uneblinstu's post game chatter: ed 5, vol 19 - Illinois

[uneblinstu]

- Rough night all around. Crowd wasn't into it. The athletic department has no idea how to run the sort of promotion they wanted to run tonight. The product on the floor wasn't much better. Shields got an education on what it means to be the guy.

- We got completely dominated on the boards tonight.

- At one point in the first half, the Huskers were 7/14 from the field. They finished the half 7/23 and the game 14/44. That's not good. They had stretches of 8:55 and 8:11 without a field goal to end each half. Also, not good.

- D.J. Richardson was a man tonight. We had no answer. He's good, but he's not as good as he was tonight. He played like he was unstoppable. He's not, but kudos to him, he played great tonight.- Shields got a lesson in what it's going to take to be the man. Illinois had a good plan and took him out of the game early, foul trouble didn't help. He'll be fine, he'll learn, but he had a rough go tonight.

- I'd say the Huskers did a nice job of getting to the line tonight, but I'm not sure that's true. That crew was terrible. NU made enough of it's own mistakes.

- Illinois has a roster full of athletes. NU's needs more of that. I think we've got some on the way, gonna take a couple of classes to get all the way there.

- Disappointed that we can't come out and play well to start games at home. Not sure why that is. Sounded like coach didn't know either.

- 14 turnovers, five assists isn't good.

That's all for tonight.

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[Huskerpapa]

My momma done teach me that if I ain't got nothing good to say, I shouldn' say anything.  So I ain't got nothing to say other than...the Husker team did not show up ready to play.  I guess I struggle to understand that.  I understand that Illinois had more talent...but that does not excuse our effort.  A shout out to Jordan Tyrance for his effort and possibly to Ubel...possibly Talley, but that is just about it.  Oh and one other thing...those refs sucked.

[49r]

Momma told me there'd be days like this.

[GoBigRed]

I don't expect us to win much. And I know almost every Big Ten team we play is more talented than us. But we let the likes of Illinois and Purdue come in and outwork us on our home court. Illinois is pretty good, not great. Purdue is ok, nothing special. On our home court, we should be taking these teams down to the wire. Don't tell me the ability is not there. We hung around at Michigan. We hung around at Michigan State. We won at Penn State. We compete on the road, but not so much at home aside from Wisconsin. Time for an attitude adjustment at home. Can't let teams just walk in and have their way on our own court. Are we overachieving in those games on the road? Absolutely. But this is our gym. We need to have better starts. Purdue and Illinois jumped us on early. We didn't let Wisconsin.

 

Of course, it would help if the referees just let the damn kids play. 42 fouls called tonight? An average of more than 1 per minute. Good grief. Great flow to a game.

[hskr4life]

It did not help that the refs took the MO out of our hands every time we traied to gain some back.  They did not lose us the game, but they cost us a chance to win it if that makes sense.

[tcp]

I think they played hard. I think they were also wildly outgunned by an athletically superior team that played well enough to win by 20.

 

We couldn't keep bodies on them under the boards for more than a second or so, and that was huge. we were getting people to box out, we just couldn't hold the position. they could go around or over at will, and in the first half, the refs weren't blowing the whistle inside as much as they would in the second half (which was insane, btw).

 

Illinois played pretty well defensively, too.

 

Interesting thing about this game was the two faces of Illini hoops. Saw both the team that stormed out early in the season (first half and last 7 minutes) as well as the team that could tune out and screw up the last two weeks.

 

Illinois dialed in is as good as anyone in the league.

 

True to almost everyone's prediction, Shavon got gameplanned tonight, and it showed. I love the fact that eventually he shook it off and began playing his game again, especially around the boards. It's not often to see a freshman make that adjustment in the same game, and while people may be disappointed with the box score, that's a big deal.

 

This was the first time I really felt sorry for Andre. I've been hard on him for being a bit of a head case this year, but honestly, I get the frustration. That guy is being whistled simply for existence. I know I couldn't play any game under those conditions, and it's amazing he hasn't drawn technicals on the floor yet. I would've been kicked out tonight. Maybe even twice!

 

My meta observation is that the B1G is in the middle of becoming a more athletic conference in addition to being a well-coached conference, but the officiating crews are still calling games like it's the frigging Ivy League. Delaney needs to get on that. I didn't like it last year; I like it even less this year. And it's going to cause an issue both with fans and top flight athletes who don't want to watch or play under a barrage of inconsistent whistles. There's no favoritism that I can see, just a game style that's a bit over the heads of the guys in stripes.

 

On to Northwestern, where we really do have a chance at a home win. We have got to keep working on creating better shots. Need much better passing to win than we had tonight. Probably our worst aspect in tonight's game was our inability to pass against the lane defense.

[Silverbacked1]

Both coaches being rung up tells volumes about how the game was called.

[49r]

Totally agree with your observations, tcp.  Well done.

[tcp]

Totally agree with your observations, tcp.  Well done.

 

thanks. I usually don't do game reviews here, but I just sorta took mental notes tonight as a way of retaining my fan sanity.

[HuskerBB]

Main thing tonight is we just got dominated athletically.   Illinois just kept after us with athletes and we could not match up.  I really thought for much of the game we did a good job keeping it from getting away from us - but just could not get over the hump.  Every time we got within reach we would have another bad span and fall behind by double digits again.

 

Good learning experience for Shavon - went from a game were everthing went right for him to a game when nothing went right.  Hopefully he will learn from that and find ways to play through it on those nights when he struggles.  Obviously at this point in his career he is neither as good as he looked at PSU or as bad as he looked tonight.  (Could say the same thing about our team overall.)

 

We have to find ways to get Gallegos shots.  I know he shot a bad percentage tonight (as did the whole team) but if Ray is not getting decent looks then our offense is simply not working.  I don't ever expect him to shoot a great percentage but we are not a good shooting team in any spot.  Both Purdue and Illinois switched on the screens for him and were able to do so with athletes who could match up with him.   We need to find a way to address that as other teams with good athlete will do the same thing.  When we fell behind tonight the most likely way for us to get back in it would be for Ray to get hot - but that can only happen if we get him shots.

 

The other problem for us offensively tonight was Illinois knew they could really pressure us defensively knowing we had no one who could consistently beat them off the dribble one on one.  That is one of our areas of deficiency that stands out against really athletic teams.

 

Refs were bad but did not view it as that one-sided.  Early they were letting teams play very physically and then came out of a time out with two very quick whistles and that inconsistency kept them from ever really having control of the game. But the two really bad calls that stand out to me went each way - both involving Ubel - his flop on the charge and the 4th foul they called on him when he had a clean block.   In any event we had alot bigger problems tonight than the refs.

 

As we have said repeatedly we are going to have these kind of nights this year.  Just a function of where we are at talent wise.  We just need to battle and hope our younger guys learn from the experience.

[GoBigRed]

Both coaches being rung up tells volumes about how the game was called.

 

Lots of bad calls on both teams. A few on us were the one where Brandon swatted a guy driving out of control and it was called from ref on far side who Brandon had his back to. There may have been contact, but it certainly wasn't from Brandon. Another was Andre trying to get position in the post on the offensive end. Illinois player ran up his back and fell over and drew a foul. What? I do feel bad for the giant. Being the biggest guy on the court isn't always the greatest thing.

[tcp]

The call against Andre on his steal was one of the worst calls I've seen this season in any game. Brandon's block was up there. The call on the Ilini player on the sideline was horrendous also. This was a flat out poorly officiated game. Seeing a lot of that in the conference, and I'm guessing it's a significant style issue. Refs trained for a type of basketball that's quickly leaving the conference.

[GoBigRed]

Refs just look at the box score. You called a foul on average less than a minute apart the whole game. And this wasn't even a game where a team had to foul 5 times at the end to drag the game out. Unbelievable. They really should be embarrassed at their performance. People don't pay to watch the stripes. Whistle the obvious, warn the subtle, and get out of the way of the athletes.

[PAhusker]

sometimes i buy into the notion of technicals providing a spark etc, but i'm sorry,i thought that technical was extremely selfish at that point in the game with the way everything was going at the time

[uneblinstu]

It did not help that the refs took the MO out of our hands every time we traied to gain some back.  They did not lose us the game, but they cost us a chance to win it if that makes sense.

Yeah, but Illinois also hit some big shots when we got close a couple of times. 

[huskerbaseball13]

We didn't play well enough to beat a solid team....but at home especially...we need a little help from the refs this year.  We got none last night.  After Groce got teed up almost every call when to Illinois way.  Illinois clumsy guard trips over Almeida's feet when he has his back to the basket...and then of course when we had the momentum and got a clean steal they call a foul on Almeida.  A few miss calls back to back after that and I understand why Miles was tee'd up. 

[huskerbaseball13]

sometimes i buy into the notion of technicals providing a spark etc, but i'm sorry,i thought that technical was extremely selfish at that point in the game with the way everything was going at the time

 

We were down 12 with a little over 7 minutes left...surely not a large enough defecit to throw in the towel but this team...especially with the way the refs were calling the game had zero to little chance to comeback and win the game.  Illinois little run after we had the momentum to get up 12 was a direct result of some terrible calls by the refs.  Miles needed to let the refs have it...especially after Groce did the same and then all of the sudden the refs calls started to favor the Illini. 

[Huskerpapa]

Dare I say...we were not prepared for that game.  I mean that from multiple levels.  We should have come off our Penn State win on the road and played with fire and direction...that did not happen.  I was sooo frustrated by our inability to rebound...soooooo frustrated.

[TheGov21]

The call against Andre on his steal was one of the worst calls I've seen this season in any game. Brandon's block was up there. The call on the Ilini player on the sideline was horrendous also. This was a flat out poorly officiated game. Seeing a lot of that in the conference, and I'm guessing it's a significant style issue. Refs trained for a type of basketball that's quickly leaving the conference.

 

What made this call even worse was the ref that called it was shielded from the play.  But yet the ref that had the clear view let the play go.  That is the thing that really drives me nuts about officiating. 

[hhcmatt]

Refs just look at the box score. You called a foul on average less than a minute apart the whole game. And this wasn't even a game where a team had to foul 5 times at the end to drag the game out. Unbelievable. They really should be embarrassed at their performance. People don't pay to watch the stripes. Whistle the obvious, warn the subtle, and get out of the way of the athletes.

 

Nebraska came into the game averaging 14.3 FT attempts per game - they shot 30.  Illinois came in shooting 19 and took 21.

Yes it was a horribly reffed game but other than severely limiting Shield's minutes it overall benefited the Huskers.

 

I was booing the refs like everyone else at the Bob. However, they were not the reason we didn't make a FG in the last 8 minutes of both halfs, which is really why we lost this game.

 

Illinois had a full week off after being punked in the B1G to prepare for Nebraska.  Nebraska had to cut practice short on Monday and won't be practicing on Wednesday because the team is a bit warn down.  We had to come out and jump on Illinois to start this game and we didn't.  

[jimmykc]

Striping the crowd=Worst promotional idea at BSDC since employing Marco the Mime to pump up the enthusiasm.  

[hhcmatt]

Striping the crowd=Worst promotional idea at BSDC since employing Marco the Mime to pump up the enthusiasm.  

 

A rare miss by JimmyKC

 

[Silverbacked1]

Yeah the striping didn't work.

 

It was a fairly good effort by the B section though.

 

I think we as a crowd are worn down too, no energy, even the Red Zone had no life last night.

 

We did make the one run and the crowd was into it, but we then gave up a bucket or two and we go back to sitting on our hands, me included.

[TheGov21]

Striping the crowd=Worst promotional idea at BSDC since employing Marco the Mime to pump up the enthusiasm.  

 

Promotions like Stripe the Bob or even a white out or black out or anything else similar to that won't work at Nebraska.  Mainly becuase Husker fans take so much pride in wearing red to games.  Heck I don't own a white husker shirt and I saw a few of you guys post that you don't either.

 

Heck remember last year for the football game at Wisconsin where TO encouraged fans to wear black, and nobody really did. 

 

But you have to I guess give some credit for trying????

[Silverbacked1]

Kind of like you can always tell a Husker Fan,  you just can't tell them much.

 

Change is bad.