasn't Malcolm Hill his freshman year

- Evan had a nice complementary night and hit a rare 3. No assists? He's better when he can get others involved.

- Jacobson and Roby not doing a whole lot tonight. Poor Roby's highlight was getting his butt chewed on the big screen.

 

On to a red hot Minnesota

 

aphilso1

aphilso1

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While I may not be as optimistic as others on here that we can make a run in the B1G tourney to close out the season, I did see a couple of bright spots for next season.

 

1. Jack and Evan have some serious tools to their offensive game.  Both are deferring to others a lot this year, but will be way more aggressive next season.  In Evan's case, I think being a late addition to the roster has really made him focus on being a glue guy rather than a stat filler.  In Jack's case, that long cold streak in December/January has made him trigger shy if the first couple of treys don't go in.  But those were two guys that showed some glimmers last night, and were willing to be aggressive when most of the team was hanging their heads.  Calling it now: both will be among our five best players next year.  That doesn't mean they will both start, but I think in crunch time you'll see them both on the court.  I expect that those are the two that will make the biggest advancements in the offseason.

2.  Miles is willing to commit to the zone.  It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but Tim has gone to the 1-3-1 a lot the last two games.  Part of that is because we weren't getting any stops while playing man, but I really think that the coaches will make zone defense a major emphasis in the offseason.  With the size/length of next year's team, that has me very excited.  There's been a lot of talk with certain players not having the lateral foot speed to guard smaller players, and not having the bulk to guard B1G post players (McVeigh, Copeland, Roby, Horne, etc).  Most of those players are also more advanced offensively than defensively, so you still want to get them on the floor.  Going zone more frequently (dare I even say make it our primary D) would go a long way toward masking our defensive liabilities while maximizing the number of offensive threats we can put on the floor.

BjoeHusker

BjoeHusker

Posted
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Team looked gassed. 

Illinois came out very aggressive defensively. 

A little concerned about Watson.  Only six shot attempts in 33 minutes.  Definitely did not look like himself. 

Thought Ed and Evan played well.  Evan has been a surprise.

Jordy struggled defensively and had three costly turnovers early on.

Tai was Tai.  Pretty much guaranteed 15-20 points a game.  But he needs help.

Need three scorers a game.  Last night we might of have 1.5.

On to Minnesota :o

hhcmatt

hhcmatt

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Notes

 

*-Tai Webster reached double figures for the 29th straight game, finishing with 17 points, along with team highs in rebounds (eight), assists (five) and steals (four).
*-With 17 points tonight,  Webster passed Cary Cochran (1,081; 1999-2002) for 26th on NU’s career scoring list,  as Webster now has 1,085 career points.
*-Webster’s four steals matched his season high set at Indiana (12/28) and vs. Iowa (1/5)
*-Illinois’ 13 3-pointers were the second-highest total allowed by Nebraska this season (14, Purdue). Over the previous three games, NU had limited its opponents to just 13-of-52 (.250) from 3-point range.
*-Nebraska enjoyed a 34-31 advantage on the boards, and has been out-rebounded once in its last eight contests.

hhcmatt

hhcmatt

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Post game quotes

 

 

Head Coach Tim Miles
On the structure of the defense
“There’s a lot of things that went into it tonight, but there is a reason this happens. You only get so lucky so many times. I thought tonight, for instance, our carelessness with the ball lead into some easy threes. I thought we lost our discipline defensively several times, to me several is like six or seven that led to open shots and they hit three or four threes there. We doubled the post some and gave one up there, so that’s schematic for sure. I was very conservative tonight, we had one day of practice. I felt like maybe we should take some of our bigger wings off a guy like Coleman-Lands or even Abrams, but Abrams came in shooting 17.8% from three and he goes four for five. But, after he made two it doesn't matter if he’s shooting 1%, you’ve got to get to him. I was really slow to get my point guard off Lucas, bring a bigger wing onto Lucas who’s more of a non-threat from three and you’ve just got to stay in front of him. And that hurt us, too because then I put our guys in some bad situations.”

On Glynn Watson’s performance
“I think part of it was Lucas, and Glynn will ruminate, too. He’ll overthink it a bit, and he ran away from the ball about three or four times in the second half where he gave it to Tai early for Tai to initiate offense and that tells you something without telling you anything. I thought they did a really good job on him, they obviously made him a huge key.

Michael Jacobson and Jeriah Horne
On Illinois’ three pointers
Jacobson: “I guess I don’t know, we’ll have to go back and look at it on the film. It’s hard to say, there’s only so many times you can blame it on that. You’ve gotta start looking at yourselves and start looking in the mirror a bit.

On the defensive structure
Jacobson: To be honest, I don't think we need a structural change because if you look at other teams that play the pack (line), Virginia probably being the most notorious one, they seem to do a pretty good job every year. They seem to always be really good and always be in the NCAA tournament and making runs there. I don’t think it’s anything structurally, I think we’ve got to figure it out. I don’t know what was happening, I was under the basket a little bit more so I wasn’t able to see everything and what was going on, so it’d be hard to say. I don’t know, we’ve got to figure that out.

On the pre-game mindset
Jacobson: “I thought we had a good practice yesterday, I thought we had a solid game plan going into it. I felt like we had it pretty well scouted like ‘this is what they’re gonna do, this is what they’re gonna run, this is what each player does. So, I felt like we did the right things, and I don’t know if we’re in a funk right now or what’s going on. Disappointed isn’t even the right word to get beat like we just did on the road and then come back here and have a big game. We were both six in nine and you’re fighting to stay out of the first day of playing, and to come out and do that, disappointed is not the right word.”

On the second half
Horne: “Coach and I were talking about it and I think sometimes we get so caught up in trying to hang in the game, that rather than being the one to attack first and come at them rather than sustaining punches rather than just with retaliation. I think that’s just one thing we’ve got to get better at, and you know it’s a process. We’ll get there.”

On whether or not they got the shots they wanted
Horne: “I feel like at times we did. I know their zone kind of slowed us down a little bit when they changed that the first half. In the second half, I feel like they didn’t really run too much more zone because we started to get a feel for it. Especially when we’ve got the ball up high we’ve got to duck down to Jordy, that’s one of the plays that stands out to me. So, I think we can always get better looks but I think for the most part we had pretty good looks.”

Blindcheck

Blindcheck

Posted
Posted
30 minutes ago, Handy Johnson said:

We have very few players who can shoot off the dribble or create their own shot, and that came through in Spades last night.

 

And when you have no ball movement when you have those type of players, it seems mystifying to me.

 

With our bodies like Morrow, Jacobsen and Jordy.....I would think the mover blocker offense might be a way to get guys open (both rolling to the hoop and shots off screens)

1sdpad2

1sdpad2

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I wasn't too impressed with Coach Miles dropping the "who the f do you think you are" on camera to Roby.  When the going gets tough Coach always seems to have to find a fall person to take the blame.  I wish he'd stop playing these games and let people play, similar to what he has forced to do with injuries earlier.  It evened bled over into the coaching staff last night when he was yelling at Coach Hunter and made him sit by him after the next time out.  It was kind of funny seeing Coach Hunter get up and move to his normal spot a few seats down, kind of like a player would do.   I'm not a big fan of treating people like this.  To each their own.  I've enjoyed how much the team has competed this year.  It has been more enjoyable when Coach Miles sits in the back seat and lets the kids play.

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, 1sdpad2 said:

I wasn't too impressed with Coach Miles dropping the "who the f do you think you are" on camera to Roby.  When the going gets tough Coach always seems to have to find a fall person to take the blame.  I wish he'd stop playing these games and let people play, similar to what he has forced to do with injuries earlier.  It evened bled over into the coaching staff last night when he was yelling at Coach Hunter and made him sit by him after the next time out.  It was kind of funny seeing Coach Hunter get up and move to his normal spot a few seats down, kind of like a player would do.   I'm not a big fan of treating people like this.  To each their own.  I've enjoyed how much the team has competed this year.  It has been more enjoyable when Coach Miles sits in the back seat and lets the kids play.

 

Is your issue that he did it on camera?  Or just that he dropped an "F" bomb on a player?  I don't suppose he realized he was on camera.  He just called a :30 to chew someone out.  I suspect he wasn't looking to see if he was on camera or not.

 

It's interesting. 

 

Complaint A:  We have terrible 3-point defense.

 

Complaint B:  Miles has a certain player to be the target of his abuse every year (a "fall person").

 

Complaint C:  Miles yanks kids as soon as they make a mistake and won't "let them play."

 

As to that episode where Miles called the :30 in order to chew out Roby:  I mean, you know we've kinda been hearing a lot about our bad 3-point defense, right?  When Miles called the TO, Roby had been in the game for exactly 1:11.  During that time, he had played just two defensive possessions and both times, he sagged too far off his guy.  The second of those times, his guy took the shot and buried it.  Miles calls the TO, but he doesn't pull Roby at that point.

 

Exactly one defensive possession later, Roby again plays too far off his guy and the dude shoots it over top of Roby and buries it again.  That's 6 straight Illinois points on two straight 3 pointers given up by one player.

 

So, what do you want?  Do you want Miles to just say nothing?  Or politely ask his players if they feel up to playing defense?  Are you OK with us continuing to have bad 3-point defense and just blaming Coach Mo for it?  Is that easier?  More fair?  A better way of "treating people?"  Is that approach going to result in better 3-point defense?

 

Or am I just imagining that 3-point D is a problem and that MBPs keep bringing it up?

Edited by Norm Peterson
Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

Posted
Posted

And speaking of morons (and, by "morons" I mean those people who continue to blame Coach Mo for the 3-point defense struggles), would any of you be willing to go look at the film of the Illinois game and tell me where the schematic breakdowns were in our 3-point defense?  Perhaps you could put together a couple of gifs and show what it is we're doing wrong that's enabled our opponents to shoot so well against us.

 

Because, y'know, that'll go a whole lot further in helping explain our troubles than just looking at a percentage allowed and a national rank and trying to draw conclusions from a couple of isolated stats.

 

Anyone game?

 

(I am REALLY HOPING someone can find some film and create a gif of Coach Mo being out of position and giving up a ton of threes.  That'd be really great.)

hhcmatt

hhcmatt

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52 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

Anyone game?

 

These were already out there. Here are 3 of Tracy Abram's 5 attempts (he went 4-5)

One was wide open, the other two covered by Tai. You tell me how well we closed out on him.

 

 

 

 

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