uneblinstu's Post Game Chatter: ed 7, vol 14 - Iowa

[uneblinstu]

- Despite a couple bad looking shots at the end, thought Fuller looked ok. Iowa's a middle of the pack team athletically, so not sure he'll hold up vs. some of the top teams, but tonight and probably on Thursday, he should be able to do some things.

- Smith looked good today, too. Not sure why we didn't see more of him down the stretch.

- Thought we got killed on the boards, but the stats aren't as ugly as it felt during the game. 

- Missed some shots at the rim that we've gotta have. That's been happening too often.

- Disappointing night from the line, too. That needs to be better.

- Pitchford isn't great on the post, but he's got a tough gig trying to do it all on his own down low. I think him, as much as anybody, needs Abraham and Smith back.

- Shields almost won that game by himself.

- Thought Petteway was off tonight. Maybe slowed by whatever slowed him up in the first half.

- Total fouls weren't hugely in Iowa's favor, but the free throw disparity, goodness. That's what Iowa does, though. They've done that all year. They're doing what Miles wants NU to do, "love the rim".

 

You guys take it from here.

[HuskerFever]

Are we really missing Gallegos that much this year???

[FredsSlacks]

This team's gotta weather the storm a little longer...

I'm having a hard time getting my hopes up.

 

We weren't exactly dominating teams when Moses was playing.

 

And if Leslee does come back, i have to think he will be on a minutes restriction and who knows how effective he will be after his 3rd serious knee injury.

 

Obviously these guys would help, but I'm not sure if they can turn our season around.

[uneblinstu]

 

This team's gotta weather the storm a little longer...

I'm having a hard time getting my hopes up.

 

We weren't exactly dominating teams when Moses was playing.

 

And if Leslee does come back, i have to think he will be on a minutes restriction and who knows how effective he will be after his 3rd serious knee injury.

 

Obviously these guys would help, but I'm not sure if they can turn our season around.

 

We were playing a lot better defensively. They just allow NU to defend a lot better, and the rebounding should, well...rebound. They're the two best rebounders on the team. You won't see a huge scoring change, I don't think, but you should see them get better just about every where else. Even if Smith can't play more than 5-8 minutes right away, it'll help ease some of the burden Pitchford's shouldering on his own right now.

 

I'm also not saying we'll see them gone another "championship run", but I think they'll look a lot closer to the team we thought we'd see at the start of the year.

[brfrad]

 

This team's gotta weather the storm a little longer...

I'm having a hard time getting my hopes up.

 

We weren't exactly dominating teams when Moses was playing.

 

And if Leslee does come back, i have to think he will be on a minutes restriction and who knows how effective he will be after his 3rd serious knee injury.

 

Obviously these guys would help, but I'm not sure if they can turn our season around.

 

We need someone to get Pitchford and Rivers some rest.  Even if those guys can give us 20 minutes with 7 points and 10 boards that would be huge.  Pitchford played 32 minutes again.  He has avg. about 35 minutes over the last 6 games.  Rivers is avg. about 30 minutes per game.

[uneblinstu]

Caught some of Welch's post game show and he made the point that Iowa was supposed to hammer NU tonight and they didn't. NU was right in this game. They have a very real shot to win this game. There's still a lot of fight in this team. I think we saw that tonight. Iowa just was a little too much for NU to handle tonight. 

[FredsSlacks]

Caught some of Welch's post game show and he made the point that Iowa was supposed to hammer NU tonight and they didn't. NU was right in this game. They have a very real shot to win this game. There's still a lot of fight in this team. I think we saw that tonight. Iowa just was a little too much for NU to handle tonight. 

i believe the spread was 10.5 and we lost by 11....

[uneblinstu]

 

Caught some of Welch's post game show and he made the point that Iowa was supposed to hammer NU tonight and they didn't. NU was right in this game. They have a very real shot to win this game. There's still a lot of fight in this team. I think we saw that tonight. Iowa just was a little too much for NU to handle tonight. 

i believe the spread was 10.5 and we lost by 11....

 

I don't really care what the spread was. This was a four point game with five minutes left. With as thin as NU was vs. a full strength Iowa team coming off a huge win, NU had every chance to win this game. Iowa's depth was a huge factor in this game, probably the biggest one, NU still gave themselves a real shot to win.

[Creighton Fan]

Caught some of Welch's post game show and he made the point that Iowa was supposed to hammer NU tonight and they didn't. NU was right in this game. They have a very real shot to win this game. There's still a lot of fight in this team. I think we saw that tonight. Iowa just was a little too much for NU to handle tonight.

i believe the spread was 10.5 and we lost by 11....

I don't really care what the spread was. This was a four point game with five minutes left. With as thin as NU was vs. a full strength Iowa team coming off a huge win, NU had every chance to win this game. Iowa's depth was a huge factor in this game, probably the biggest one, NU still gave themselves a real shot to win.

Wit the cold and snow it prolly also the weakest home court advantage a opponent gonna get dis year. You could see all the empty seats on the broadcast.

[hhcmatt]

 

I wasn't able to watch the game but the 7 minutes from a guy who started against Team USA sort of blows my mind.

[hhcmatt]

Post game Quotes

 

Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles

Opening Statement: 
“I thought the game came down to the last four possessions in the second half. Where we come down and Terran makes a three in transition and they come down and Uthoff hits a three in transition. We came down and scored then Clemmons hits a three late, they made eleven points in four possessions and in a low scoring battle like that it’s hard to overcome.”  

Q: Does the frustration grow still missing your two centers and seeing the other team gets points inside?
“You’re in a conundrum with Iowa because you’ve got guys that can make threes. And Olaseni did a great job making his free throws for a peculiar looking free throw that thing does nothing but hit the bottom of the net.”

 Q: Are you surprised that they didn’t try to go inside more in the second half?
“I thought we were pretty tough on the ball in the second half. We handled some of their actions well getting through some of their screens.”

Q: Terran was hurt in the first half would you like to shine some light on that?
“He had an extremely painful shin bruise and that certainly hurt his quickness. He played through a lot of pain, he toughed it out. He was hurt early within the first twelve minutes of the game.”

 Q: How are you looking forward to the rest of the big ten schedule?
“ You got to love to compete. If you’re in this league you have to love to grind and love to compete.  We are going to take tomorrow off and then traveltomorrow when we can. Then we’ll have a one day prep before Rutgers and they are really athletic and physical. We battled on the glass tonight but at the same time we are going to have to be ready for that game. I imagine it will be another one of those low scoring brawls and that’s the way we have to compete.

 Q: You had to rely on young guys tonight like Tarin (Smith) and Nick (Fuller) how well do you think they responded?
“I thought Tarin did some really good things. He had one questionable decision on a shot and it was essentially a turnover in the first half. I think he did good job.”

 Q: What is it that White does that gets them going so much?
“ I don’t know if I’ve seen a faster player before. They get him the ball at the top of the key and he’s at the baseline already. He gets fouled a lot in transition on the baseline and that’s just because he is so fast. I really think he is just deceptively fast.”​

[Norm Peterson]

Well, Miles managed to out-coach McCaffrey by one point through 32 minutes, but it was all McCaffrey after that, out-coaching Miles by 12 points during that crucial stretch run.

 

Makes me wonder why Fran, er, I mean "Psycho," waited so long to dig down deep and start out-coaching Miles.  He almost waited toooo long.  I mean, if Miles had pulled out the old "slam dunk" or the "made three pointer" he might have managed to out-coach McCaffrey for the entire game.

 

As it was, we only got about 32 good minutes out of Miles.  Probably got fatigued those last 8 minutes.  Craig Smith transferring to South Dakota was a big blow to our coaching depth, it seems.

 

I wonder what Psycho said to rally his troops in that under 8 media timeout of the 2nd half?  Probably something like "Any of you homos touch me or my stuff ... and I'll kill ya."  Just brilliant coaching by Psycho that last 8 minutes.

[Handy Johnson]

A disheartening loss, but at least our players don't look like extras from the movie "Deliverance".

[soxnskers]

I felt like our guys competed extremely hard and honestly hung in there a lot better than I thought they would given the injury situation and lack of consistent scoring outside of Pettaway and Shields.  Most all of our recent games we have been within striking distance in the last five minutes and just haven't been able to get over the hump and close a game out.  Getting Moses and Lesley back I think will help but we either need to find a way to get over the hump or get far enough ahead that we won't have to worry about getting out of our own way at the end of the game.  It may be wishful thinking but it seems to me we had similar issues around this time last year but eventually started to find a way to win games in the last five instead of finding ways to lose.  We obviously don't have a Biggs to kick off the team which seemed to spark them last year so that spark is going to have to come from somewhere else.  They've shown the capability to turn it around and find ways to win games in the past so I still have confidence that they can.  We were all leaving them for dead after the way last year's B1G season started and we saw how that turned out. I'm not saying that's going to happen again or that we will make the NCAA's but I'm far from giving up on this team.  I feel like a lot of the people who were so quick to jump on the bandwagon last year are proving to be just as quick to jump off as soon as things look bad.  Not that I should act too surprised by that.

[49r]

Well, Miles managed to out-coach McCaffrey by one point through 32 minutes, but it was all McCaffrey after that, out-coaching Miles by 12 points during that crucial stretch run.

 

Makes me wonder why Fran, er, I mean "Psycho," waited so long to dig down deep and start out-coaching Miles.  He almost waited toooo long.  I mean, if Miles had pulled out the old "slam dunk" or the "made three pointer" he might have managed to out-coach McCaffrey for the entire game.

 

As it was, we only got about 32 good minutes out of Miles.  Probably got fatigued those last 8 minutes.  Craig Smith transferring to South Dakota was a big blow to our coaching depth, it seems.

 

I wonder what Psycho said to rally his troops in that under 8 media timeout of the 2nd half?  Probably something like "Any of you homos touch me or my stuff ... and I'll kill ya."  Just brilliant coaching by Psycho that last 8 minutes.

 

+1 Norm.  Well played!  

[ajb5856]

I felt like our guys competed extremely hard and honestly hung in there a lot better than I thought they would given the injury situation and lack of consistent scoring outside of Pettaway and Shields. Most all of our recent games we have been within striking distance in the last five minutes and just haven't been able to get over the hump and close a game out. Getting Moses and Lesley back I think will help but we either need to find a way to get over the hump or get far enough ahead that we won't have to worry about getting out of our own way at the end of the game. It may be wishful thinking but it seems to me we had similar issues around this time last year but eventually started to find a way to win games in the last five instead of finding ways to lose. We obviously don't have a Biggs to kick off the team which seemed to spark them last year so that spark is going to have to come from somewhere else. They've shown the capability to turn it around and find ways to win games in the past so I still have confidence that they can. We were all leaving them for dead after the way last year's B1G season started and we saw how that turned out. I'm not saying that's going to happen again or that we will make the NCAA's but I'm far from giving up on this team. I feel like a lot of the people who were so quick to jump on the bandwagon last year are proving to be just as quick to jump off as soon as things look bad. Not that I should act too surprised by that.

Great post. I've heard too many people (not here) say 'we suck, we're terrible, etc etc'. And while that may be a snap reaction to losing and a result of the bloated expectations, it's not entirely true. As you suggested you have to be somewhat encouraged by the fight and competitiveness of this team despite the circumstances.

[hhcmatt]

Most all of our recent games we have been within striking distance in the last five minutes and just haven't been able to get over the hump and close a game out. 

 

We had a lot of games like this in Miles' first year (in addition to some beat downs)

[Creighton Fan]

I felt like our guys competed extremely hard and honestly hung in there a lot better than I thought they would given the injury situation and lack of consistent scoring outside of Pettaway and Shields. Most all of our recent games we have been within striking distance in the last five minutes and just haven't been able to get over the hump and close a game out. Getting Moses and Lesley back I think will help but we either need to find a way to get over the hump or get far enough ahead that we won't have to worry about getting out of our own way at the end of the game. It may be wishful thinking but it seems to me we had similar issues around this time last year but eventually started to find a way to win games in the last five instead of finding ways to lose. We obviously don't have a Biggs to kick off the team which seemed to spark them last year so that spark is going to have to come from somewhere else. They've shown the capability to turn it around and find ways to win games in the past so I still have confidence that they can. We were all leaving them for dead after the way last year's B1G season started and we saw how that turned out. I'm not saying that's going to happen again or that we will make the NCAA's but I'm far from giving up on this team. I feel like a lot of the people who were so quick to jump on the bandwagon last year are proving to be just as quick to jump off as soon as things look bad. Not that I should act too surprised by that.

Problem when comparing thus year to last year is that last year we din't have them bad losses at home. That's the killer. Everybody gits stinkers on the road but home stinkers kill ya.

[soxnskers]

 

Most all of our recent games we have been within striking distance in the last five minutes and just haven't been able to get over the hump and close a game out. 

 

We had a lot of games like this in Miles' first year (in addition to some beat downs)

 

 

Last year was more beatdowns early in the year.  Lost by 13 to UAB, 15 to Creighton, 15 to Cincinnati, 10 to Iowa, 31 to Ohio State, 29 to Michigan.  Honestly at this point in the year we have an identical record to this time last year but have yet to really get blown away.  Not to say that won't/can't happen this year but we are showing signs not allowing it.  We are in most all of these games down to the end and the deficits get slightly inflated due to fouling/free throws in the last 2 minutes (like last night).  Maybe it's just me but most all of the games referenced above we weren't even as close as some of the finals showed.  The competitiveness that this team has showed so far has unfortunately produced similar results so far record-wise but it is what gives me hope that we can turn this around.  

[hhcmatt]

Problem when comparing thus year to last year is that last year we din't have them bad losses at home. That's the killer. Everybody gits stinkers on the road but home stinkers kill ya.

 

Incarnate Word and Creighton are the worst two. Not good but not killers.

For the purposes of they tourney, winning on the road is worth more than losing at home against the same team.  However the 1-3 road record currently isn't offsetting that. 

[hhctony]

Since I said I'd start posting more, here goes. I actually really like this team. We just have Norman Dale-like depth right now. That's frustrating. In a league like the Big Ten it kills you. On to Rutgers, which I see is like in the top-70 in the RPI so we'd probalby need to expect another fight. I hope our fans can rally around this team at home. I know we've had some tough stretches at home, but we can still win some games. And, who knows what we could be at full strength. The facts are we are 3-4 without Moses Abraham. While most people thing his return won't have an effect, the numbers tell me different.

[AuroranHusker]

When Moses Abraham is in the game with the usual foursome we're +20, and obviously when he's been out we've lost a bunch of games that were 'in the balance' in the final 5 minutes. From the look of things, Moses will make the B1G trip to Wisconsin in 9 days...

[hhcmatt]

Since I said I'd start posting more, here goes. I actually really like this team. We just have Norman Dale-like depth right now. That's frustrating. In a league like the Big Ten it kills you. On to Rutgers, which I see is like in the top-70 in the RPI so we'd probalby need to expect another fight. I hope our fans can rally around this team at home. I know we've had some tough stretches at home, but we can still win some games. And, who knows what we could be at full strength. The facts are we are 3-4 without Moses Abraham. While most people thing his return won't have an effect, the numbers tell me different.

 

They have a similarly crappy offense...actually worse than ours. Virginia held them to 26 points.

We're a better team and hopefully we show it.  Nice about their RPI...we'll see what it is at the end of the year.

[extremehoops]

BTN said last night Nebraska is 2nd in the nation for least amount of players used per game.

I cannot believe that our reserves are 320th+ in the country bad not to use them.

 

This was before last night so maybe Coach Miles will decide to use Fuller and Smith more

[Handy Johnson]

BTN said last night Nebraska is 2nd in the nation for least amount of players used per game.

I cannot believe that our reserves are 320th+ in the country bad not to use them.

 

This was before last night so maybe Coach Miles will decide to use Fuller and Smith more

Well right now our offense consists of 2 things, Petteway ∨ Shields driving to the hoop, or Pitchford shooting a 3. Everyone else can't/won't shoot which is  the same thing and a problem. Let's hope the Calvary is on the way (our Bigs) so MAYBE we free up some shooters.