uneblinstu's Post Game Chatter: ed 7, vol 22 - Northwestern

[uneblinstu]

Needed a feel good win. I'll take it.

 

- Maybe it was just Petteway shooting them out of it, but I'll never understand why a team doesn't play zone vs. Nebraska, so thanks, Northwestern.

- Terran had a really good game. He started off scorching hot which seemed to loosen things up for the whole squad.

- That's what we need from Pitchford. We've missed it terribly.

- I'm assuming it was a matchup thing but I was expecting to see more of T. Smith.

- Nice to see Rivers' shot return.

- Hey! Moses made a shot!

- Really, they did to Northwestern what they were supposed to do to Northwestern.

- Tai did some good things.

- Thought Shavon was pretty solid. Not great, but not the terribleness he's been mired in.

- Thought the defense was good for the most part.

 

What did ya'll think of this one?

[Fullbacksympathy]

Glad to see players shooting when they were open tonight.  Night and day.  I'll always be able to live with a missed shot.  I can't stand scared.  Benny, David, Tai, and Walt all stepped into open shots with no hesitation.  Rhythm makes a ton of difference.  Petteway was phenomenal. 

[Huskerpapa]

- Couldn't believe how hot Northwestern was in the first half.  We played good defense and they hit shot after shots...yikes

- Nice to see TP go off

- Nice to see Walt go off

- Nice to see Shavon get 1000 + points

- Nice to see David hit his open looks

- Nice to see Tai playing free and easy...he's got his mojo back

- Nice to see us hit the boards

- Nice to see TP distributing the rock, and Shavon, and Tai, and Benny et al.

- Nice to see our offense return

- Nice to see a win.

[FredsSlacks]

We played about as well as we could have. A good win.

 

It's not going to matter unless we can get some road wins though.

 

whatever we did tonight should be done every game for the rest of the year.

[PimpMario]

Glad to see us take care of business again at home. We have got to find away to carry some momentum on the road.

Was this the fewest number in attendance ever at the vault?

Certainly the Lowest for a conference game.

[hhcmatt]

- Maybe it was just Petteway shooting them out of it, but I'll never understand why a team doesn't play zone vs. Nebraska, so thanks, Northwestern.

 

Surprising with some of the Carmody players still on the squad they couldn't put a zone defense together. However, they had one of those Saturday games where they travel for a Tuesday game so it's not unexpected they weren't prepared for zone given how little they've played this year.

[Huskerpapa]

...at one time in the first half, my son turned to me and said "Northwestern is the worst team in our league?  Wow!"

[hhcmatt]

[hhcmatt]

[hhcmatt]

Notes from Huskers.com

 

Notes
*-Nebraska shot 62.8 percent from the field, which is the best performance for the Huskers in three seasons under Tim Miles and the best since shooting 63 percent against Arkansas Pine Bluff on Nov. 15, 2010.
*-Shavon Shields finished with 14 points, becoming the 26th player in school history to reach 1,000 points. Shields now has 1,003 career points. Shields also set a career high with seven assists on the evening. His previous best was six at Wisconsin on Jan. 15.
*-Terran Petteway finished with 28 points, his 11th 20-point game of the year and 23rd of his career. Petteway is three points away from 1,000 points at Nebraska.
*-Nebraska’s 10 3-pointers tied a season high set against Tennessee-Martin on Nov. 28.
*-Nebraska had a season-high 16 assists, topping its previous best of 14 set three other times.
*-Nebraska’s 17-0 run in the second half was its largest of the season. The previous best was 16 against Omaha on Nov. 26.
*-Walter Pitchford reached double figures for the sixth time this year and second in Big Ten play. His 14 points topped his previous Big Ten best of 11 set in the opener at Indiana, and was his highest point total since scoring a career-high 19 points against Tennessee-Martin.
*-Nebraska improves to 7-2 all-time against Northwestern and has won four straight meetings dating back to 2012-13.

 

[hhcmatt]

McIntosh and Demps came in averaging just over 24 points combined. We held them to 10 tonight.

[Huskerpapa]

...another observation.  It seemed like on many of our timeouts tonight, Coach Miles spent the time speaking with the officials rather than hanging in the huddle.  Perhaps it was the fact that he was ill and didn't want to spread his sickness

[hhcmatt]

We haven't really shot like this as a team in a game since some of those games from Doc's first season where we had Marcus Perry, Charles Richardson, Aleks Maric and freshmen Ryan Anderson and Sek Henry.

 

The last time we had an eFG% like tonight was Doc's 2nd ever game against Creighton in 2006.

[OurDecay]

Its a little unsettling on a night when we shot 62% from the field and over 47% from behind the arc, and dominated the glass, that we only scored 76 points against the last-place team in the league.  I mean, tonight was technically our offense at peak efficiency, and it didn't break 80 points. 

 

My point is, that tells you just how small the margin of error we have, and what a tremendous strain it puts on our defense every game.  We have to essentially play perfect to break 75, unless we draw a ton of fouls. 

 

Just a little alarming, that's all.   But a great performance tonight.

[Norm Peterson]

Glad to see players shooting when they were open tonight.  Night and day.  I'll always be able to live with a missed shot.  I can't stand scared.  Benny, David, Tai, and Walt all stepped into open shots with no hesitation.  Rhythm makes a ton of difference.  Petteway was phenomenal. 

Except in the first half, Benny gets a kick-out for a wide open three. Hesitates.  Decides to drive it instead, walks, and turns it over.

 

Tai comes in, gets the kick in the corner and burries his three.  Very important for Tai to do that.  Very important that you have players willing to take those open shots.  Better yet, have a player willing to take those shots who can knock them down.

 

Having Walt start to come alive and Terran catch fire is huge and we need them to keep it rolling.  This looked as close to the team that beat Wisconsin last year as any team I've seen in Husker unis this season.

[Norm Peterson]

Its a little unsettling on a night when we shot 62% from the field and over 47% from behind the arc, and dominated the glass, that we only scored 76 points against the last-place team in the league.  I mean, tonight was technically our offense at peak efficiency, and it didn't break 80 points. 

 

My point is, that tells you just how small the margin of error we have, and what a tremendous strain it puts on our defense every game.  We have to essentially play perfect to break 75, unless we draw a ton of fouls. 

 

Just a little alarming, that's all.   But a great performance tonight.

Not alarming in the least.  We were playing a team that plays deliberate offense and tough defense.  That equals fewer possessions, which means lower score no matter how efficient we might be.  Y'ain't scoring 100 points when your opponent runs clock every trip up the floor.

[Norm Peterson]

So, Miles out-coached the Collins kid.  Especially in the 2nd half.  I like the fact that he finally coached his kids to make the outside shot this game.  That helped out a lot.  And making that halftime adjustment to coach his kids to make their kids NOT make their outside shots in the 2nd half was just a brilliant strategic move on Miles's part.  Collins was just left scratching his head.

 

I'm only half joking.

 

We weren't tight on D in the first half.  They were setting good screens and getting shooters open in the corners and we weren't rotating to cover their shooters and were getting burned.  We did a much better job fighting through screens to close out and rotating defensively to get a hand in their face in the 2nd half.

 

And, when players hit their shots, it makes coaches look pretty darned smart.

[royalfan]

Its a little unsettling on a night when we shot 62% from the field and over 47% from behind the arc, and dominated the glass, that we only scored 76 points against the last-place team in the league.  I mean, tonight was technically our offense at peak efficiency, and it didn't break 80 points. 

 

My point is, that tells you just how small the margin of error we have, and what a tremendous strain it puts on our defense every game.  We have to essentially play perfect to break 75, unless we draw a ton of fouls. 

 

Just a little alarming, that's all.   But a great performance tonight.

 

 

Think your are underestimating the pace fo play in a game against Northwestern.  They don't attack the offense glass so they can be back on defense.  They don't press, even when down big.  They play slow.  I don't see any reason to be unsettled about anything you mentioned, at least based on our play this evening.  My wallet is a little unsettled after playing the under in the 2nd half and getting a bit unlucky in the last several possesions to lose by 2. 

[hskr4life]

Its a little unsettling on a night when we shot 62% from the field and over 47% from behind the arc, and dominated the glass, that we only scored 76 points against the last-place team in the league.  I mean, tonight was technically our offense at peak efficiency, and it didn't break 80 points. 

 

My point is, that tells you just how small the margin of error we have, and what a tremendous strain it puts on our defense every game.  We have to essentially play perfect to break 75, unless we draw a ton of fouls. 

 

Just a little alarming, that's all.   But a great performance tonight.

We scored more points than any other Big 10 team except Wisconsin and Michigan State (which was an OT Loss for NW) against them... Even Maryland only managed in the 60's.  I will take 76 against NW any day of the week as that means we have about an 90 percent chance that we won that game.  Thats just how NW plays.

[hhcmatt]

Its a little unsettling on a night when we shot 62% from the field and over 47% from behind the arc, and dominated the glass, that we only scored 76 points against the last-place team in the league.  I mean, tonight was technically our offense at peak efficiency, and it didn't break 80 points. 

 

My point is, that tells you just how small the margin of error we have, and what a tremendous strain it puts on our defense every game.  We have to essentially play perfect to break 75, unless we draw a ton of fouls. 

 

Just a little alarming, that's all.   But a great performance tonight.

 

To put it into perspective, we lost to Indiana 70-65. If we had shot at the same clip, we would have won 90-70. Both of us are slower teams so either of us scoring above 70 without the hackfest we saw vs Michigan St is surprising.

 

You're right though in that we do need to play well on defense most every night and that's typical for us. However, that's the same sort of pressure a team who shoots and makes a lot of 3s might feel. You're also right about having to augment our offense with foul shots though because this is not a typical shooting performance for us. Hopefully next year we will have a more dynamic offense without giving up too much on D.

[Red Rum]

I was really hoping we'd beat the combined score of our 2 previous games combined but we fell short. I guess I'll live with just having the win....I guess

[NUtball]

Thought NU did a better job of attacking the paint by dribbling and cutting that worked fairly well and opened up some other shots.  Maybe it was just poor NW defense, but they need to keep that mentality going forward.  Obviously it's more difficult against a zone which they will probably see more often than not, but they still need to attack as opposed to just passing the ball around the perimeter.

[atskooc]

I liked seeing Pitch screen away from the ball, roll off the pick, get the pass and nail the three.

 

It's possible to set a pick with a big man off the ball!

[Huskerpapa]

I liked seeing Pitch screen away from the ball, roll off the pick, get the pass and nail the three.

 

It's possible to set a pick with a big man off the ball!

Agreed...but for one of the first times this year I saw Walt set a pick and then actually roll to the basket.  In fact I saw this last night on more than a couple of occasions, and it resulted in a lay up or two.  I believe that is how Moses got his lay up as well.  Good to see the offense mature a bit.