WBB: Game #1 vs North Carolina A&T

Huskers win 68 - 50. NC A&T played like a Big 12 team. I thought for a moment that the Texas A&M Aggies were in the house not the Carolina A&T Aggies! I thought we looked a little sluggish at times. Depth down underneath might become a problem as Cady, Sample and Hoop can't play the whole game. Need to pick up the help defense, too many times they got into the lane with a clear shot to the bucket without too much effort.

Lindsey Moore led the Huskers with 15 points. Brandi Jeffery and Hallie Sample each had 10. Rachel Theriot finally got in a game and it took her a little time to get into the flow of things. She had 3 points. She did show periods of really good play though. The Huskers shot 18% from behind the arc.

Not sure who was putting two and two together tonight, but the official total attendance tonight was 5584. Looked more like say 3500.

Season openers can be tough. The Wildcats had their hands full tonight with Tennessee-Martin too.

The B1G went 4 - 2 tonight

Iowa 63 - Northern Illinois 40

Michigan 70 - Detroit 62

Nebraska 68 - North Carolina A&T 50

Northwestern 79 - Tennessee Martin 69

Valparaiso 64 - Indiana 52

Notre Dame 57 - Ohio State 51

Sunday's opponent Temple beat Montana 55 - 41

After watching my first game on huskernside this year, here's my initial thoughts. First of all, we need everyone to stay healthy, especially Moore and Hooper. We are not a good shooting team from beyond the arc. 5 for 26 tonight and many of those shots we didn't even come close to hitting the rim. I was hoping that miraculously everyone would improve from last year. Hooper is Hooper. Some nights she'd on and other nights like tonight she's way off. If's she's on, we have a good chance of winning. Thankfully she does so much more besides scoring. I don't know what we'll do next year when Moore graduates. We don't have any guards that can create a good shot (and get fouled) like her. If she goes down this year, we are in trouble. Cady didn't have a big night but I'm sure she'll be okay down the road. I thought Sample played a lot better. I liked to see her be more aggressive on the offensive end. Jeffrey and Laudermill seemed about the same as last year. You never know if they are going to do something good or not so good. I still get a little nervous when Laudermill gets her hand on the ball. Tries to force things a little too much with mixed results.I think Williams will give us solid minutes like she did last year. It's too early to comment much on Theriot. Hasn't practiced much and I'm not sure what Yori wants from her yet. She had 5 tournovers with bad passes. She really didn't look to score. I'm hoping she can create some offense this year, and don't always look to pass off. Take the shot when she's open. Murren played ok tonight. Mauer to me plays like she wants to be a shooting forward instead of post player. I was hoping she would learn some post moves and be effective around the basket. Simon is probably not going to get much playing time again this year.

So like last year, we are going to have to play great defense all the time and hope it creates some easy baskets. I hope our shooting will keep improving.

Longtime, Rachel Theriot will be a good guard she was dishing some passes that where Moore like last night and her shooting is there IMHO. Theriot needs to gain a bit of muscle and weight though.

Not sure who was putting two and two together tonight, but the official total attendance tonight was 5584. Looked more like say 3500.

That had to be paid attendance. I thought there were about 3000 there. I'm sure volleyball hurt attendance.

Hope Cady isn't in for a sophomore slump. She has so many gifts, and we need another offensive weapon. 2 bigtime airballs on wide open jumpers were hard to watch. But, Emily plays pretty free--if anyone can have some problems and not get down over it, it's her.

I didn't watch Cady as much as I did Sample and Theriot. It looks to me like Sample put in al ot of work in the off season with her scoring. I also had an eye on Jeffery's she is much improved also.

Longtime, Rachel Theriot will be a good guard she was dishing some passes that where Moore like last night and her shooting is there IMHO. Theriot needs to gain a bit of muscle and weight though.

I hope you're right Bugeater. Since she only took 3 shots it's hard to say. I remember when Moore was a freshman and she almost never shot because she didn't need to with all the offensive weapons we had. We don't have the offensive weapons as we did then so I think she's going to have to give us some offense.

Hope Cady isn't in for a sophomore slump. She has so many gifts, and we need another offensive weapon. 2 bigtime airballs on wide open jumpers were hard to watch. But, Emily plays pretty free--if anyone can have some problems and not get down over it, it's her.

I'm hoping she'll straighten that shot out. Though she looked pretty good on the defensive side of the ball. I thought more than once though we were out-hustled as a team on getting rebounds. Sample played pretty good. We can't afford to get her, Cady or Hooper hurt.

Good to see all the freshmen get in.You could tell it took Theriot a little while to adjust to the speed of the game. Murren needs to keep shooting that 3 ball it's bound to start falling for her. I don't ever remember a walk-on freshman getting in a game the first half of a closely contested match. I think both Murren and Aitken do a good job defensively and that's most likely why they're seeing so much playing time. In watching the two exhibitions and this one I still have yet to see Aitken shoot the ball. The stats show that she shot once against UNK but I don't remember it.

I hope you're right Bugeater. Since she only took 3 shots it's hard to say. I remember when Moore was a freshman and she almost never shot because she didn't need to with all the offensive weapons we had. We don't have the offensive weapons as we did then so I think she's going to have to give us some offense.

From what I seen of Theroit last nite was a lack of practice time running the point. She dropped a couple of nasty dimes in the lane that her teammates weren't looking for , so I think she will handle the point okay. And I agree that Murren is like Moore in her rookie season shooting the three. Not bad shots just not dropping.