This season and what happened...

[ajb5856]

I'm reading lots of "we suck" and "we are awful" so what actually happened?

The team obviously never found IT this year. What is IT? Last season was fun. I remember winning lots of close games and remember the guys having fun making shots, alley oops, and court storms by our fans.

Then this year happened. Not as fun. I'm not going to go back and look up scores so here's my short synopsis off of memory. Had a couple disappointing non-conference losses that shouldn't have happened, slow start to conference play, then seemed to possibly have it going in the right direction, and then hit this huge skid. Horrid offensively throughout but still, aside from today, I do not remember getting taken to the woodshed. Some reasonably close games (despite the lack of basket scoring ability) and took some higher ranked teams down to the wire (WISCONSIN at home, at Maryland). Couldn't ever get it going. Last year we watched alley oops, this year we watched bricks. Why? Early on many suggested it was Molinari and the intense focus on hard nosed D. It's also been suggested that the Craig Smith departure is at fault. Now I've heard that it's because Miles can't coach. Some of these things may be factors but I refuse to think that a single one of these is the entire cause. I'm calling this a SEASON LONG FUNK. No excuse for it, just never got things going. Many factors. New coaches, old coaches that left, injured bigs, bricks, couldn't find s rotation that worked, bricks, guys in the rotation, guys out of the rotation, more bricks, now you're starting, now you're pulled, still more bricks, now you're on scout team, bricks, back in the rotation, and now we are messing with the lineup again this late in the year. Signs that everything was tried and nothing has worked. ALL FREAKIN YEAR. I'm just hoping that next season helps to put this season to bed in the old memory. Players and coaches can get back to work and figure out what needs to happen.

[huskerbaseball13]

Lack of talent. Added pressure. Big heads. Questionable coaching. Long list imo. Not sure you can point to one thing. Next year will be a big year for this program and Tim Miles imo.

[tcp]

coming out of exile briefly to address this a bit.

 

this is one of those seasons that might take a full offseason to deconstruct to the point of usefulness. So much went wrong at so many different times.

 

It's a really rare event when a team with these kind of expectations fails so spectacularly--and make no mistake this team likely will not win another game this season.

 

Right now I'm just looking at this the same way a baseball fan would through the lens of metrics: we've regressed to the mean this year. And I think that regression was spotted by the players early and wound up intimidating them almost to the point of paralysis.

 

"We're really not as good as we thought we were! We're all gonna die!!!"

 

That's poison for any sports team.

 

I think everyone's weaknesses were exposed this season, including our coaches. That's not necessarily a bad thing, either. Can't fix what you don't know is broken, right? 

 

In any event, I can't look at one thing to pin this epic step backward on, either. This Husker season is one of the most--if not the most--disappointing of my lifetime (at least if you consider disappointed a function of the distance between expectation and result).

 

Even the most popular coaches have at least one significant test of fire in their tenures. This is Miles'. And it's probably good for him that the new car smell dissipated as quickly as it came. I think he'll be a better coach for it.

 

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Our previous coach followed up his best coaching season with arguably his worst, and it ended his tenure at NU (Sadler's 3rd and 4th seasons). It'll be interesting to see how Miles' 4th season goes, because it's likely that his Husker career will depend on it.

[FredsSlacks]

We weren't exactly a powerhouse last year. we won 19 games. not 25+.

 

yes, most of the team from that 19 win season returned, but we really didn't improve our talent at all.

 

Next year will be interesting because we return everyone once again, but we are actually adding in new players that i would consider very talented.

[Red Don]

We weren't exactly a powerhouse last year. we won 19 games. not 25+.

 

yes, most of the team from that 19 win season returned, but we really didn't improve our talent at all.

 

Next year will be interesting because we return everyone once again, but we are actually adding in new players that i would consider very talented.

As a Noob, I'm sure I can't add all that much, but TS seems to sum it up pretty well to me. 

 

Last year we over-achieved under-expectations by a wide margin!.  Now this year we're equally under-achieving over-expectations.  (I remember reading a comment attributed to Shavon, after watching some game films Miles had given him to review:  'Coach, how did we ever win those games?' - or something to that effect.)

 

It seems to me this season has been one of slow regression (maybe starting with blowing the 18 pt lead over Ohio State in last year's B1G Tournament).  I'm sure many of you can dissect the specific reason(s) much better than I, but maybe the lack of having an outside shooter has resulted in foes being able to clog the lanes, making it hard for us to go to the rim (no outside game taking away our inside game).  Or maybe our opponents have simply learned our weaknesses and how to exploit them.  One positive is our stout defense that is good (and getting better) that has been keeping us in most of the games.

 

I think our influx of talented players should make next season an entirely different matter, but we won't be as hobbled by unrealistic 'Over-Expectations' like we were this season.

[unl]

First off - nobody is making excuses here.  NU is 13-14 which is the record earned.  

 

I don't think anyone has The Answer, but, I do question if the injuries to Leslee, and to a lesser extend Moses, affected the team early on...which may have carried further into the season.  What if Leslee is healthy and Moses is available just to add a few minutes to the rotation?  Let's be reasonable here. I say NU with Leslee beats Rhode Island, that we don't need overtime and he gives us +4 points and we win.  I say the same for Incarnate Word (still am not used to how that sounds much like UM-BC did). 

 

Creighton Hawaii Indiana and Iowa were our next losses (Incarnate Word was after Creighton but the point remains the same). All fairly close losses.  Not nailbiters, but not blowouts. 

 

Leslee would have no doubt helped in some of those games.  No question.  Would we have won all of them?  Likely no.  A couple?  Probably safe to say a couple.  

 

Would that have helped the teams psyche to be, say, 10-2 instead of 8-4? Would our rotation have been more settled?  Would NU have been up enough to try other players and see if they fit?  

 

I'm not blaming the season on any one thing, because none of us know.  But, this is one of my biggest "what if's" of the whole season.  I'm not suggesting NU would have gone on some big, 2014esque run, or been ranked, or been going to the Tournament, or anything like that. But I do question if there was an impact from the early adversity to the end result.  

[HuskerFever]

This isn't the only factor, but when you can't be efficient with the outside threat, it eliminates half of the playbook for the opponent's defense. The same goes for not having much production from the bigs (or lack thereof due to injuries). They only need to focus on one area of your game. In this case, it is shutting down Shavon (he was hot early in the season when Petteway was having some difficulties) and Petteway. The moment you shut at least one of those two players down, your job just got a whole lot easier.

[Huskerpapa]

...if it was one thing, it could be fixed.  This year has been somewhat of a perfect storm.  We have a lot of needs...

[AuroranHusker]

This team has been fairly easy to defend since they can't seem to make any shots, contested or otherwise. And other coaches have figured NU out this year. Hopefully next year AW-III will team with these guys to be more complete from the outside offense.

[unl]

This team has been fairly easy to defend since they can't seem to make any shots, contested or otherwise. And other coaches have figured NU out this year. Hopefully next year AW-III will team with these guys to be more complete from the outside offense.

I feel like I'm hijacking the thread but with AW(4)3, Watson, Morrow, and Jacobsen, and loss of 3 big seniors, we may look very guard heavy like we did when Ade was the 5 and Ryan was the 4.  But the talent and versatility will be a big improvement. Gotta have high expectations next year.

[lang]

This a really solid thread with some really good thoughts.   Good to commiserate with you guys !   Some tough decisions after the season on player changes, I'm thinking.   I'd hate to lose anyone.  I want to strenghthen what we have already and add solid pieces.  That'd be more rewarding in a sense.   On the other hand, this is big boy ball and we nead as much help as possible.

[lang]

 

This team has been fairly easy to defend since they can't seem to make any shots, contested or otherwise. And other coaches have figured NU out this year. Hopefully next year AW-III will team with these guys to be more complete from the outside offense.

I feel like I'm hijacking the thread but with AW(4)3, Watson, Morrow, and Jacobsen, and loss of 3 big seniors, we may look very guard heavy like we did when Ade was the 5 and Ryan was the 4.  But the talent and versatility will be a big improvement. Gotta have high expectations next year.

 

We'd at least have Walter and Jacob, so we'd be bigger than that team ( Ade and Ryan ).   As far as expectations, the team should have high ones.  The fans should have tempered ones...JMHO.

[AuroranHusker]

 

 

This team has been fairly easy to defend since they can't seem to make any shots, contested or otherwise. And other coaches have figured NU out this year. Hopefully next year AW-III will team with these guys to be more complete from the outside offense.

I feel like I'm hijacking the thread but with AW(4)3, Watson, Morrow, and Jacobsen, and loss of 3 big seniors, we may look very guard heavy like we did when Ade was the 5 and Ryan was the 4.  But the talent and versatility will be a big improvement. Gotta have high expectations next year.

 

We'd at least have Walter and Jacob, so we'd be bigger than that team ( Ade and Ryan ).   As far as expectations, the team should have high ones.  The fans should have tempered ones...JMHO.

 

 

The team needs more of a sense of urgency, this year and next (for that matter). Coaches can only do so much, eventually the players need to govern themselves as far as effort & stick-to-it-iveness.

[PeltzFan12]

Even with upgraded players for next year, let's take a look at our actual offensive system.  It's a motion heavy offense built around high action and heavy ball handling from the perimeter.  It's suited to pick apart defenses that have problems switching into mismatches, then a Petteway or Shields can drive and attack, and go to the line.  Last year, this happened quite a bit.  If teams sagged too much, Walt or Ray were there to make an outside shot.  Shoot, I even remember one game where Nate Hawkins shot a couple of wide open threes and made them, because teams were sagging off of them.  The problem is, we have guys that are open, but hesitant to shoot.  I've never seen a team pump fake from the perimeter so much in my life of watching basketball.  What that pump fake basically does is allow the defender to recover, and then if say, Shavon decides to take off towards the rim, he's guarded vs. when he had space.  I'm not picking specifically on Shavon, but he is a guy who is widely talented but has some serious issues with mental focus and hesitating.  

Bottom line, they need to be able to put 5 guys on the court that are threats to score, in a variety of ways.  We can't just have Walt as only a 3 point shooter, we need versatile guys.  Hoping Watson and White can ignite some things next year and create more room for the rest of the team.

[AuroranHusker]

Even with upgraded players for next year, let's take a look at our actual offensive system.  It's a motion heavy offense built around high action and heavy ball handling from the perimeter.  It's suited to pick apart defenses that have problems switching into mismatches, then a Petteway or Shields can drive and attack, and go to the line.  Last year, this happened quite a bit.  If teams sagged too much, Walt or Ray were there to make an outside shot.  Shoot, I even remember one game where Nate Hawkins shot a couple of wide open threes and made them, because teams were sagging off of them.  The problem is, we have guys that are open, but hesitant to shoot.  I've never seen a team pump fake from the perimeter so much in my life of watching basketball.  What that pump fake basically does is allow the defender to recover, and then if say, Shavon decides to take off towards the rim, he's guarded vs. when he had space.  I'm not picking specifically on Shavon, but he is a guy who is widely talented but has some serious issues with mental focus and hesitating.  

Bottom line, they need to be able to put 5 guys on the court that are threats to score, in a variety of ways.  We can't just have Walt as only a 3 point shooter, we need versatile guys.  Hoping Watson and White can ignite some things next year and create more room for the rest of the team.

 

That's very much an issue. The lack of offensive diversity has allowed teams to shut us down & NU has no other options. Next year we will, IMHO.

[ajb5856]

Even with upgraded players for next year, let's take a look at our actual offensive system. It's a motion heavy offense built around high action and heavy ball handling from the perimeter. It's suited to pick apart defenses that have problems switching into mismatches, then a Petteway or Shields can drive and attack, and go to the line. Last year, this happened quite a bit. If teams sagged too much, Walt or Ray were there to make an outside shot. Shoot, I even remember one game where Nate Hawkins shot a couple of wide open threes and made them, because teams were sagging off of them. The problem is, we have guys that are open, but hesitant to shoot. I've never seen a team pump fake from the perimeter so much in my life of watching basketball. What that pump fake basically does is allow the defender to recover, and then if say, Shavon decides to take off towards the rim, he's guarded vs. when he had space. I'm not picking specifically on Shavon, but he is a guy who is widely talented but has some serious issues with mental focus and hesitating.

Bottom line, they need to be able to put 5 guys on the court that are threats to score, in a variety of ways. We can't just have Walt as only a 3 point shooter, we need versatile guys. Hoping Watson and White can ignite some things next year and create more room for the rest of the team.

That's very much an issue. The lack of offensive diversity has allowed teams to shut us down & NU has no other options. Next year we will, IMHO.

Basically zero diversity. Teams know Petteway and Shields to be the threats and that they are the only threats. The other 3 on the floor can be left alone. Aside from TP when he goes off, those two primarily wish to drive the ball and attack the rim. Teams can take away one of those guys. They take their pick, Shields or Petteway. The other guy gets his, nobody else can hit a shot, and it's nearly impossible for us to score enough points to stay in the game. We are so easy to guard this season it's unbelieveable.

[royalfan]

I am completely baffled at the lack of ability to function well on offense.  Even when it was Talley and Gallegos and a little Ubel and Shields late in the year as basically our only options it flowed a little better than this.  We got better as the year went and the offense actually was functional to the point we won a conference tourney game.  It is very bizarre how we have seemingly got less functional as the year has gone on this year.  I cannot explain it or understand it.  I am hopeful that Smith didn't have everything to do with our offensive scheme, as I am not sure what to expect going forward if that was the case. 

[NU Follower]

Even with upgraded players for next year, let's take a look at our actual offensive system.  It's a motion heavy offense built around high action and heavy ball handling from the perimeter.  It's suited to pick apart defenses that have problems switching into mismatches, then a Petteway or Shields can drive and attack, and go to the line.  Last year, this happened quite a bit.  If teams sagged too much, Walt or Ray were there to make an outside shot.  Shoot, I even remember one game where Nate Hawkins shot a couple of wide open threes and made them, because teams were sagging off of them.  The problem is, we have guys that are open, but hesitant to shoot.  I've never seen a team pump fake from the perimeter so much in my life of watching basketball.  What that pump fake basically does is allow the defender to recover, and then if say, Shavon decides to take off towards the rim, he's guarded vs. when he had space.  I'm not picking specifically on Shavon, but he is a guy who is widely talented but has some serious issues with mental focus and hesitating.  

Bottom line, they need to be able to put 5 guys on the court that are threats to score, in a variety of ways.  We can't just have Walt as only a 3 point shooter, we need versatile guys.  Hoping Watson and White can ignite some things next year and create more room for the rest of the team.

Watching the game was miserable.  Iowa played well, we didn't.  Our guys seemed to lack any confidence and/or offense basketball iq.  Instead of simply pulling up for a relatively open jumper, we'd hesitate (which allows the defense to recover).  Instead of cutting to the hoop aggressively, we seemed to be a step of two slow (which allows the defense to recover). 

 

We just don't seem to have much of any flow on offense.  Do we actually set screens off the ball?  We don't screen well, cut hard, anticipate well or pass well (and we're sloppy with the ball on top of that).  Teams have scouted our weaknesses well, and we currently have no counter.  We should be able to get a couple of bunnies with how teams cheat to help with Terran and Shavon.  The best word I can come up with to describe our offense is:  AWKWARD. 

[PeltzFan12]

I think the Hesitation and Indecisiveness is what makes us so easy to guard.  Oh, also putting up 13-17 points in the first half makes it easy too.

 

Hesitation comes from lack of confidence.  IMHO, we don't have much confidence at all from top to bottom.  Amazing, considering how much we had at times last year.  What happened to it?  Did the Rhode Island loss on the road really "crush" our team's goal of going undefeated??  I also think Coach Mile's will even admit, he figured we'd be way better on offense based on last year, and was content to let the guys try and play through some of their early struggles, hoping things would come together, which they haven't.  Oh yeah, some of our back door cuts and passes today were terribly executed.  

[Dean Smith]

Even with upgraded players for next year, let's take a look at our actual offensive system.  It's a motion heavy offense built around high action and heavy ball handling from the perimeter.  It's suited to pick apart defenses that have problems switching into mismatches, then a Petteway or Shields can drive and attack, and go to the line.  Last year, this happened quite a bit.  If teams sagged too much, Walt or Ray were there to make an outside shot.  Shoot, I even remember one game where Nate Hawkins shot a couple of wide open threes and made them, because teams were sagging off of them.  The problem is, we have guys that are open, but hesitant to shoot.  I've never seen a team pump fake from the perimeter so much in my life of watching basketball.  What that pump fake basically does is allow the defender to recover, and then if say, Shavon decides to take off towards the rim, he's guarded vs. when he had space.  I'm not picking specifically on Shavon, but he is a guy who is widely talented but has some serious issues with mental focus and hesitating.  

Bottom line, they need to be able to put 5 guys on the court that are threats to score, in a variety of ways.  We can't just have Walt as only a 3 point shooter, we need versatile guys.  Hoping Watson and White can ignite some things next year and create more room for the rest of the team.

I'm not sure what you mean by "motion heavy offense" but the biggest problem I see with our offense is that there is no motion. They certainly aren't running what Knight, K, Bennett or anyone I know of would call a motion offense. Whatever you are running, whether its a true motion or a patterned offence you need movement. You can move players, the ball, or both, but there has to be movement. What movement we have doesn't appear to have much purpose. If the defense is standing around it makes it awful easy to get to help.

[PeltzFan12]

Exactly.  We run a Motion Offense but our players don't always execute it the way it's designed, and many are content not to move and start to just "watch" the action.  Based on the conversation I had with Mike this past weekend, the offense is designed to pick apart switching defenses when mismatches can occur.  They run the top of the key weave until a mismatch is identified and then taken advantage of.  Last year on no sit sunday, look at how many times Petteway had a layup on Kaminsky, because Walt was up top and Kaminsky ended up switching on Petteway.  Same with Shields.  This year, it hasn't been as successful because I think other teams are wiser and giving Petteway and Shields a lot more attention than last.  Some of our other players have to just shoot within the offense and not pump fake and then pass.  Against Iowa, mulitple times Shavon would drive, take one or two dribbles, pick up his dribble, then pass back outside, hence, nothin' doing.  

[Dean Smith]

Exactly.  We run a Motion Offense but our players don't always execute it the way it's designed, and many are content not to move and start to just "watch" the action.  Based on the conversation I had with Mike this past weekend, the offense is designed to pick apart switching defenses when mismatches can occur.  They run the top of the key weave until a mismatch is identified and then taken advantage of.  Last year on no sit sunday, look at how many times Petteway had a layup on Kaminsky, because Walt was up top and Kaminsky ended up switching on Petteway.  Same with Shields.  This year, it hasn't been as successful because I think other teams are wiser and giving Petteway and Shields a lot more attention than last.  Some of our other players have to just shoot within the offense and not pump fake and then pass.  Against Iowa, mulitple times Shavon would drive, take one or two dribbles, pick up his dribble, then pass back outside, hence, nothin' doing. 

That's the problem but I would still argue that we don't run a motion offense and this is not what Miles sees as a motion either. I know Miles came in saying he ran motion but I don't think he has actually implemented that in any sort of large scale way. Where as a dribble hand off can be, running a continuous weave at the top is not part of any motion offense.

[jason2486]

The motion offense we run every so often should be effective, but it relies on slipping screens, pick n pop, and pick n roll. Without showing video, it's basically where each time the ball is reversed, the post who throws to a wing sets a ball screen, with those 3 options. With guys like TP, SS, Tai, Walt, Fuller, and Tarin, it should be very effective. However with our shooting woes I assume being a big part of the problem, we don't run it very effective. It is a highly used offense at the high school level. Our high school team calls it Butler, so I assume it was taken from Butler during Stevens' time as coach. It is a good offense if you don't have a true back to the basket player. It is still somewhat of a mystery to me why our guys aren't more effective running it.

[AuroranHusker]

Pretty sure the motion offense was around before Brad Stevens was born...

[swmckewon]

Right now I'm just looking at this the same way a baseball fan would through the lens of metrics: we've regressed to the mean this year.

IMO, this is salient. I think Nebraska will look back on 4-5 games this year with significant regret -- Creighton, Incarnate Word, at Michigan are three -- but when I look at what this team projected to be, I see, oh, 15-12, 16-11 or 17-10 at this point. Right there on the bubble with 3 games to go. And some bad shooting, coupled with a curious lack of want-to at Michigan, has left it 13-14.  

 

Though I've chewed on the overall talent of the team, that Michigan game was an alarm bell. Michigan rolled a pretty crappy team out there that night that had little chemistry. No LaVert, no Walton, who'd just been hurt. Nebraska should have had plenty of motivation, too, since it hadn't beaten Michigan since entering the league, got humiliated up there last year, and arguably got robbed at home last year. 

 

The performance in that game, right on the heels of a win over Michigan State, was a marker that something was off.