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OurDecay

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Gotta be honest, even with the 0-2 start against buy-in opponents, I expected more patience and perspective around here.

 

I mean...for goodness sakes.  You are a Nebraska BASKETBALL fan.  Pull yourself together.  You have been through decades upon decades of disappointment and heartbreak.  You are still here cheering.  Don’t lose your resolve now after a couple losses.

 

We got a real legitimate basketball coach.  He’s drawing up plays that would work.  His schemes are solid - great, even.  But absolutely nothing works in basketball if you cannot shoot the basketball. And holy poop, we can’t.  We can’t make layups, we can’t make free throws, we can’t make uncontested 3s.

 

This is not a scheme issue.  This is not an effort issue.  I see the kids playing hard.  They want to do well.

 

The only solution to our issues are talent and time.  We need both.  A lot of both.

 

Fred pulled a miracle to even manage a full roster given the time he had to work with.  These are not cream of the crop recruits.  And CBB recruiting is like a 2-3 year cycle.  Relationships take time.  I doubt most of these kids would have been a first choice for Fred.  But here we are.  
 

But time is even more important.  For a majority of the active roster, this is their first D1 experience.  You know how when you pick up a couple freshmen and you have to slowly ease them into the season? That’s essentially our whole roster.  Mack, Green, Drago, Cross, Curtis...these guys are all playing their first D1 minutes...ever.  Even your grad transfers, Kavas and Cheatham, were both dealing with injuries last year.  And they are adjusting to a new team.  That doesn’t happen overnight.  Burke hadn’t played a live game in two years and his off year was with a different coach and different teammates.

 

And that might be the biggest thing.  Team chemistry.  Knowing roles.  The kids don’t know, and Fred doesn’t even know yet.  Who can he count on?  Who should he send to the line to shoot a technical FT?  Who is clutch?  Who do you want taking the last shot?  Who is your best defender?  Who can get a rebound?  There’s no magic formula.  That all reveals itself over time.

 

View all these losses as learning experiences.  Some of these players will return next year.  They will benefit from this process.  Fred will learn his team better.  I guarantee he knows his squad better today than before the season.

 

And here’s the thing...they will get better.  This team isn’t going winless.

 

Have patience.  You’ve been through worse.  And it will all be worth it.

 

RDK

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I think people underestimate the value of experience. Unless you have 1-and-done players (we're not Kentucky) then there's no substitute for experience.

 

I learned my lesson once when I made a bet with @NUdiehard that we would have at least a 2-game improvement in our record with the addition of size from Jorge Brian Diaz after the year where Ryan Anderson and Ade Daguduro were our starting frontcourt.

 

Guess what, we were worse.  Even though we had a very talented 6'11 center who could score.

 

You just can't substitute for experience.

 

So, while things are going poorly right now, give it time.  Our record isn't an indictment on the talent of our players or the skill of our coaching staff or anything other than our youth and inexperience.

 

It's gonna take some time.  I'm not even interested in what our final record will be this year.

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No one was a harsher critic of Tai Webster than myself & he was an All-B1G level guard by his Senior year. The shots will fall, we’ll get our share of wins, but yes it’s important to remember Yvan is only 17 & he his freshman classmates will ONLY get better...

Edited by Handy Johnson
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1 hour ago, hskr4life said:

I think that it's fair to be both upset with the performance from our first week and also level-headed enough to know that this team will improve not just in years to come, but in this year as well.

 

It's expected to be that way, we're all Nebrasketball fans here. It's typically a roller-coaster ride, anyway. How anyone is truly "surprised" is beyond me, but it's okay to be frustrated -- at the same time -- with some things that didn't go particularly well on the court. These dudes will improve, I thought they already did between games 1 & 2... I'm not too concerned with Fred & Co. making the best of the situation over the long haul (even over the course of this 2019-20 season). GBR!

 

 

 

 

Edited by AuroranHusker
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10 hours ago, Handy Johnson said:

If it makes anyone feel any better the Timberwolves shot 6-45 on 3s vs the Nuggets yesterday... even for the pros that hoop looks like a thimble sometimes.

 

I had heard on the TV broadcast that Minnesota was planning to shoot more threes this season. But, just because a team decides to shoot more of 'em, it doesn't mean they'll go in.

 

 

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22 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

I simultaneously think we will get better and that our level of play in the first game was sub-par for any scenario of any team we put on the court.

 

How do you determine in what way it was sub-par though? Was it sub-par scheme? Sub-par execution? A squad that lacks the talent to execute the scheme? Or a squad that's young and inexperienced and is still on the early side of the learning curve? Or maybe those teams we played were actually better than we thought they were?

 

I remember being distressed at how we got man-handled in the 2nd half against Texas Tech last year. We didn't know how good they were at the time, but it turns out Texas Tech was pretty damned good.

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I remember Gary Sharp in his preseason predictions said, this season will be a success if.....Nebraska just continues gets better throughout the season. It sucks to have no real expectations like 18 wins or NIT or NCAA or Beat Creighton. But it would be unfair to put any of those on these players and this coaching staff.

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Our two biggest issues right now are shooting and rebounding.

 

We were outrebounded by 20 in the first game and by 14 in the second.  The 15 offensive rebounds we gave up to Southern equal 15 additional possessions. The 13 offensive rebounds for Riverside are similarly 13 additional possessions. Each possession is an opportunity to score a basket, right? Offensive rebounds surrendered to your opponent are like turnovers. So that's a biggish deal.

 

Right now, our team 3-point percentage is 21.2%. That's historically bad. I don't even want to try to go back into the record books to see what the current record is for team 3-point % for a season.  I'm sure it's a lot higher than 21.2%.

 

Let's wonder for a moment what the impact of not having Shamiel Stevenson might be.

 

As a freshman at Pitt, he averaged 37.5% from 3-point range and 4.4 rebounds. As a true freshman.

 

Right now, I'd love to see a lineup with Yvan and Kevin Cross both playing at the same time to see how that might help our rebounding situation.  Rebounds on the defensive end help us get out into transition where we're currently the most effect, per the stats @hhcmatt posted. But then the question is who spells Yvan? And who spells Kevin?

 

But if Shamiel were eligible, he might be the answer. We wouldn't need to start both Kevin and Yvan because we'd have a 6'6, 245# dude out there with long arms and an explosive vertical who has some demonstrated ability at the upper D1 level at cleaning the glass.

 

If Shamiel was eligible from the start of the season, do we lose either of those first 2 games?

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2 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

How do you determine in what way it was sub-par though? Was it sub-par scheme? Sub-par execution? A squad that lacks the talent to execute the scheme? Or a squad that's young and inexperienced and is still on the early side of the learning curve? Or maybe those teams we played were actually better than we thought they were?

 

I remember being distressed at how we got man-handled in the 2nd half against Texas Tech last year. We didn't know how good they were at the time, but it turns out Texas Tech was pretty damned good.

 

To me, it seemed like Southern Utah was a better team than Riverside. I'm often wrong but I don't see UC Riverside as anything beyond a team that needs to win their conference tourney to make the tournament and they will not.

 

Thus to me it was how this team just folded in the 2nd half vs Riverside. I guess if our excuse was missing one guy it's too bad that Riverside missing two starters and down 16-7 early on the road couldn't have just given us the win. While we couldn't hit the broad side of a barn vs Southern Utah either it really felt like we showed resolve and effort. 

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Side note...I saw some folks pretty critical of Kavas.  He was brought in to shoot 3-pointers, period.

 

He is 40% from 3-pt range through 2 games.  I think my issue with him is getting him more looks.  We need to find a way to integrate him into our offense so he can get more attempts per game.  He is averaging 2.5 3PTA per game.  Comparatively:

 

Jervay Green: 6.5 3PTA/G @ 23.1%

Cam Mack: 5.5 3PTA/G @ 18.2%

Kevin Cross: 4.5 3PTA/G @ 22.2%

Dachon Burke: 3.5 3PTA/G @ 14.3%

 

This is not the ratio you want to see.  Kavas is career 44.6% 3-pt shooter across 86 Division I games.

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3 minutes ago, OurDecay said:

Side note...I saw some folks pretty critical of Kavas.  He was brought in to shoot 3-pointers, period.

 

He is 40% from 3-pt range through 2 games.  I think my issue with him is getting him more looks.  We need to find a way to integrate him into our offense so he can get more attempts per game.  He is averaging 2.5 3PTA per game.  Comparatively:

 

Jervay Green: 6.5 3PTA/G @ 23.1%

Cam Mack: 5.5 3PTA/G @ 18.2%

Kevin Cross: 4.5 3PTA/G @ 22.2%

Dachon Burke: 3.5 3PTA/G @ 14.3%

 

This is not the ratio you want to see.  Kavas is career 44.6% 3-pt shooter across 86 Division I games.

 

 

Yikes at those #'s.

 

 

(# here is for "number" 😉)

 

 

 

Edited by AuroranHusker
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1 hour ago, OurDecay said:

Side note...I saw some folks pretty critical of Kavas.  He was brought in to shoot 3-pointers, period.

 

He is 40% from 3-pt range through 2 games.  I think my issue with him is getting him more looks.  We need to find a way to integrate him into our offense so he can get more attempts per game.  He is averaging 2.5 3PTA per game.  Comparatively:

 

Jervay Green: 6.5 3PTA/G @ 23.1%

Cam Mack: 5.5 3PTA/G @ 18.2%

Kevin Cross: 4.5 3PTA/G @ 22.2%

Dachon Burke: 3.5 3PTA/G @ 14.3%

 

This is not the ratio you want to see.  Kavas is career 44.6% 3-pt shooter across 86 Division I games.

 

Super small sample size. Cam Mack was 40% in the first game (2/5) and then was like 0/6 in game #2.

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