uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 15, ed 32: Big Ten Tournament - Minnesota

[basketballjones]

8 hours ago, brfrad said:

The doubling led to some of the worst passes I've seen a college basketball player make.  They make 5.8 3's on average.  I would take my chances having them make 10 3's than get shots at the rim.  They were 12 - 16 at the rim and 10 - 24 from 3.  We were 18 - 33 at the rim and 6 - 19 from 3.  That's the game in a nutshell.  We even go 75 % from at the rim, we win pretty easily.

So when they go off you just stay in what you’re doing? 

[MichHusker]

Bad time for Griesel to have one of his worst games and without Keita we have the worst bech in the league. It caught up with us

[hhcmatt]

 

 

Nebraska has a number of a good wins, but the Cornhuskers took their worst loss of the season to Minnesota last night and are now projected to have a NET above 100, which would be an extreme outlier for how the committee has typically selected teams. The Cornhuskers also saw their KenPom rating fall to 95 after the loss to the Golden Gophers. Last year's committee relied heavily on predictive metrics, and if they do so again that would make it difficult for Nebraska to get a bid. The Cornhuskers still have seven Quad I and II victories against just one bad loss (the one against Minnesota), but taking that as your final statement to the committee is a tough look. Honestly though, there's not really a good choice to replace Nebraska within the bracket, which is why the Cornhuskers are still here, but much much closer to the cut line.

 

https://nitbracketology.blogspot.com/2023/03/march-9-8-am-nit-bracket-notes.html

[jimmykc]

 

[basketballjones]

Woke up just as mad as I was last night. What a pure embarrassment and let down. 

We better get some absolutely massive-impact transfers this off-season or next year is going to be ugly. 

[HuskerMB]

I still think they should be in the NIT.  Unfortunately, the one game that we really needed to win, we lost and it seems all eyes are going to be focused on that loss and not the fact that we beat them 2 out of 3 times.  I'm not trying to make excuses because we didn't play well last night, but it's hard to beat a team 3 times in one season.  I just hope the NIT committee can look past some of these "skewed" metrics and look at the whole picture because I think these guys are worthy of an NIT bid.  

Edited March 9, 2023 by HuskerMB

[HuskerFever]

Do we start another Rock Bottom thread when we're citing Blogspot as rationale to make it into the NIT?

[tcp]

you know it's bad when you had the Poseidon Adventure theme playing in your dreams/nightmares. Bummer of a day yesterday. 

 

 

[hskr4life]

51 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

 

 

Nebraska has a number of a good wins, but the Cornhuskers took their worst loss of the season to Minnesota last night and are now projected to have a NET above 100, which would be an extreme outlier for how the committee has typically selected teams. The Cornhuskers also saw their KenPom rating fall to 95 after the loss to the Golden Gophers. Last year's committee relied heavily on predictive metrics, and if they do so again that would make it difficult for Nebraska to get a bid. The Cornhuskers still have seven Quad I and II victories against just one bad loss (the one against Minnesota), but taking that as your final statement to the committee is a tough look. Honestly though, there's not really a good choice to replace Nebraska within the bracket, which is why the Cornhuskers are still here, but much much closer to the cut line.

 

https://nitbracketology.blogspot.com/2023/03/march-9-8-am-nit-bracket-notes.html

 

Honestly, I would compare our chances of making the NIT to the women's chances of making the NCAA's.  Should we be in... probably.  Are we going to make it-- likely not.  However, the people who do these bracketology things seem to think that both still have a chance.

[hhcmatt]

24 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

Do we start another Rock Bottom thread when we're citing Blogspot as rationale to make it into the NIT?

 

The guy who is putting this bracket together has been doing it for 10+ years. He has us at about 30% to make the NIT which was probably the odds KenPom gave Minnesota for winning yesterday.

[Handy Johnson]

15 minutes ago, tcp said:

you know it's bad when you had the Poseidon Adventure theme playing in your dreams/nightmares. Bummer of a day yesterday. 

 

 

How HOT was Shelly Winters back then Tho…???

[hskr4life]

49 minutes ago, HuskerMB said:

I still think they should be in the NIT.  Unfortunately, the one game that we really needed to win, we lost and it seems all eyes are going to be focused on that loss and not the fact that we beat them 2 out of 3 times.  I'm not trying to make excuses because we didn't play well last night, but it's hard to beat a team 3 times in one season.  I just hope the NIT committee can look past some of these "skewed" metrics and look at the whole picture because I think these guys are worthy of an NIT bid.  

 

This is Nebrasketball... unfortunately.  You're talking about the ONLY team in the B1G to finish in the Top 4 of the league and not get a bid to the big dance.... and then also get a road game in the NIT.  The committee has rarely ever thrown us a bone, I won't hold my breath that they start now.

[hhcmatt]

4 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

Do we start another Rock Bottom thread when we're citing Blogspot as rationale to make it into the NIT?

 

The guy who runs that blog has been doing NIT brackets for 10+ years. If he says we have about a 30% chance of making the NIT, I wouldn't finalize the HHHC spreadsheet yet.

[Fullbacksympathy]

Hot take: we didn’t have a more talented team than Minnesota last night.  It’s the first game of the conference season where we weren’t playing with house money.  Being the hunted is a different planet of pressure, and we buckled.  It’s hard to beat an equally talented team three times.  Yes, I know the metrics.  You can find a lot more of them that show conference splits with equal teams.  
 

Did we play well?  No, but we weren’t terrible.  I wasn’t embarrassed by the effort.  Missed layups and free throws were the difference.  We also resorted to hero ball more than normal.  Hoping the NIT calls, but we should definitely take a CBI bid if they call instead and try to win it. 

[millerhusker]

SIAP, but we stayed put at #92 in the NET rankings after our close loss to quad 4 Minnesota. But when we actually beat quad 4 Minnesota, we dropped a few spots. Hilarious. 

[The Polish Rifle]

2 minutes ago, Fullbacksympathy said:

Hoping the NIT calls, but we should definitely take a CBI bid if they call instead and try to win it. 

Speaking of embarrassing 

[tcp]

10 minutes ago, Handy Johnson said:

How HOT was Shelly Winters back then Tho…???

 

she was hotter in Lolita. At least until she said something. heh heh. I hated her voice!

[basketballjones]

9 hours ago, Crush78 said:

Wilcher's foul on the desperation 3 was the killer in my opinion. Minny was feeling the pressure & ripe to choke it away before that bailout foul

CJ landed exactly where he jumped from and the MN guy went into him. Bad call. But I am not going to complain about officiating because we were benefited by some atrocious calls elsewhere also. That was our loss, not the refs. 

[hhcmatt]

 

[brfrad]

14 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

 

This is Nebrasketball... unfortunately.  You're talking about the ONLY team in the B1G to finish in the Top 4 of the league and not get a bid to the big dance.... and then also get a road game in the NIT.  The committee has rarely ever thrown us a bone, I won't hold my breath that they start now.

They did kind of throw us one the following year.  They gave us a home game despite us finishing 13th in the conference.

 

The 2017-18 team was the biggest screwjob ever, though.  No way was that team that far away from the NCAA tournament.  In the minds of the NIT, we had to pass 16 other schools to make the tournament.

 

[Faux Mike Peltz]

I had a very bad feeling when we were up 4-0, and remained there for like 6 minutes while Minny threw like four straight passes to the crowd. J-Law came out firing but man, if we could’ve just pushed the lead to like 10 I think Minny says “here we go again” and the doubt would’ve set in. I’m going to say this because it’s on my mind and I know it won’t be popular. I love that Sam came home. I believe he helped flip the culture of the program this year. He wanted Creighton. He wanted Iowa. Guys from out of state won’t get that same feeling. He’s tough. But man, some of his decisions…so many times last night I saw KT waving his arms open, and Sam was so stubborn on backing down to his spot, he didn’t even look at anyone else. I’m disappointed Fred allowed some hero ball last night. It actually gave me flashbacks to last year. And how in the holy ******* is KT not the guy at the end?? He was the focal point and still got us points in the second half. I’m just disappointed a fun season with good memories and feelings ended with a thud.

[Busch Light]

I didn’t post last night because I was just too heartbroken. I thought I would be better today but I’m not. 
 

Given Fred’s overall record and the production he’s about to lose, I’m just not sold on retention. It will likely happen, but logically, I don’t think there are a lot of reasons to do so. 

[brfrad]

2 minutes ago, Faux Mike Peltz said:

I’m going to say this because it’s on my mind and I know it won’t be popular. I love that Sam came home. I believe he helped flip the culture of the program this year. He wanted Creighton. He wanted Iowa. Guys from out of state won’t get that same feeling. He’s tough. But man, some of his decisions…so many times last night I saw KT waving his arms open, and Sam was so stubborn on backing down to his spot, he didn’t even look at anyone else. I’m disappointed Fred allowed some hero ball last night. It actually gave me flashbacks to last year.

I was thinking about that with all the hate on CJ.  CJ's decision making leaves a lot to be desired, but really it isn't a whole lot worse than Sam's at times.  The key to the game was we had two chances to take the lead late in the 2nd half.  Sam had two wide open shots from the top of the key and missed both.

[brfrad]

6 minutes ago, Busch Light said:

I didn’t post last night because I was just too heartbroken. I thought I would be better today but I’m not. 
 

Given Fred’s overall record and the production he’s about to lose, I’m just not sold on retention. It will likely happen, but logically, I don’t think there are a lot of reasons to do so. 

We lost 4 starters from last year's team.  1 has played in the NBA this season.  We managed to do pretty well finishing nearly .500 in one of the toughest conferences in the country.  I would love to find a player like Griesel, who would love to come home, and play for his favorite team.

[Ron Mexico]

Without reading any comments and having a night to sleep on that loss...

This is such an on brand loss for Nebraska basketball. Coaches change, post season struggles continue. Games like this leave me despondent and nihilistic about whether, in my lifetime, we'll ever win an NCCA tournament game.

 

We lost this game in the 1st 5 min of the game when we didn't capitalize on the multiple turnovers and missed shots by Minn. HCFH, for the most part, this season has done a really good job of coaching. Last night he was out coached.

Ben Johnson did to us what MSU did to us, which is they were not going to let us control the paint. In contrast they made a concerted effort to play in the paint.  

 

Also, I'm not convinced that we are out of the conversation for an NIT bid.

 

Now that I have that out of the way, I'm going to interject my perspective...

Like it or not this team has been playing well above their capabilities for the last month and half. 

We lost 2 significant starters over a 2 week span on a team with limited depth. This isn't the first time when we've had a significant injuries that have completely derailed what was on pace to be a pretty decent season. HCFH and the team did a fantastic job of not packing it in, and putting together a strong finish to the season. In reality we had been playing on borrowed time for awhile.

In the end this season was significantly more than I could have hoped for. It was a job saving season for HCFH. As a matter of fact I was on record that he was going to be fired before Christmas.

 

There will be time later to discuss what HCFH needs to do to keep his job for next season.