uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 14; ed 2 - Sam Houston St.

[hhcmatt]

27 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

I'm going to assume Lat Mayen is injured still. Slowed by back spasms or whatever. But 18 minutes and not a single rebound? 0-4 from 3, OK, 1st game jitters for him. But not a single board? Not one? In 18 minutes? Dude is 6'9.

 

But here's some good news:

 

Last year, Derrick Walker was an atrocious 45.5% from the FT line. Eduardo Andre was right behind him at 45%.

 

Last night, they were a combined 80% on 10 attempts. In fact, Derrick has only missed 1 FT on the season and he's currently at 83.3% from the line.

 

That's a very welcome improvement. Trey McGowens, however, is still lagging in the FT department at a frigid 58.3%. That must get better.

 

At one point I remarked to my seatmates how freaked out I was that Walker was making all these FTs.  He reportedly put the work in over off-season so good job by him.

[hhcmatt]

13 minutes ago, hugh42 said:

You can see Fred with his hands up trying to get Verge to pull up to no avail.

 

[royalfan]

People were saying the same things about Petteway two games in.  We are lucky to have verge and will win several more games with him than without.  

[millerhusker]

1 hour ago, Norm Peterson said:

Thought I'd throw this out there:

 

2021-22

NEB

 

GP	GS	MIN	FG	FG%	3PT	3P%	FT	FT%	OR	DR	REB	AST	BLK	STL	PF	TO	PTS
2	2	37.5	8.0-15.5	51.6	2.5-6.5	38.5	8.5-10.5	81.0	0.5	5.0	5.5	0.5	0.5	0.5	1.5	1.5	27.0

 

 

 

Was going to say there's never been a better start to a Husker player's career statistically. But Lue had 30 points and 9 assists in his second game in a win against Oregon. 

[uneblinstu]

3 hours ago, REDitus said:

 

IIt's exactly like you say,  if we would have more ball movement (passing),  I think the shot selection would be better and they would have opportunities for more open shots. 

While, yes, they need to pass more, there was also a lot of standing around and not giving verge or whoever was initiating the offense anyone to pass to. 
 

this is largely still a new group learning to play together. I think the comfortability and trust levels will increase as the year goes on. That happens to teams all over the country every year. 

[HuskerPower #nato73]

I empathize a lot with Verge.  It's hard to pull up or pass when you know you can get around whomever is guarding you.  I used to be this way in intramurals.

[Norm Peterson]

Good news: Bryce was 4-7 from deep, including some NBA-range bombs

 

Bad news: The rest of the team was 0-15.

[hhcmatt]

Box Score

 

[thrasher31]

Struggled a ton offensively, but found a way to win. Good sign. 

 

Verge is trying to force it, but I can tell he means well. There was a play where he checked in and Lat stepped out of bounds. Pushed Lats chin up to say "pick your head up". He just needs to stop going a million miles an hour. 

 

We are so lucky to have Bryce. Some of the shots he hit were absolutely absurd driving. 

 

One reason for the offensive struggles/ball movement in my eyes are a "ball connector". Ie a guy like Thor who keeps the offense moving. Trey I think is trying to fill that void right now. I think only 7 or 8 assists last night and between 3 guys. Not good. 

 

Need to see more of a Wilhelm and Andre frontcourt. I think they'll have to use it in big ten play, so get them used to playing together now

 

Shooting will come around by the shooters. CJ and Keisei were both active in other ways last night, so I'd say they were overall positives despite shooting. 

[Huskerone]

Just hoping Verge buys into the we>me soon.  What changed from the exhibition games?  I hated that 2014/15 offense, the stand around and wait for Pettaway to do something offense.  Hoping not headed down that road again.  All will be forgiven if we get a dub Tuesday.  Let's go! GBR!

Edited November 14, 2021 by Huskerone
Spelling error

[Nebrasketballer]

11 hours ago, royalfan said:

People were saying the same things about Petteway two games in.  We are lucky to have verge and will win several more games with him than without.  

Hoibergs offense isn’t the same as Miles offense. Also, the way petteway played only really worked for about a 12 game stretch of one season where he got extremely hot and shot out of his mind and was making circus shots on the regular.

 

If Verge doesn’t become a distributing PG fast, then Nebraska isn’t going to win many Power5 games this season.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Nebrasketballer

[royalfan]

53 minutes ago, Nebrasketballer said:

Hoibergs offense isn’t the same as Miles offense. Also, the way petteway played only really worked for about a 12 game stretch of one season where he got extremely hot and shot out of his mind and was making circus shots on the regular.

 

If Verge doesn’t become a distributing PG fast, then Nebraska isn’t going to win many Power5 games this season.

I agree he can distribute better, but the upside at least exists.   We are pretty thin at the position without him.  

[Art Vandalay]

After rewatching the game I didn’t think Verge was as bad as I thought at the arena. He actually started out looking to pass and could have had at least 3-4 more assists if guys (Lat specifically was bad) hit open shots. Then he got to the rim at will but couldn’t make a layup and they were good shots he should make. I think that got him frustrated and out of sorts. I saw about 4-5 bad shots and he made one of them.  
 

Hopefully he calms down and gets back into what we saw vs Colo. We will need it Tuesday night 

 

 

[Norm Peterson]

I will come right out and say it was better than the first game.

 

It appears to me these guys are beginning to realize it's a long season and everyone is going to have opportunities to take and make shots and that you don't need to get all of your shots for the season in the first two games.

 

That realization should hopefully help them buckle down and pass the ball around on Tuesday. Gotta get the defense moving. Shooters don't get open if the defense just needs to guard one guy dribbling.

[hugh42]

24 minutes ago, Art Vandalay said:

After rewatching the game I didn’t think Verge was as bad as I thought at the arena. He actually started out looking to pass and could have had at least 3-4 more assists if guys (Lat specifically was bad) hit open shots. Then he got to the rim at will but couldn’t make a layup and they were good shots he should make. I think that got him frustrated and out of sorts. I saw about 4-5 bad shots and he made one of them.  
 

Hopefully he calms down and gets back into what we saw vs Colo. We will need it Tuesday night 

 

 

 

As Fred said recently (paraphrasing) things are never as good or bad as they seem in the moment and that's why they review game tape. I definitely agree with this and is one reason I try to re-watch games before critiquing the team/individual players.

[hhcmatt]

12 hours ago, royalfan said:

I agree he can distribute better, but the upside at least exists.   We are pretty thin at the position without him.  

 

Really feels like the key is to get him to buy into passing the ball when an assist situation isn't readily available instead of dribbling around until he finds it. 

[hhcmatt]

I want to shout out Trey McGowens for leading the team in rebounds after Hoiberg said we needed to get the guards more involved. A lot of guys say that they're committed to winning but I always feel that Trey means it when he says it. 

[Huskerpapa]

Not forcing shots, making open look shots, not rushing shots will likely resolve many of our offensive woes.  

We started the game against SA with multiple open corner shots without knocking one down.

No pressure...but open looks HAVE TO BE knocked down!

[hhcmatt]

Just listened to Hoiberg's presser and he talked about sitting down with Verge. One thing he mentioned was that for the last 4 years Verge has been playing off the ball as a scoring guard and when things got dicey that is what he defaulted back to in this game.  I see Verge make a lot of high IQ basketball plays so I think you'll start to see gradual movement towards spraying the ball around.

[hhcmatt]

On 11/12/2021 at 10:10 PM, Faux Mike Peltz said:

I think Verge is kind of our new Teddy…

 

Actually I think functionally that Bryce is our new Teddy but he's what we hoped Teddy could be. Some of the problem was that Teddy wasn't a NBA player.  You knew Teddy had 20 pts because he had to work so hard at it. With Bryce you look up at the scoreboard and wonder how he got to 20. 

 

I think Verge is our new Bo Spencer.  Maybe the key difference is Verge isn't the best scoring option on the team.

[fr8-train]

5 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

Just listened to Hoiberg's presser and he talked about sitting down with Verge. One thing he mentioned was that for the last 4 years Verge has been playing off the ball as a scoring guard and when things got dicey that is what he defaulted back to in this game.  I see Verge make a lot of high IQ basketball plays so I think you'll start to see gradual movement towards spraying the ball around.

 

Yeah, between Robin Washut's question to Fred in the post-game press conference and today's follow-up question and answer, I'm hopeful we'll see progress from their film review and opportunities for growth.  I probably made some gut reaction assumptions based on what I've seen on Husker teams in the past and automatically applied them to Verge when it very well could just be an awareness/instinct issue that need to be trained/retrained rather than an attitude issue that needs to be overcome.  I guess I could learn some of that too.  

[nuhusker7]

On 11/14/2021 at 11:11 AM, hhcmatt said:

 

Really feels like the key is to get him to buy into passing the ball when an assist situation isn't readily available instead of dribbling around until he finds it. 

This is spot on. The problems come when we don’t get into an offense because he is dribbling in circles and nobody is moving to get open and even initiate an offense. Some of that is on verge, but it’s not only on him.

 

This also might limit his total assist numbers some, but it will greatly limit the total assists from the rest of the team if it continues.

[uneblinstu]

19 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

 

Actually I think functionally that Bryce is our new Teddy but he's what we hoped Teddy could be. Some of the problem was that Teddy wasn't a NBA player.  You knew Teddy had 20 pts because he had to work so hard at it. With Bryce you look up at the scoreboard and wonder how he got to 20. 

 

I think Verge is our new Bo Spencer.  Maybe the key difference is Verge isn't the best scoring option on the team.

Spencer was the player that popped in my head, too. 

[PimpMario]

On 11/12/2021 at 10:02 PM, uneblinstu said:

- Verge is gonna drive people crazy all year. 

 

I can think of a solution for that.

[KZRider]

Been awhile since I've posted but here are my impressions:

- Trey is the talented thug you are glad to have on your side in a fight.

- Bryce is the real deal as a scorer but he is not muscular enough to get his shots on his own. James Palmer was the best player wearing a Husker uniform that I recall at going to the basket and getting points all by himself. But he was an older better muscled player. I hope Bryce decides not to be a "one and done" player.

- Verge is electric. That means lights go on sometimes and everybody says, "Oooooo." It means he zaps you sometimes and you go, "Owwwwww." If only he could find as much delight in making simple passes as he does in making spectacular ones. When he dished it to Andre for the dunk, I wish every team mate had rushed over to him and chest bumped him.

- If our 3 pt specialists don't figure out how to hit open shots in the non-con part of our schedule, it will be a cold winter IMO.

- THANK GOD for Andre! His energy and quality of play were outstanding and he elevated everyone on the team. I only recall one Husker diving to the floor for a loose ball all night and it was him.