Post Game Chatter: Vol 8, Issue 12 - Samford

[hhcmatt]

We ran into a team that we couldn't out talent and/or out hero ball...the combination of their slowing trap and ability to sucker us into charges/bad calls basically took the wind out of our sails and set us up for all the tentative play in the second half. At one point with 3-4 minutes to go our guys passed the ball around the perimeter scared to shoot...like we were the ones with the lead.

 

How does Jacobson not attempt a shot?

We've gotten off to 3 slow starts since he's moved into the starting lineup. 

If you want to pair guys, start it out with Watson and Hammond because we're looking at a trend here

 

Where was the ball rotation and passing from earlier in the season when we played against a zone?

 

It's all fun and games until you lose a team you paid to come here

This post has been promoted to an article

[kldm64]

Somebody please explain to me why Benny is still getting so many minutes.  I thought Miles did a horrible rotation late in the game when he brought in Webster and Benny and replaced Andrew White and Watson with about 4 minutes left.  We are struggle to score and you sit down White???  Makes no sense.  We are getting into the same rut we did last year is that we are a 2 man show which makes us easy to guard. 

 

We played very un-inspired tonight and deserved to lose.  We still had a shot to go 9-4 in non-conference but we let that slip away.  Now the best we can do is 8-5.   What a huge letdown.

[huskerbaseball13]

This may be the crossroads for Miles tenure at Nebraska. This can go one of two ways. We were likely going to end up with a bad record with or without a loss to Samford. But, it's concerning to see that this team doesn't appear to be getting better and the same issues plague us every...single...year under Miles. Record aside, it would be nice to see some improvement the next few months.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BjoeHusker]

Samford is a sleeping giant

[HuskerBB]

Samford is not terrible and we shot horribly - but I still view this as an even worse loss than the Incarnate Word disaster of last year.  No way this should have happened.

 

I am a big Tim Miles fan but I did think he got outcoached by a mile tonight.  Samford came out of halftime with a few set plays that we were not prepared at all to handle and a press that seemed to have us completely baffled (press in first half did not really bother us at all). 

 

Most inexplicable thing though was the crazy lineups we were trying to play.  Waiting on the box score to see the numbers but I have no idea what Jack McVeigh did to earn all the minutes he got to night.   We are not going to beat anybody playing McVeigh at the 5 with Benny on the floor at the same time.  That in itself is a recipe for disaster.   I understand Hammond was awful when he was in the game and Jacobson got a couple silly fouls including his 3rd early in the 2nd half.   But then we decided to play without a big at all and kept Jacobson on the bench FAR FAR too long.  Then when we finally put him back in the game he got 3 rebounds and a blocked shot in 2 minutes as we started to make a comeback - so we pulled him out and sat him the rest of the game.  McVeigh has no confidence in his shot right now and does not really even look to score - but shooting is really the only thing he does at this level.  He is week defensively, questionable handling the ball and tonight he did not rebound at all.   We were really trying to play this game 3 on 5 (I will give Glynn and Tai credit for at least participating when they were on the floor in the 2nd half).   Shields and White were by far the two best players on the floor -but they have to have some help from others.  Tonight we spent far too long with the guys who would at least try to help a little on the bench.

 

There are going to be games when you don't play well - but really no excuse for losing to a team like Samford on your home floor.

[Navin R. Johnson]

Great coaching job by Scott Padgett. With the new shot clock I'm surprised more teams don't use a variety of presses to keep teams off balance and shorten the game by forcing teams to start their offense with 15 seconds or less on the shot clock. One of the most frustrating games I have ever watched and I give Samford a ton of credit.

[Donkey]

I am pretty impressed with what Scott Padgett is doing at Samford.  Those kids are probably getting the same training Padgett endured while playing at Kentucky under Pitino and Tubby Smith.  Samford exploited Nebraska's weakness against the press and clogged the lanes.  Nebraska's offensive rebounding at times just disappeared. 

[FredsSlacks]

we turned the ball over 17 times and didn't shoot well.

 

a good recipe for losing.

[hhcmatt]

[HuskerBB]

Wrong game dimes. 

 

OK see you fixed it now.  Thanks.

[unl]

What I didn't like at first was the rotations in the first half. Miles has said he wants guys to figure it out rather than call timeouts in non-con games. You've got Fuller in the game halfway-ish through the first, and you've got a couple lineups of which you haven't seen much, and you never get into a rhythm.

Between Tai, Watson, McVeigh, etc. you can find a third and fourth scorer.

Energy from the get-go was very poor. I don't know if the players were out of it because of the fans, but I would lean way more toward they thought this would be a gimme and they had some finals fatigue. I would expect a more satisfying game Tuesday.

I don't think NU is done for the year but you gotta get momentum going your way fast. Indiana and Northwestern are important home games.

[HuskerBB]

we turned the ball over 17 times and didn't shoot well.

 

a good recipe for losing.

 

Agreed - but we had 15 turnovers with 15 minutes left to play.   At that time I commented that we had a turnover and a missed free throw for every minute of the first 25 minutes of play.   Turnovers were not the problem from the 15 minute point on.   The game was still very winnable at the point but our lineup selection in the last 15 minutes was horrible.

[Norm Peterson]

Their freshman all-American Center sure made us pay for being soft inside. This is why I so want post players who can actually score against defense receiving the ball with their backs to the basket. He made some moves early and we couldn't man up against him so we had to start sending the double teams, which really opened the perimeter for them.

I agree with BB: Miles really got outcoached tonight. They did a really good job with high ball screens, forcing us to switch and then exploiting the switch. When they entered the ball to the post, they forced us to double and then quickly reversed the ball to find an open shooter. Our defenders were constantly playing catch-up out there tonight.

On the other side, we were very one-dimensional. In the second half, it was clear we rely way too much on Shavon Shields getting penetration. We don't have guys willing to take open three pointers. We had difficulty trying to penetrate their zone and their full court press left us without much time to run any half-court offense once we got the ball across midcourt.

We had way too many turnovers. Way too many missed free-throws. We just looked hung over. This did not look like a team fit for making the post-season.

[ajb5856]

It was a weird game. Poor offense (I'll put some of that on the Samford press), poor shooting, and very poor FT shooting. Don't know the numbers but we out rebounded them by a lot but we extremely tentative on the offensive end, nobody wanted to make anything happen, then we would make a poor decision and drive into 4 guys and get a charge call. I also thought the rotations were a little weird, it's hard to blame Miles though for trying something, anything a little different to see if we could get something going. Interior defense was again horrendous. Jacobsen and Hammond were consistently out of position or leaving their feet to give Samford a layup drill. I thought Miles attempt to go small when he brought Benny and McVeigh in at the end was okay, it's just when Jacobsen came back in he did get a block and a couple rebounds to key our last gasp effort. The dagger 3s by #12 (I think) in the corner were just that, daggers.

[hhcmatt]

Wrong game dimes.

 

One of those nights...

[AuroranHusker]

Wrong game dimes.

 

Actually, I prefer that game over this clunker. What was that early in the 2nd half!?

[HuskerCager]

I thought we dug our own grave with mental errors more than anything else.  To wit, 0-8 start at the free throw line.  Poor defensive post pay early at the start of the 2nd half.  Hammond muffling a great no-look assist from Shavon (?).  Finally, missed opportunities for easy layups in the last 5 minutes by Tai and Glynn, who chose instead to pass it around and take 15-20 seconds off the clock.
 

[FredsSlacks]

 

we turned the ball over 17 times and didn't shoot well.

 

a good recipe for losing.

 

Agreed - but we had 15 turnovers with 15 minutes left to play.   At that time I commented that we had a turnover and a missed free throw for every minute of the first 25 minutes of play.   Turnovers were not the problem from the 15 minute point on.   The game was still very winnable at the point but our lineup selection in the last 15 minutes was horrible.

 

yea, but samford only had 9 turnovers which makes those 17 look way worse. Turnover battle was easily the most important stat of the night. shooting 50% from the ft line vs 80% samford is a close second.

[hhcmatt]

[Huskerpapa]

Simply put...pathetic performance.  No excuses, just poorly played, poorly coached and an unacceptable outcome. 

[FredsSlacks]

this is the type of loss that may kill a tourney resume unless samford turns out to be legit which they might be. they are 8-4 and two of their losses were by 2 points or less.

 

i'm guessing both the players and coaches underestimated samford

[Norm Peterson]

Simply put...pathetic performance. No excuses, just poorly played, poorly coached and an unacceptable outcome.

don't forget poorly executed. The players are not immune from criticism in this one.

[hal9000]

Samford is not terrible and we shot horribly - but I still view this as an even worse loss than the Incarnate Word disaster of last year.  No way this should have happened.

 

I am a big Tim Miles fan but I did think he got outcoached by a mile tonight.  Samford came out of halftime with a few set plays that we were not prepared at all to handle and a press that seemed to have us completely baffled (press in first half did not really bother us at all). 

 

Most inexplicable thing though was the crazy lineups we were trying to play.  Waiting on the box score to see the numbers but I have no idea what Jack McVeigh did to earn all the minutes he got to night.   We are not going to beat anybody playing McVeigh at the 5 with Benny on the floor at the same time.  That in itself is a recipe for disaster.   I understand Hammond was awful when he was in the game and Jacobson got a couple silly fouls including his 3rd early in the 2nd half.   But then we decided to play without a big at all and kept Jacobson on the bench FAR FAR too long.  Then when we finally put him back in the game he got 3 rebounds and a blocked shot in 2 minutes as we started to make a comeback - so we pulled him out and sat him the rest of the game.  McVeigh has no confidence in his shot right now and does not really even look to score - but shooting is really the only thing he does at this level.  He is week defensively, questionable handling the ball and tonight he did not rebound at all.   We were really trying to play this game 3 on 5 (I will give Glynn and Tai credit for at least participating when they were on the floor in the 2nd half).   Shields and White were by far the two best players on the floor -but they have to have some help from others.  Tonight we spent far too long with the guys who would at least try to help a little on the bench.

 

There are going to be games when you don't play well - but really no excuse for losing to a team like Samford on your home floor.

Good post BB, agree with everything here.  I can only think that with Miles' subbing he is trying to find some combination of players that will spark a run, get something going.  Seems to do this almost every game, and not sure if this is a good thing or not.  Backfired for us tonight I'd say.

 

You have to give credit to Samford.  The really came out in the 2nd half and put us on our heels.  They've got some good players, and tonight they were confident, which we allowed to happen.  Their center, who played poorly in the first half, dominated us in the 2nd.  Hammonds and Jacobson were handling him. Then we gave up a lot of easy buckets early in the 2nd and Miles decided to go small.  Presumably because he wanted ball handlers and shooters.

 

Players need to be held to account too.  They were flat, and uninspired.  Once again, we had too many players turning down shots.  That speaks to a lack of confidence.  You've got to make them pay for playing zone all night.  Just not enough guys on our team right now willing or able to score from deep. 

[colhusker]

this is the type of loss that may kill a tourney resume unless samford turns out to be legit which they might be. they are 8-4 and two of their losses were by 2 points or less.

 

i'm guessing both the players and coaches underestimated samford

What tournament resume are we working on?  This team will not make a tournament this year.  Just not good enough.

[FredsSlacks]

 

this is the type of loss that may kill a tourney resume unless samford turns out to be legit which they might be. they are 8-4 and two of their losses were by 2 points or less.

 

i'm guessing both the players and coaches underestimated samford

What tournament resume are we working on?  This team will not make a tournament this year.  Just not good enough.

 

i didn't say we were going to make it, but any hope we had of it pretty much ended tonight.