uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 11; ed 14 - @ Maryland

[hhcmatt]

If you want a silver lining to all of this these sorts of road games against mid-level Big 10 teams are the types of games we need to figure out how to win in March and one very good teacher is failure.  As long as the conference doesn't break the Huskers physically this is going to be a tough as iron team in March.

[Jugular]

It’s definitely a tough loss and we had our chances, I definitely agree with that. But there are so many people that act like we are on the same level as a KU or MSU and that we are superior to everyone we play. Look at 3 of our best teams in our history and some of the losses we had those years. It’s a good thing we didn’t have message boards or twitter back then!

 

1990-91:

Lost by 17 @Colorado (5-9 in conference)

Lost at home to unranked OSU by 13

Lost by 20 at unranked Missouri

Lost to unranked Missouri by 8 in B8 title game

 

1992-1993:

Lost @USC by 10 (they were NIT team)

Lost 109-80 to SW Louisiana in Hawaii (they were 17-13)

Lost at home to KSU by 2 (6 seed)

Lost @OSU by 5 (5 seed)

Lost @ISU by 3 (8 seed)

Lost at home by 10 to OSU

Lost to KSU 47-45 in B8 Tourney

 

1993-1994:

Lost at Appalachian St by 9 (16-11 record)

Lost at Colorado by 5. (10-17 record)

Lost at home to Mizzou by 16 (ranked 24)

Lost at home to unranked OU by 3 (didn’t make NCAA)

Lost at unranked OSU by 18

[hskr4life]

All of our goals.... every single one of them... are still in play.  Win the Big 10 regular season?  Still in play.  Tougher?  Yes.  Still in play? Yes.

 

Top 4 seed in Big 10 tournaments... win Big 10 tournament.... protected NCAA seed... first NCAA win... all still in play.

[Handy Johnson]

44 minutes ago, Jugular said:

It’s definitely a tough loss and we had our chances, I definitely agree with that. But there are so many people that act like we are on the same level as a KU or MSU and that we are superior to everyone we play. Look at 3 of our best teams in our history and some of the losses we had those years. It’s a good thing we didn’t have message boards or twitter back then!

 

1990-91:

Lost by 17 @Colorado (5-9 in conference)

Lost at home to unranked OSU by 13

Lost by 20 at unranked Missouri

Lost to unranked Missouri by 8 in B8 title game

 

1992-1993:

Lost @USC by 10 (they were NIT team)

Lost 109-80 to SW Louisiana in Hawaii (they were 17-13)

Lost at home to KSU by 2 (6 seed)

Lost @OSU by 5 (5 seed)

Lost @ISU by 3 (8 seed)

Lost at home by 10 to OSU

Lost to KSU 47-45 in B8 Tourney

 

1993-1994:

Lost at Appalachian St by 9 (16-11 record)

Lost at Colorado by 5. (10-17 record)

Lost at home to Mizzou by 16 (ranked 24)

Lost at home to unranked OU by 3 (didn’t make NCAA)

Lost at unranked OSU by 18

Why does the "Fake News" crowd always have to muddy up the water by bringing "facts" into the discussion? Jeez...

[Coaches kid]

Hard to swallow that one, but resiliency and mental toughness will be essential to surviving the conference schedule. From a layman's perspective, there are a couple of common threads to the two conference road losses: 1) the most glaring one is the offense stalls when JPJ decides to go into ISO mode. We obviously want JPJ to be attacking the rim, but I think the way in which he attacks is the key issue. Things go more smoothly when he's attacking off of dribble hand offs or coming off of screens and catching the ball on the wing - situations where he's already on the move. The dry spells against Maryland (and Minnesota) came when he gets dribble happy and stands in place or even backs away from the hoop in an attempt to find driving lanes. In those cases, everybody stands around watching James dribble or we get a late high screen which actually brings another defender to the ball, and most of the time, those possessions don't end well. I think James has to learn to give the ball up quickly when the driving lane isn't there. We have enough guys who can score when the ball moves. For instance, they ran several sets where James had the ball at the point, and Cope ran out and slip screened to the top of the key. I can't remember one time where James gave the ball up to Cope. We just don't score when the ball doesn't move; 2) defensively, when we can't stop the ball from getting into the lane, or are not aggressive when it gets there, we don't get stops. When we do cause a miss, we don't finish the possession by getting a rebound. Granted, Fernando is a tough guard, and Maryland shot it better than expected. That said, I'd rather force the issue by aggressively double-teaming or hedging off of ball screens. I could be entirely off base ( and probably am), but that's the way I see it. 

 

We can beat Iowa, and I think we're a better team (straight-up) than Maryland. Win the next game and move on.   

[HuskerPower #nato73]

According to USA Bracketologist our losses are versus 3 seed (neutral) and an 8 and 10 seed on the road.

 

We own a road win versus a 10 and home wins versus a 6 and 9.

 

We should have won one of these early road games and Iowa will not be a cakewalk, but it is remarkable how this season is so different than last.  My target is still 9-1 home and 3-7 road.

 

That would be 22-9 and like a 6 or 7 seed.

Edited January 4, 2019 by HuskerPower #nato73

[NUtball]

Adding to the previous posts about the Three Stooges' inconsistencies, Limbo, or Lindo, or whatever his name was, had both hands on the guy he was guarding the entire game and I don't think it was called once.  That particular Stoogian 'Point of Emphasis' from last year or the year before seems to have gone the way of the dodo.

 

Still, NU had plenty of free throw opportunities to win the game but ended up lofting bricks at the rim most of the game.

[jdw]

19 hours ago, LNKtrnsplnt said:

Just watched. I know I’m in the minority but dudes looked gassed.  Barely went to the bench in the second half. No nana. No Brady. Just tanner a few minutes. 

 

TA/cope need more looks. Palmer is great, but tonight his eyes seemed set on the nba scouts. 

If they are gassed they must be sick because it they have only played 4 games in the last month.

[jdw]

15 hours ago, PimpMario said:

?  Most coaches don't lose most 50-50 games down the stretch.  I would settle for winning 50 percent of them.

Like last year where we went 6 and two in games decided two possessions or less.

[49r]

21 hours ago, 49r said:

 

Those were bad I agree but I saw a few times JPJ could have passed the ball for wide open looks where he didn't and got a turnover instead.  I love the guy but sometimes he has to realize when he's triple teamed there's a couple of wide open guys he can pass too...

 

...having said that, it is also not lost on me that JPJ was playing 20 miles away from his home town and probably had a ton of friends and family at the game.  I'm sure he wanted to have a big night for them, so I can see where maybe some of the (for want of a better term) selfish play came from.

[HuskerFever]

I'm not a subscriber, but the headline is either clickbait or self-explanatory:

 

The 1-3-1 zone is Tim Miles' biggest 'regret' from the Maryland loss. So why'd the Huskers stay with it?

 

https://www.omaha.com/huskers/plus/the-----zone-is-tim-miles-biggest/article_d8d3d440-5152-5e16-ba7b-83389763252b.html

[throwback]

6 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

I'm not a subscriber, but the headline is either clickbait or self-explanatory:

 

The 1-3-1 zone is Tim Miles' biggest 'regret' from the Maryland loss. So why'd the Huskers stay with it?

 

https://www.omaha.com/huskers/plus/the-----zone-is-tim-miles-biggest/article_d8d3d440-5152-5e16-ba7b-83389763252b.html

On his call-in show Thursday, he said he was second-guessing playing 1-3-1 on the last possession - but he also said Allen didn't take a good angle to Smith at the FT line, needed to cut off his driving lane. I think he may even had said he still was feeling 50/50 on whether they should've played man or zone on the last possession, even in hindsight. 

 

Not sure if that's what the article is referring to.

 

[36red]

On 1/2/2019 at 11:57 PM, jimmychitwood said:

One of the things that’s hurts the team in close games is Palmer cheating/freelancing on defense. If you look at a lot of the situations where the D has to go into scramble mode, it’s because he lost track of his man while trying to make a play on or watching where the ball is. A perfect example is when he lost Cowan at the top of the key for a layup because he was looking at the ball in the post. In a blowout those mistakes are hidden but giving up those two easy points were huge tonight.

That is kind of what happened at Minnesota.  Palmer was unable to stay in front of Amir Coffey and stop his dribble drive the entire night.  It changed the game.  Palmer is a great player and does many great things.  Sometimes though like lots of players he lets frustration with his offense bleed over into his defensive effort.  To be fair, he plays so many minutes that I am sure fatigue is a factor especially late in games .

[36red]

14 hours ago, avfan2121 said:

Not to be ref guy, but did it bother anyone else that we were called for 2 or 3 questionable "trip" fouls and then Allen was clearly tripped on the way to a layup, turned it over, and Maryland hit a 3 to  tie it on their 10-2 run? That felt like a big turning point to me. Of course there were a lot of other things that went wrong.

Whatever happened to calling someone for 3 seconds? Fernando was  in the lane an eternity last night.  Other guys get away with the same thing like Ethan Happ and Jordan Murphy. It makes getting defensive rebounds so much harder when the refs don't enforce this call.

[Coaches kid]

8 hours ago, 36red said:

Whatever happened to calling someone for 3 seconds? Fernando was  in the lane an eternity last night.  Other guys get away with the same thing like Ethan Happ and Jordan Murphy. It makes getting defensive rebounds so much harder when the refs don't enforce this call.

This is spot on. There were several possessions where it seemed like Fernando spent at least 3 seconds dribbling in the lane while backing the defender down. My son also noticed that Fernando preferred to turn to the baseline and didn't want to pivot to the middle. I remember being at Hastings College basketball camp with Coach Doc Farrell (that really dates me). He taught that when you're being backed down, the key was to make the post player pick up his dribble and force the issue before he got too close to the hoop - anything to disrupt him to make the offensive player commit before he wanted to. Once Fernando got too low, there really wasn't much you could do to stop him. If you can't make him pick up the dribble man-to-man, you can bring help. I would still have rather doubled him aggressively, as I don't think he's a great passer from the post.  It will be interesting to see how we play him when they visit PBA in February. 

[Ron Mexico]

I intentionally stayed away for a couple of days so that I would not react emotionally.

1. This is not the 2017-2018 BIG. Winning on the road is going to be extremely tough and when we get one we just need to be happy and move on to the next game.

2. Maryland deserved that win. They outplayed us. They also shot better from the 3 than they had all season.

3. Our defense just wasn't there for this game. Fernando's play had an impact on that.

4. 2 key factors caused us this game: a.) 4 shots attempted by Isaac; b.) JPJ disappearance from our offense for a large chunk of time at the end of the first half.

5. 9 minutes for Nana?

6. Welcome to the BIG Brady.

7. Poor decision by the coaching staff to not adjust the defense to stop Fernando.

8 Poor timing by the coaching staff to go to 1-3-1 down the stretch.

9. In our 3 losses our bench as averaged about 30min vs 40min in our wins.

10. We need Amir back.

 

I'm hoping that this game was the result of, prior to this game, having only played 3 games since Dec 16. 

Despite losing the game we were still in a position to win. 

Close game on the road, despite playing poorly. This team is going to be in every game.

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by Ron Mexico

[PimpMario]

On 1/3/2019 at 10:53 AM, royalfan said:

Their inclusion isn't arbitrary in a bucket of 6.  The bucket of 6 is arbitrary though.  

I can't argue with that logic. 

[Husker4theSpurs]

What a bear of a conference this is going to be this year ... not necessarily because of the talent but because of how many minutes our key guys are going to end up playing. The story vs Maryland was rebounding and a bit about our free throw shooting.

I was pretty impressed with play call to end the game however. If Glynn gets that pick set or even just a brush, that play works! Must've been drawn up by Michael Lewis.

Gonna have to earn the road wins. We need some wins of note. I would hate to be sitting around 0.500 in the conference and not have any wow wins.

[hskr4life]

1 hour ago, Husker4theSpurs said:

What a bear of a conference this is going to be this year ... not necessarily because of the talent but because of how many minutes our key guys are going to end up playing. The story vs Maryland was rebounding and a bit about our free throw shooting.

I was pretty impressed with play call to end the game however. If Glynn gets that pick set or even just a brush, that play works! Must've been drawn up by Michael Lewis.

Gonna have to earn the road wins. We need some wins of note. I would hate to be sitting around 0.500 in the conference and not have any wow wins.

 

Nice shot at Miles in there.  Solid work!

[Husker4theSpurs]

4 hours ago, hskr4life said:

 

Nice shot at Miles in there.  Solid work!

It definitely is a shot at Miles. We deserve a coach that knows Xs and Os and I don't feel he is that person ... haven't for about 5 years now.

[Art Vandalay]

Barry Collier was real good at Xs and Os

[49r]

Doc Sadler was great at X's and O's

 

Never finished above .500 in conference play.

[Husker4theSpurs]

I didn't say JUST Xs and Os ... but a basis of Xs and Os. Of course one needs more than that. I love how you all jump to defend Miles in a heartbeat. Save that 4 week run in 2014, his record is atrocious. Three losing seasons in a row for the first time since the early 1950s. All of this in spite of everyone saying the talent has never been higher, including a balleyhooed class that is half gone that Miles himself said would be the basis for how his tenure ends up.

When was the last time we didn't lob the ball out to half court inbounding under the hoop?

When was the last time you saw someone grow and develop over time here and reach their full potential? From what I can Miles basically just sells playing time and a wide open offense without any structure to people who are unhappy elsewhere. Even Tai didn't really improve that much over time, but rather was just allowed to do whatever he wanted by his senior year because we had few other options on offense.

I want us to succeed as much as anyone guys, but I'm not seeing a long term trend here that I like. I've been a season ticket holder for almost 27 years on one level or another. Regardless of what happens this year, what does next year look like?

[hskr4life]

1 hour ago, Husker4theSpurs said:

I didn't say JUST Xs and Os ... but a basis of Xs and Os. Of course one needs more than that. I love how you all jump to defend Miles in a heartbeat.   It's really no different than you jumping down his throat every time we lose.  We just see the positives that he is doing combined with the negatives.  Save that 4 week run in 2014, his record is atrocious.   Prior to last season... this was correct.  However, this year and last year, Miles is 33-15.  If that's atrocious... sign me up! Three losing seasons in a row for the first time since the early 1950s.   Combined with our first time dancing since I can remember, a season with nearly a school record for wins, and an 11-4 start to the following season.  All of this in spite of everyone saying the talent has never been higher, including a balleyhooed class that is half gone that Miles himself said would be the basis for how his tenure ends up.  Correct... the talent is almost the best we have ever had.  Looking at our history however, we haven't had a ton of talent.  So to be the best we have ever had and be a college basketball juggernaut is two different things.

When was the last time we didn't lob the ball out to half court inbounding under the hoop?  Yesterday...

When was the last time you saw someone grow and develop over time here and reach their full potential? From what I can Miles basically just sells playing time and a wide open offense without any structure to people who are unhappy elsewhere. Even Tai didn't really improve that much over time, but rather was just allowed to do whatever he wanted by his senior year because we had few other options on offense.  Tai, Shields, Watson, Copeland, Thomas Allen so far... See here is another problem... you fail to give credit to Miles for anything good that he does.  It always has to be "something else" or "an outside factor" in why a good thing happened.  However, when it's bad... it's always "Miles."

I want us to succeed as much as anyone guys, but I'm not seeing a long term trend here that I like. I've been a season ticket holder for almost 27 years on one level or another. Regardless of what happens this year, what does next year look like?  Oh I don't know, we have a probable starter this year sitting on the bench because he transferred here.  We have arguably the best JUCO guard in the country coming in, and we'll likely still have Nana, Allen, and Roby.  Still room to add more as well!

 

Edited January 7, 2019 by hskr4life

[Art Vandalay]

1 hour ago, Husker4theSpurs said:

I didn't say JUST Xs and Os ... but a basis of Xs and Os. Of course one needs more than that. I love how you all jump to defend Miles in a heartbeat. Save that 4 week run in 2014, his record is atrocious. Three losing seasons in a row for the first time since the early 1950s. All of this in spite of everyone saying the talent has never been higher, including a balleyhooed class that is half gone that Miles himself said would be the basis for how his tenure ends up.

When was the last time we didn't lob the ball out to half court inbounding under the hoop?

When was the last time you saw someone grow and develop over time here and reach their full potential? From what I can Miles basically just sells playing time and a wide open offense without any structure to people who are unhappy elsewhere. Even Tai didn't really improve that much over time, but rather was just allowed to do whatever he wanted by his senior year because we had few other options on offense.

I want us to succeed as much as anyone guys, but I'm not seeing a long term trend here that I like. I've been a season ticket holder for almost 27 years on one level or another. Regardless of what happens this year, what does next year look like?

 

Man, you really have negative blinders if you believe all that. hskr4life addressed a lot but could add so much more with ease. I am not saying he is John Wooden but if you can not admit he did a very good job his first two season here I am not sure what you have watched for 27 years. Then he had 3 poor seasons, some of that is squarely on him and some was bad luck. Now he is looking real good again the last two seasons. Tai (absolutely improved to say otherwise is flat wrong), Benny, Rivers, Petteway, Palmer, Evan Taylor, TA, ROBY are all players who have improved here no question at all. 

 

You sound like someone who has a personal issue with Miles, he could win the Big10 and go to sweet 16 and you would want him out. That sounds irrational to me and the kind of argument you see in political discussions, absolutely not considering the other side of the aisle at all.  It will play out soon enough, he gets it done in the tourney and stays or Moos will move on and you will get your wish. No need to pile on every time something bad happens, how is that even enjoyable as a fan?