Wisconsin (14-6) vs. Nebraska (13-7) Game Thread

[jason2486]

5 minutes ago, B-town hoopsfan said:

Pettaway and pitchford also did it. Not sure who else 

Oh duh! My bad, I was thinking only about guys transferring a 2nd time!

[huskerbaseball13]

10 hours ago, ladyhusker said:

Said it earlier, will say it again. If you have a high major college basketball team, in position to score with the ball literally next to the basket, and you fail to do that 15 times in a single game, that's not a problem with being outcoached, that's a problem with your players. At some point there has to be some sort of personal responsibility from them, no? A layup is a fairly basic skill and I guess I feel like should be an assumed given. If we make 7 of the 15 we missed tonight, we win. And as we know layups are in fact in these players' skill sets, since they made them in bunches earlier in the season, I don't think the problem is recruiting guys who can make easy buckets. When is it fair to call out the players who appear to lack the discipline to do the most basic thing in all of basketball?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 

 

Effective FG%- Where we rank by team in conference play under Tim Miles

 

We have yet to finish in the top half of the conference in this department.  Not saying the players aren't culpable but for everybody that has said how well Miles has recruited here, it really hasn't show up on that side of the ball.  And, I don't think it's a talent issue.  If you just sit back and watch a full day of basketball on Saturday you will see that we are lacking in the X's and O's department.

 

There is a reason why very long scoring droughts have been a thing under Miles and as to why we very often find ourselves having to play hero ball jacking up a contested shot before the shot clock. 

 

1st Season

#11

 

2nd Season

#8

 

3rd Season

#13

 

4th Season

#8

 

5th Season

#12

 

6th Season

#10

 

7th Season

#9

[colhusker]

12 minutes ago, B-town hoopsfan said:

Pettaway and pitchford also did it. Not sure who else 

Petteway left for a pro career not the same thing.

Pitchford liked beer more than practicing.

[jason2486]

I just read a game review from the Suns and Spurs. One line read that the Spurs "shot only 47.8% in the 4th quarter while the Suns shot 71%". What we would GIVE to shoot 47.8%!!

Edited January 30, 2019 by jason2486

[jimmykc]

Slog on men. And Cip, I felt this way about the Red Sox for 51 years...and then struck the mother lode. 

[ladyhusker]

11 hours ago, Nebrasketballer said:

In year 7, it's on Miles to have the team coached up better than this. When you have multiple players over the course of multiple seasons unable to execute some of the most fundamental aspects of basketball, that isn't just players. That's evidence of a systemic lack of quality coaching. It's evidence that players aren't completely bought in.

 

A friend of mine has been friends with multiple players under Miles and he has said for years that players hate playing for Miles. It's easy to see that in performances like this, along with the rate that players transfer out of his program (especially players that start their careers at another school and then transfer to Nebraska, but then turn around and leave Nebraska again before exhausting their eligibility). 

 

I guess I would counter that our players this year have demonstrated that they do have the ability to execute those basics. The tendency to miss bunnies at the rate we're currently seeing has appeared in more than one game, but certainly hasn't been a season-long thing. If that's the case, it seems to me that's more of a bad habit forming with the players -- lack of focus, lack of effort, something. It isn't that they're unable to do it, they're just unable to do it recently. And these aren't just random dudes pulled from the audience -- these are supposed to be some of the most skilled players in the nation. That skill should be a given. I see it more as the coach's job to scout the game, be able to understand what's coming, and select plays that have the biggest chance of success. The player's job is to execute that. You can knock some of the game plan last night in the latter stages of the game, and there's probably some fair criticism there, but if the coach called plays that end with the player directly under the basket, holding the ball, and the only thing to do is put the ball into the hoop, and the player isn't able to do that -- that's the player's responsibility, not the coach.

 

And there was an interesting study conducted, conveniently dating back to 2012, that analyzes trends in college basketball transfers. Nationally, the average is that 33% of players will transfer at some point, and in the time period studied, the average among teams who have not had a coaching change was 10.4 transfers out, with that rate increasing when a coaching change is involved. Sure enough, in that time period, we've had 11 players transfer -- which puts us smack in the average range. So if you ding Miles for players transferring out of the program at that rate, you should probably be dinging a heck of a lot more coaches as well because he's no different than the average D1 college coach in that regard. However, the study went on to examine how transfers affect the quality of roster -- which is the only area where we actually stand out as an outlier in all of D1 basketball. 

 

It goes on to show us with a cumulative 9.5 percentile change -- to the positive -- over the time period studied. So essentially it's showing that, while our transfer-out number is right at the national average, our transfer-in number has shown a pretty outstanding improvement in our roster quality. Seems as though that would be a good thing, then? If you want to look for yourself, check it out here: https://athleticdirectoru.com/articles/investigating-college-basketballs-transfer-movement/

 

Last thing: I don't doubt your friend's account that he knows guys who haven't liked playing for Miles. But that's anecdotal, and there appear to be plenty who don't mind it either (heck, Brandon Ubel is pretty much at every game now, and Benny Parker's parents come back for games without Benny even being in town -- surely if he was universally hated, they'd keep their distance rather than show up by choice to support the current team?). The players you've kind of "especially"-ed here were sort of odd circumstances -- Andrew White was pretty much lambasted both locally and, to some extent, nationally; Walt Pitchford was kind of a head-scratcher (but did wind up playing in Europe, and still comes back pretty frequently too -- which would seem to indicate he doesn't really hate Miles all that much either); Terran Petteway probably should have gone the year before, if we're being honest, but his leaving to try for the NBA was a surprise to no one. Interestingly, the consensus here seems to be that the players played harder last night than they had been -- if that's the case, I'm lost as to how last night's performance would indicate that the players dislike playing for him; it seems kind of the opposite to me, if what others have pointed out is true that they were giving more effort than less.

 

Ultimately people see what they want to see here. I like Miles. I think he's been put in some awkward spots and made the most of it, and I tend to expect a little more of the players to hold up their end of the deal too. If you don't like him, you'll see those player deficiencies as a lack of coaching, and transfer numbers higher than we've seen under previous coaches as an indictment of the coach rather than a national trend. I think the coaches put together a good game plan last night, and had the players been able to execute some pretty simple basics, we win. Unfortunately that didn't happen, and while yes, the head coach is responsible for the overall state of the program, I just think the onus of the problem last night had to do a lot more with the players' responsibility than it did with the coaches'.

[The Polish Rifle]

1 hour ago, ladyhusker said:

The tendency to miss bunnies at the rate we're currently seeing has appeared in more than one game, but certainly hasn't been a season-long thing. If that's the case, it seems to me that's more of a bad habit forming with the players -- lack of focus, lack of effort, something. It isn't that they're unable to do it, they're just unable to do it recently.

We're missing bunnies this season at a rate so poorly it hasn't been seen in the Big 10 in 5 years. It's plagued this team the entire season.

 

[Cazzie22]

14 hours ago, BBFan said:

Tanner was wide open on many pick and rolls with Palmer and Palmer doesn't even look at him.

I noticed that also and it just wasn’t Palmer who missed the screener rolling to the basket. 

[ladyhusker]

1 hour ago, The Polish Rifle said:

We're missing bunnies this season at a rate so poorly it hasn't been seen in the Big 10 in 5 years. It's plagued this team the entire season.

 

Very well could be the case and I'm just not remembering it being as big of a problem -- but this also doesn't take into account a game-by-game basis, just the season as a whole. If we started out 20-30 (67%) and then went 14-43 (32.5%), for instance (and I'm just pulling those numbers out of nowhere, I have no idea if I'm close or not), that would still result in an aFG of 47 for the season but would demonstrate a recent problem rather than a season-long one. It's an interesting stat but an incomplete one. Anyone have the ability to look on a game-by-game basis that feels so inclined to do so?

[The Polish Rifle]

2 minutes ago, ladyhusker said:

Very well could be the case and I'm just not remembering it being as big of a problem -- but this also doesn't take into account a game-by-game basis, just the season as a whole. If we started out 20-30 (67%) and then went 14-43 (32.5%), for instance (and I'm just pulling those numbers out of nowhere, I have no idea if I'm close or not), that would still result in an aFG of 47 for the season but would demonstrate a recent problem rather than a season-long one. It's an interesting stat but an incomplete one. Anyone have the ability to look on a game-by-game basis that feels so inclined to do so?

@hhcmatt Matt has the power! I would venture to guess we have been towards the bottom of the B1G in all of Miles tenure in terms of eFG%, 2 point FG%, and 2 point FG% around the rim - I don't have the stats to back it up but if someone with KenPom wants to verify that information I will give you an upvote.

[hhcmatt]

20 minutes ago, The Polish Rifle said:

@hhcmatt Matt has the power! I would venture to guess we have been towards the bottom of the B1G in all of Miles tenure in terms of eFG%, 2 point FG%, and 2 point FG% around the rim - I don't have the stats to back it up but if someone with KenPom wants to verify that information I will give you an upvote.

 

Some of the blame of our 4 game streak of poor 2p shooting can be assessed to us playing 4 games against teams with top 50 numbers in 2pt defense.  The worst ranked one, Rutgers, was at Rutgers.

 

 

Fearless prediction: we shoot better vs Illinois

[hskr4life]

41 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

 

Some of the blame of our 4 game streak of poor 2p shooting can be assessed to us playing 4 games against teams with top 50 numbers in 2pt defense.  The worst ranked one, Rutgers, was at Rutgers.

 

 

Fearless prediction: we shoot better vs Illinois

 

So 5-6 more wins before the Big 10 tournament isn't completely out of the question?

[hhcmatt]

4 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

 

So 5-6 more wins before the Big 10 tournament isn't completely out of the question?

 

Technically 0-10 wins aren't out of the question

[hskr4life]

1 hour ago, hhcmatt said:

 

Technically 0-10 wins aren't out of the question

 

 True.  Makes me feel a little better.  Looking at that chart, our only 100+ 2pt % loss was to Iowa.  So... there is still hope. 

Edited January 30, 2019 by hskr4life

[hhcmatt]

1 minute ago, hskr4life said:

 

 True.  Makes me feel a little better.  Looking at that chart, our only 100+ 2% loss was to Iowa.  So... there is still hope. 

 

Just to be clear this is how our opponents have performed defensively this year.  Efficiency wise they've have the worst defense in the conference 

[hskr4life]

Just now, hhcmatt said:

 

Just to be clear this is how our opponents have performed defensively this year.  Efficiency wise they've have the worst defense in the conference 

 

Correct.  We have the same line of thinking there.

[ladyhusker]

Thanks, @hhcmatt -- super interesting to look at! (I'll admit, I don't honestly get into a ton of the more detailed analytics like this -- like my primary concern is "did we score" and "was it more than they did".) So it would make some sense to attribute poor shooting performances, in part, to the defenses we played, but I still don't know that I see that our habit of missing bunnies/putbacks has happened recently vs spread out over the course of the season. Am I looking at the wrong thing? Is it even possible to determine that without going through a play-by-play of each game? Apparently it has to come from somewhere, for the quoted tweet to have season-long information, but I don't know how that was determined.

[hhcmatt]

2 hours ago, ladyhusker said:

Thanks, @hhcmatt -- super interesting to look at! (I'll admit, I don't honestly get into a ton of the more detailed analytics like this -- like my primary concern is "did we score" and "was it more than they did".) So it would make some sense to attribute poor shooting performances, in part, to the defenses we played, but I still don't know that I see that our habit of missing bunnies/putbacks has happened recently vs spread out over the course of the season. Am I looking at the wrong thing? Is it even possible to determine that without going through a play-by-play of each game? Apparently it has to come from somewhere, for the quoted tweet to have season-long information, but I don't know how that was determined.

 

I'm asking Planos where he gets his numbers.  Notice he is citing "putbacks", not shots at the rim.

As described by hoops-math.com, Putbacks are shots taken 4 or less seconds after an offensive rebound. They make up a smaller portion of our total shots at the rim. If you look at our overall % at the rim it's middle of the road in the B1G.  What is the definition of a "Bunny"?

 

Here is the page for Nebraska at hoops math

http://hoop-math.com/Nebraska2019.php

 

These numbers don't include last night yet and I wonder if they also don't include SW Minny because they seem a bit low for totals

 

 

This information isn't available by the game that I know of though i'd be interested in that also.

[Nebrasketballer]

On 1/30/2019 at 11:54 AM, ladyhusker said:

 

I guess I would counter that our players this year have demonstrated that they do have the ability to execute those basics. The tendency to miss bunnies at the rate we're currently seeing has appeared in more than one game, but certainly hasn't been a season-long thing. If that's the case, it seems to me that's more of a bad habit forming with the players -- lack of focus, lack of effort, something. It isn't that they're unable to do it, they're just unable to do it recently. And these aren't just random dudes pulled from the audience -- these are supposed to be some of the most skilled players in the nation. That skill should be a given. I see it more as the coach's job to scout the game, be able to understand what's coming, and select plays that have the biggest chance of success. The player's job is to execute that. You can knock some of the game plan last night in the latter stages of the game, and there's probably some fair criticism there, but if the coach called plays that end with the player directly under the basket, holding the ball, and the only thing to do is put the ball into the hoop, and the player isn't able to do that -- that's the player's responsibility, not the coach.

 

And there was an interesting study conducted, conveniently dating back to 2012, that analyzes trends in college basketball transfers. Nationally, the average is that 33% of players will transfer at some point, and in the time period studied, the average among teams who have not had a coaching change was 10.4 transfers out, with that rate increasing when a coaching change is involved. Sure enough, in that time period, we've had 11 players transfer -- which puts us smack in the average range. So if you ding Miles for players transferring out of the program at that rate, you should probably be dinging a heck of a lot more coaches as well because he's no different than the average D1 college coach in that regard. However, the study went on to examine how transfers affect the quality of roster -- which is the only area where we actually stand out as an outlier in all of D1 basketball. 

 

It goes on to show us with a cumulative 9.5 percentile change -- to the positive -- over the time period studied. So essentially it's showing that, while our transfer-out number is right at the national average, our transfer-in number has shown a pretty outstanding improvement in our roster quality. Seems as though that would be a good thing, then? If you want to look for yourself, check it out here: https://athleticdirectoru.com/articles/investigating-college-basketballs-transfer-movement/

 

Last thing: I don't doubt your friend's account that he knows guys who haven't liked playing for Miles. But that's anecdotal, and there appear to be plenty who don't mind it either (heck, Brandon Ubel is pretty much at every game now, and Benny Parker's parents come back for games without Benny even being in town -- surely if he was universally hated, they'd keep their distance rather than show up by choice to support the current team?). The players you've kind of "especially"-ed here were sort of odd circumstances -- Andrew White was pretty much lambasted both locally and, to some extent, nationally; Walt Pitchford was kind of a head-scratcher (but did wind up playing in Europe, and still comes back pretty frequently too -- which would seem to indicate he doesn't really hate Miles all that much either); Terran Petteway probably should have gone the year before, if we're being honest, but his leaving to try for the NBA was a surprise to no one. Interestingly, the consensus here seems to be that the players played harder last night than they had been -- if that's the case, I'm lost as to how last night's performance would indicate that the players dislike playing for him; it seems kind of the opposite to me, if what others have pointed out is true that they were giving more effort than less.

 

Ultimately people see what they want to see here. I like Miles. I think he's been put in some awkward spots and made the most of it, and I tend to expect a little more of the players to hold up their end of the deal too. If you don't like him, you'll see those player deficiencies as a lack of coaching, and transfer numbers higher than we've seen under previous coaches as an indictment of the coach rather than a national trend. I think the coaches put together a good game plan last night, and had the players been able to execute some pretty simple basics, we win. Unfortunately that didn't happen, and while yes, the head coach is responsible for the overall state of the program, I just think the onus of the problem last night had to do a lot more with the players' responsibility than it did with the coaches'.

The issue with Miles isn't the amount of transfers from this program. The issue is the players that transfer/leave early that are either starters, or major contributors. I can assure you that most of the players in your study that transfer either do so because they are at a higher profile school and transfer to a lower profile school for more playing time, or because they are at a low level school and have an opportunity to transfer up to a higher profile school.

 

The amount of starters/major contributors that transfer from this program under Miles is not normal.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Nebrasketballer

[Huskerpapa]

 

 

6 hours ago, Nebrasketballer said:

The issue with Miles isn't the amount of transfers from this program. The issue is the players that transfer/leave early that are either starters, or major contributors. I can assure you that most of the players in your study that transfer either do so because they are at a higher profile school and transfer to a lower profile school for more playing time, or because they are at a low level school and have an opportunity to transfer up to a higher profile school.

 

The amount of starters/major contributors that transfer from this program under Miles is not normal.

Man, I did not know that we were above the norm when it came to starters or major contributors who have transferred out.  I would like to review that database in greater detail Nebraskaballer.  Can you provide those stats or the site where we can review the info?  Thanks!