Most encouraging thing

[royalfan]

Miles understands defensive rotations very well. Like his scheme a lot. It is good to see he understands this aspect of the game as well as he does. It will be needed to win here. That is the best thing I can take away. We won't be a sacraficial lamb at the arc like Doc's help just to help scheme.

[Cochran4_3]

I agree. Our defense was very impressive IMO on the way coach subbed the correct players in and out at the right times . Definitely encouraging to watch from the defensive side of the ball!

[bison husker]

So far a 110% better X and O's coach....and it seems like he taught Ray how to shoot so far?

[HuskerPower #nato73]

Here is what I see as the most encouraging thing so far about Miles' coaching:

Players are not looking over their shoulder. A shooter has to shoot and get in the flow. Gallegos is not playing like is afraid to get pulled for making a mistake. Part of it is maybe that he knows there are not many other options, but part of it is Miles. I think Miles will still chew some butt when necessary, but I also see more teaching, encouraging. The philosophy of players make plays combined with the new facilities is what will bring kids to Nebraska.

I liked Doc alot and still do, so I don't want to want to turn this into a Doc versus Tim thread, but I loved the confidence and players having fun that I saw last night. Confidence is a contagious thing and while players like Ubel and Lance Jeter could probably give you there best under any coach, some personalities need to not be constantly thinking about what mistake they are going to make next and if they will disappear on the bench after they make it.

Substitutions were made based on keeping players fresh, keeping them from fouling out, match-ups and a just an overall nice rotation. In the past when players would disappear for the rest of the game or get unexpected big chunks of head scratching playing time I think it was not a good thing.

[Silverbacked1]

I think that there is a respect between the team and the coaches.

Also seems to be a good comfort level.

The biggest difference this year can be summed up in one play last night. I looked down and 3 coaches were standing and coaching/teaching, and Miles was not one of them. He was down the line talking to a player he had just taken out.

Feels more like a group effort in coaching. You don't see that much on any teams. I like it.

[atskooc]

I think that there is a respect between the team and the coaches.

Also seems to be a good comfort level.

The biggest difference this year can be summed up in one play last night. I looked down and 3 coaches were standing and coaching/teaching, and Miles was not one of them. He was down the line talking to a player he had just taken out.

Feels more like a group effort in coaching. You don't see that much on any teams. I like it.

Along those same lines, I was impressed when, just as a timeout had been called, the shot of Coach Miles included one of his assistants who obviously had something to impart. Miles was listening to the advice/suggestion before the players got there. I thought to myself, "I like the looks of that."

[huskerbaseball13]

Here is what I see as the most encouraging thing so far about Miles' coaching:

Players are not looking over their shoulder. A shooter has to shoot and get in the flow. Gallegos is not playing like is afraid to get pulled for making a mistake. Part of it is maybe that he knows there are not many other options, but part of it is Miles. I think Miles will still chew some butt when necessary, but I also see more teaching, encouraging. The philosophy of players make plays combined with the new facilities is what will bring kids to Nebraska.

I liked Doc alot and still do, so I don't want to want to turn this into a Doc versus Tim thread, but I loved the confidence and players having fun that I saw last night. Confidence is a contagious thing and while players like Ubel and Lance Jeter could probably give you there best under any coach, some personalities need to not be constantly thinking about what mistake they are going to make next and if they will disappear on the bench after they make it.

Substitutions were made based on keeping players fresh, keeping them from fouling out, match-ups and a just an overall nice rotation. In the past when players would disappear for the rest of the game or get unexpected big chunks of head scratching playing time I think it was not a good thing.

BINGO, didnt see this before I posted my thread. It appears our players aren't afraid to take shots on the offensive end of the court anymore. Not to turn this into a Doc bashing thread....we will see when we have better depth but I don't think we have to worry about any players vanishing in the middle of the game for no reason.

[Silverbacked1]

Doc did what Doc was comfortable with.

Miles does the same thing.

[atskooc]

Doc did what Doc was comfortable with.

Miles does the same thing.

That's about the best way to put it.

If Doc wasn't doing what he was comfortable with, he should have changed what he was doing. Same goes for Miles. If he's not doing what he's comfortable with, then he should find the comfort.

[TheKamdyMan]

Along those same lines, I was impressed when, just as a timeout had been called, the shot of Coach Miles included one of his assistants who obviously had something to impart. Miles was listening to the advice/suggestion before the players got there. I thought to myself, "I like the looks of that."

Coach Smith is literally an extenuation of Miles. They've been together for so long that they know exactly how each other thinks; so when one doesnt see it the other might pick it up and be able to convey it. You'll notice Smith is up almost as much as Miles yelling things out.

[kldm64]

I really like this coaching staff and what they are trying to do. You can see guys like Rivers still struggling to get past the "if I make a mistake, I'll get pulled" mentality but it will come. We need guys like Rivers to step their game up since we are very short handed with bench players. It will help when Shields comes back. Not often you can score 50 points and not make a field goal for the last 7+ minutes of the game and still get a win but I'll take'em anyway I can get them this year. Solid win over probably an NCAA tournament team. Well done coaches and players.

[Fromthebench]

Great win! One thing that I did notice that concerned me a bit was how open the roll man was on the pick and roll. They did a great job taking away the 3 point shot out of pick and roll but the roll man came wide open way too many times. Valpo went to this almost every possesion down the stretch and we were lucky they didn't hit the guy more as he was open a lot.

Also, had a conversatio with a current CSU player recently and he said there is a huge difference between Eustachy's practices and Miles'. He said that Miles' practices were a lot less intense and was more of a up beat atmosphere. I bet the current Huskers are thinking the exact opposite. I agree with others that the team seems more confident on the court. I am looking forward to many good things in the future. GBR!

[Huskerpapa]

No doubt that Doc leveraged his assistants differently then Coach Miles.

[Cheap Seat Perspective]

So far a 110% better X and O's coach....and it seems like he taught Ray how to shoot so far?

I you didn't think Doc was a good X and O's coach you don't know what X and O's are. His biggest problem was getting the Steve and Joe's. We ran the exact same offense as Kansas and heck even what the Chicago Bulls are running this year, and he had good game plans when we executed them. I think people just look at last year, and see how poor we did and don't remember how good we were and could be at times. Just couldn't get over the hump.

[HuskerFever]

His biggest problem was getting the Steve and Joe's.

It wasn't only about getting the Steves and Joes. It was also about keeping some of those players on his team (e.g. Myles Holly, Quincy Hankins-Cole, Jay-R Strowbridge, Cookie Miller, Eshaunte Jones, Christian Standhardinger (his own doing), Jorge Brian Diaz, and a number of other athletes that were actually decent players). They all left before they put in their 4 years. If Doc was able to even keep half of these players on the roster throughout their full careers, we would have a lot more consistency, less pressure on the underclassmen to take over, and more camaraderie and teamwork due to lower turnover and having to rebuild every year. I'm not saying we would be a top 50 team every year, but we certainly would have much better years than we otherwise experienced.

[jimmykc]

I agree with you. Perception often seems to shade reality. Given the fans' mood at the end of last year, if Doc had been on the bench instead of Tim on Thursday, the focus would have been on the scoring drought at the end of the game against a midmajor team playing on the road and how poorly his team would fare during the rest of the season. With Miles, the bar is set so low for his first year that any victory is seen as a coaching triumph.

[HB]

I agree with you. Perception often seems to shade reality. Given the fans' mood at the end of last year, if Doc had been on the bench instead of Tim on Thursday, the focus would have been on the scoring drought at the end of the game against a midmajor team playing on the road and how poorly his team would fare during the rest of the season. With Miles, the bar is set so low for his first year that any victory is seen as a coaching triumph.

I agree the bar is set low, but it's for a reason, not just to cut Miles some slack. We had 3 walkons on the floor at the same time in a close game against a decent opponent. Winning under that circumstance was indeed a real coaching and playing triumph, not just a perceived one.

[nustudent]

I you didn't think Doc was a good X and O's coach you don't know what X and O's are. His biggest problem was getting the Steve and Joe's. We ran the exact same offense as Kansas and heck even what the Chicago Bulls are running this year, and he had good game plans when we executed them. I think people just look at last year, and see how poor we did and don't remember how good we were and could be at times. Just couldn't get over the hump.

Running the exact same offense as someone doesn't make one a good coach. Especially if you don't have the athletes to run it successfully.

[49r]

[Norm Peterson]

Great win! One thing that I did notice that concerned me a bit was how open the roll man was on the pick and roll. They did a great job taking away the 3 point shot out of pick and roll but the roll man came wide open way too many times. Valpo went to this almost every possesion down the stretch and we were lucky they didn't hit the guy more as he was open a lot.

I actually think down the stretch we did a better job of defending this than we did earlier on. I'd defer to the experts on this but there are a couple of ways of defending that high ball screen that they were using for the pick and roll. The first is that you try to deny the three-point shot by having the defending guard go over the top of the screen and then hedge the screen by having your big switch (briefly) until the defending guard can recover, but that leaves you exposed to the pick and roll. The other thing you can do is have the defending guard go under the screen, which takes away the pick and roll but leaves you exposed to the three point shot. So you have to pick your poison and either give them a better perimeter look or try to take away the screen and roll.

This was a team that came in shooting over 50% from three and so you want to take that away and go over the top of screens and have your big hedge on the screen. What we did better in the 2nd half than we did in the first, though, was when our guard recovered on to the shooter, he got his hands up to deny the entry pass to the screener cutting to the basket. This allowed our bigs to get back in position. I think in the 2nd half, our guards were recovering faster and putting on better on-ball pressure that basically took that screen and roll away. They weren't as successful running it in the 2nd half. At least that's the way I saw it.

[Dean Smith]

Running the exact same offense as someone doesn't make one a good coach. Especially if you don't have the athletes to run it successfully.

Valpo wasn't stacked with athletes and they were running some weave. Everyone does it at least a little bit. It actually allows less quick players some room to turn the corner that they couldn't do without help.

I do think everyone's perspective is clouded by us actually winning the game. I thought the defensive effort was great. On one possession we had three players hit the floor to save a ball. Valpo is a better shooting team than they showed. Whether it was the 7:00 AM game or not, they will usually hit more of those than they did. I think some of the people talking scheme are actually reflecting the outcome, not the game plan.

First, Valpo took some horrendous shots they didn't need to. Second, they missed open threes they made last year. And three, the most concerning to me is that they got an inordinate number of uncontested or moderately contested lay-ups for playing a D-1 team. Our defensive rotations were simply too slow in coming to cut off the driving lanes.

Count the lay-ups they made and then add 6 uncontested lay-ups I counted on my second viewing (and I wasn't paying that close of attention, my boys wanted to watch the game), and that is way too many. I think we are going to have some fun under Miles and have some success, but against Valpo we got lucky. With a seven minute drought and giving up that many lay-ups you shouldn't win a D-1 college ball game. We can learn from that. It is always better to be given an opportunity to learn what you need to fix and still get the W. Usually those two things don't happen at the same time.

[Cheap Seat Perspective]

Nustudent I was was just singling out X and O's. I know that isnt the only thing a coach should be graded on. I know Doc had issues in other aspects of coaching but i do not believe X and O's were.

[Cheap Seat Perspective]

Great posts by Norm and Dean.

Norms right abot the ball screens but there are more than just them two ways to guard them. The way I saw it we were gaurding the initial screen well it was just our help side guy wasnt getting there in time to stop the roll, and at times our on ball defender wasnt getting through the screens.

I also agree with Deam they missed a lot of open layups and shots they normally make early on. The encouraging thing I thought was we made adjustments and did a noticeably better job later in the game.

1 more note Ive never seen Talley fight through screens like he did against Valpo.

[jimmykc]

It is much better to be lucky than good sometimes in a two point game. Maybe Coach Tim is going to reverse some of that bad karma that seemed to follow Coach Doc in these close games. I think that half court shot might have gone in for Valpo last year.

[Husker Fan]

I you didn't think Doc was a good X and O's coach you don't know what X and O's are. His biggest problem was getting the Steve and Joe's. We ran the exact same offense as Kansas and heck even what the Chicago Bulls are running this year, and he had good game plans when we executed them. I think people just look at last year, and see how poor we did and don't remember how good we were and could be at times. Just couldn't get over the hump.

I agree with you. It is funny that not much has been said about our 7 minute field goal drout at the end of the game? Same players, different coach and scheme. It goes back to getting good enough players. Way to early in Miles era to get super excited.