uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 15, ed 1: Maine

[royalfan]

5 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

Notes from UNL

 

*-Juwan Gary post posted his third career double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds. His other two came at Alabama during the 2021-22 season. Gary’s 11 rebounds were a career-high, as his previous high was 10 on two occasions (vs. Louisiana Tech, vs. Drake, both in 2021-22
*-Gary had eight of the Huskers’ 16 offensive rebounds, which was the most by the Huskers since the 2020-21 season opener vs. McNeese State (17). Last year’s season high was 14 set twice. Nebraska had 16 second-chance points against Maine.
*-Sam Griesel led NU with 22 points in his debut, his 14^th career double-figure effort. He is now just two points away from 1,000 in his career.
*-Nebraska enjoyed a +17 rebounding advantage, the Huskers’ best against a Division I opponent since the 2017-18 season.
*-Keisei Tominanga reached double figures for the 8^th time in his career with 19 points, including 13 in the first half.
*-With the win, Nebraska improves to 86-41 all-time in season openers and has won 20 of the past 22 openers.
*-Wilhelm Breidenbach tied a career high in points (nine) and grabbed a career-best seven rebounds in the win.

 

We beat a team that outshot us because we dominated the boards. It's been a while since we've had more than one way to win a game.

Griesel has far more double figure games than that.  Very prolific scorer at NDST. 

[hhcmatt]

3 minutes ago, royalfan said:

Griesel has far more double figure games than that.  Very prolific scorer at NDST. 

 

Good catch. I added them up and I think it was 41 so they must have transposed the number.

[Ron Mexico]

Listened on the radio as I had a late night at work.

Years past when we played a team like Maine and they would close the team would fold. Great to see the fight in this team to go on that run after Main got it within 1.

• This team is going to go as far as SG and DW take them. They are both the clear leaders.
• JG is a true rim protector. His going to have to find a way to get points when the opportunity arises. If he can hit in the range of 5pt/game that will be good enough. His job is going to be getting rebounds and on help defense. Teams will adjust and try and find ways to move him away from the hoop.
• SG will hold up just fine in the BIG. As trust develops, along with the return of DW I look for his assists numbers to go up. He had 3 assists but it felt like more and that's because of missed shots. He's going to matchup problem for a lot of teams.
• I liked how FH managed KT. He got a little out of control in the 1st half and FH pulled him to settle him down. It worked. Had a nice block. It is obvious he has put in some work in the weight room.
• I'm not concerned about CJW yet...
• WB tried to much against Colorado. It's going to take a few games for him to get back into the flow. He has a really good eye for the floor and can distribute. 
• I'm confused by what I'm seeing from BK. 
• With more playing time OK will get better. Someone else mentioned that he plays like he doesn't realize that he's 7ft tall.
• EB is going to give good minutes from the

Overall, not a bad performance. We'll be tested on Friday.

The difficulty level of our schedule is 180 from last year. 

Need to have DW back by the time we play St. John's.

[HuscurAdam]

1 hour ago, hskr4life said:

 

I'll have what he's having!

[Norm Peterson]

6 hours ago, NUdiehard said:

Gary has taken more shots than any other player in the 2 exhibitions and and this game.  I  am not sure that is the recipe for success.  He brings a TON to the table in rebounding, defense and energy, but shooting is not his thing.  Granted, some of those are simply put-backs on his own misses, but still, he is not MJ, he needs to know his role a bit better IMO.

 

I guarantee most of those were put-backs of his own misses. At least last night.

 

He was 5-15 from the floor. And, for a guy taking his shots so close to the rim, that's abysmal.

 

BUT ... he snagged 8 offensive rebounds. I think all but one of his made shots was off an offensive rebound. And there were possessions where that made shot happened after he missed twice and grabbed his own rebound. So, he's racking up a bunch of rebounds and missed shots but generally, he's eventually converting.

 

I only remember one time where he kind of forced the action on trying to take a shot. Most of it was very opportunistic. And if you just counted all those missed-shot-offensive rebound-missed-shot-offensive rebound-score situations as just a single event, his usage rate would actually look a lot lower.

 

Ideally, you'd like to see him make the first shot and not have to get his own put-back. But suffice it to say he wasn't as much of a ball-hog as his number of attempts in the box score would lead you to believe.

[The Polish Rifle]

6 hours ago, NUdiehard said:

Gary has taken more shots than any other player in the 2 exhibitions and and this game.  I  am not sure that is the recipe for success.  He brings a TON to the table in rebounding, defense and energy, but shooting is not his thing.  Granted, some of those are simply put-backs on his own misses, but still, he is not MJ, he needs to know his role a bit better IMO.

The good news is he shot 60% on 2pt fg's on 250 shot attempts at Bama. Decent size sample size on a power 5 team. I'm thinking last night will be the exception and not the rule. 

[hhcmatt]

 

Box Score

 

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, The Polish Rifle said:

The good news is he shot 60% on 2pt fg's on 250 shot attempts at Bama. Decent size sample size on a power 5 team. I'm thinking last night will be the exception and not the rule. 

 

That is very good news. I'll go on record saying I really like this kid. He is VERY impressive getting off his feet. Very quick leaper. He rebounds as well as anyone we've had here in a long time.

[Coaches kid]

Agreed that this will be an easier team to root for. They exude a different vibe than previous squads. What concerned me is the inability to stop the ball off of the dribble.  They broke us down way too often and we were left scrambling on close outs. There were several times Bando initially put good pressure on the dribbler but was unable to move his feet to stay in front of him. I don't quite know who will guard 1s or 2s who are good operating off of the dribble. 

 

At this point, Keita cannot guard stretch 5s off of high screen and rolls. We'll need his size when we get into games where teams play traditional bigs. We did some decent things and I think these guys will play hard. Although it was ugly it was much better than watching a loss to Western Illinois. 

[Fullbacksympathy]

Agree with most of what you covered.  
 

I will say what I’ve been saying for awhile: the only position WB can play is the 5.  He looked mobile and fluid and comfortable Monday.   Walker’s absence has forced WB into that role, and he looks great at the 5.  

Edited November 9, 2022 by Fullbacksympathy

[Breslin Petteway]

Fun to watch the boys back in action! It feels weird to have so many new guys and still have such an experienced group. Sam, Derrick, and Emanuel are the real deal on both ends. The rest of the roster seems hit and miss, but I do think that player development will be a strength of this staff through the season. I actually really like what Fred has going offensively, it looks like post ups for Sam will be a huge part of our offense, and once Walker comes back we will have more of an inside presence.

 

Keita kind of got played off the floor with Maine's 5 out style and he missed some open passes to Sam for layups. Our defensive no middle style requires a lot of scrambling to shooters and he just found himself 1-2 steps behind a lot of plays. I'm hoping he continues to develop but he's got to play stronger, but the fadeaway jumpers and lack of rim protection made me miss Eduardo Andre. On the plus side, Wilhelm really let the game come to him and took what the defense gave him. He was a much needed spark. 

 

Can this team avoid a Western Illinois type loss without Walker? I think is the biggest question early in the season. My gut says no, but lets see how they look tomorrow night. 

[Norm Peterson]

26 minutes ago, Breslin Petteway said:

Keita kind of got played off the floor with Maine's 5 out style and he missed some open passes to Sam for layups. Our defensive no middle style requires a lot of scrambling to shooters and he just found himself 1-2 steps behind a lot of plays. I'm hoping he continues to develop but he's got to play stronger, but the fadeaway jumpers and lack of rim protection made me miss Eduardo Andre.

 

Ed played 4 minutes the other night for Fresno St. and didn't score.

[Breslin Petteway]

Fair, obviously Andre was a flawed and raw player, but In terms of a back up big man, I liked the rim protection he provided better than what I have seen from Keita so far. But we will see how it plays out in time, and from a culture point of view, it was probably okay to move on from Ed and whatever that disaster of a culture was last season.

[Norm Peterson]

I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was surprised to see that he hardly saw the floor. He was 12 min/game for us last year as a raw soph still putting up better than 3 and 3 per game. It would have been time for him to make a bit of a jump. I would have figured 20 minutes and 6 and 4. Maybe even 7 and 5.

 

But 4 minutes and no points? Ooookay.

[Faux Mike Peltz]

Agree with you Norm. Was impressed at the Chadron State game as well- Nate Loesner was out leading the warmups and they were more like practice type drills than just messing around. Looked well organized too. 
I’m hoping some of KT’s international experience this past summer helped w confidence. I agree, he does appear to be more athletic than last year. My source very close to the team said FH chose to have him 1st or 2nd off the bench for scoring punch, when he arrived in Lincoln most recently he supposedly dropped 46 in a scrimmage, maybe that’s the game Griesel was referring to in his postgame presser comments about KT lighting it up

[aphilso1]

Maine won @Boston College last night.  Interesting.