WBB: Game #13 vs Northwestern

The Huskers were undaunted, but though they lost, they are showing improvement. 

The officials were inconsistent between halves, I grant you that. The mugging in the last 40 seconds was inconsistent with the rest of the game, and very well could have changed the outcome. 

The Huskers were undaunted, but though they lost, they are showing improvement. 
 
The officials were inconsistent between halves, I grant you that. The mugging in the last 40 seconds was inconsistent with the rest of the game, and very well could have changed the outcome. 

This might be the best the Huskers have played since last year when they beat Northwestern but it still was a loss. Should have came away with the w tonight. Connect on some of those bricks we threw up from the free throw line and it might have been a different story.

Keep Hannah Whitish in the starting line-up! The kid provided the spark the Huskers needed to get the good start from the onset! I think we got to find a way to get Havers more involved in the offense. What's the story on Esther? She was in a boot on the sidelines but not sure if it was just a sprain or something worse. 

Hate to say it but we are the worst conditioned team we've had as a team in the past 15 years. Our bigs hurt us tonight in the 4th quarter because they couldn't keep up with competition because they we're practically spent by the time the fourth quarter rolled around.   

One good thing to come out of tonight's loss is that we kept our turnovers under 20.

First up to the podium is Nicea and Jasmine.

Next up is Hannah.

6 hours ago, Row6Seat10 said:

This might be the best the Huskers have played since last year when they beat Northwestern but it still was a loss. Should have came away with the w tonight. Connect on some of those bricks we threw up from the free throw line and it might have been a different story.

 

Keep Hannah Whitish in the starting line-up! The kid provided the spark the Huskers needed to get the good start from the onset! I think we got to find a way to get Havers more involved in the offense. What's the story on Esther? She was in a boot on the sidelines but not sure if it was just a sprain or something worse. 

 

Hate to say it but we are the worst conditioned team we've had as a team in the past 15 years. Our bigs hurt us tonight in the 4th quarter because they couldn't keep up with competition because they we're practically spent by the time the fourth quarter rolled around.   

 

One good thing to come out of tonight's loss is that we kept our turnovers under 20.

Agree Row...the game was winnable.....but we just don't know how to get it done yet. We haven't been able to get enough practice at closing out close games. Hopefully this will be another learning experience. We hung in there with a good team, and were competitive.

Also agree we ran out of gas late. Another issue for the staff to address. That's a coaching deal to resolve. Might have been spent emotionally. We tried pretty hard last night.  Need to learn how to "gut out" the entire game.

We're kind of immature as a team...not meant in a bad sense, rather we're just awfully young, with mostly freshman and sophomore's trying to compete with upper class men. Many times we had no seniors on the floor.

I'm excited about the future. Nicea and Hannah are very solid and heady freshmen with huge futures. RCJ had some good moments as well. And, itseems the players are starting to sync into coach Williams' system. But I look at who's sitting on the bench this season. You throw those three into the mix and we have one heck of a team. GBR

as far as esther and the boot---------maybe reading a bit too much into this, but, i did hear coatman state they didn't believe it would end her season. well, imo, when someone makes a statement about an injury in those terms, i take it as esther could very well be out for awhile. time will tell, i guess. 

as i watched the game, i wondered if the huskers would be able to keep up come the 4th quarter. while they did show better than i thought they might, you could see there were some "tired" shots put up. 

will be interesting to see if this was a good step forward-------iowa will be difficult at home. hoping we see a very similar effort and get a "w".

1 hour ago, whoopdeedoo said:

will be interesting to see if this was a good step forward-------iowa will be difficult at home. hoping we see a very similar effort and get a "w".

Would be great to get a W over Iowa. Huskers imo, would have a good chance to be favored in this one if it was to be played in PBA. Iowa lost to Illinois last night. 

Another pleasant surprise last night was that the coaches decided to defend Ashley Deary by putting Queen Eliely on her and she met the challenge.  Nicea forced Deary into four turnovers and blocked two of her shots when she attempted to drive the lane and better yet stole the ball twice from the league leading steals leader. By the way Deary wound up with 0 steals in this game. Both freshmen starters had pretty good looking stat lines. 

Really like how Hannah is picking it up on the offensive end, she's starting to use the picks she's getting to her advantage which is allowing her to get better open looks at the bucket and allows her to get in the lane for an assist or lay up. She wound up with 4 assists, plus made some really good passes last night into Shepard for easy buckets unfortunately Jess didn't hit every shot after the pass.   

Another thing we out-rebounded one of the better rebounding teams in the league 42-36! But rebounding is turning out to be one of our better assets. 

But we still remain dismal to say the least from the charity stripe.

13 hours ago, Noah121 said:

The Huskers were undaunted, but though they lost, they are showing improvement. 

 

The officials were inconsistent between halves, I grant you that. The mugging in the last 40 seconds was inconsistent with the rest of the game, and very well could have changed the outcome. 

I see that Noah got to go into NorthWestern's locker room right before the game.

14 minutes ago, Bugeaters1 said:

I see that Noah got to go into NorthWestern's locker room right before the game.

Noah also had a young lady with him who also had a hard hat on from time to time.

Last night was my only chance to se the team in person.   Pleasantly surprised by the performance.  Like Whitish and Nicea.  Disappointed in the conditioning as the team seemed gassed by the media timeouts each quarter.  Game turned when Coffey went to the bench with 3 fouls and we could not get the lead with her absence.   Coffey was a tough guard for Shephard.  Would like to have Simon play a little more.  Jess needs to pick up her free throws.  Grace has a tough time defending physical posts.  Coach is giving every player a chance to show what they can accomplish.  Wins are few to see on the horizon.

I believe the poor free throw shooting is a result of poor conditioning. We have "tired" legs at the line. Jasmine was an 82% shooter last year. This year, it is 61%.  We currently have only two players shooting higher than 66% from the line. Whitish at 76% and Wood at 80%. It's going to be tough to win the close ones if we can't make our free throws.

All great comments! I agree with everyone. Most all the same things I've said as well. I was really impressed with Hannah's play last night. She handles the ball really well - better under pressure too. He advantage over Esther imo is her ability to get into the paint and create shots for herself and others. It also spreads the floor bc it gives us a legitimate 3 point shooting threat that teams will eventually have to honor as she gets going. She missed a couple that rimmed out last night that will definitely fall in future games. She's got the potential to be be better than Romeo in that her shot (will eventually be) just as good; but her handle and ability to create shots for teammates will be huge as he confidence grows..Nicea played well too. She was great in limiting Deary's effectiveness. She's always been a great defender. She's still not even playing to her potential there either, and I think that's due to conditioning as well. I've been talking to her about being more aggressive on offense. She's got to shoot the ball. Gotta find ways to get to the basket. She could easily average 12-15 ppg imo. If we get the consistency out of her and Hannah we saw last night we'll have a pretty tough young threesome!

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Actualfacts1,  Nicea is going to exceed my offensive expectations.  I saw tape on her before she got here and saw 8-12 pts, half dozen boards, a couple steals, a few ast., and a couple blocks.  That being said she was the recruit I was most excited about.  Why, length, lateral quickness and a mind for defense.  I saw a person who, when she learns to scout properly can remove the other teams best guard from the game completely on the offensive end.

19 hours ago, Fastbreaker said:

Noah also had a young lady with him who also had a hard hat on from time to time.

Yes indeed... she was borrowing my full Northwestern hard hat. She is my girlfriend Dina from Chicagoland.

Unfortunately, I don't personally know any of the Huskers anymore, but Coach McKeown of Northwestern has favor toward me.

19 hours ago, Actualfacts1 said:

All great comments! I agree with everyone. Most all the same things I've said as well. I was really impressed with Hannah's play last night. She handles the ball really well - better under pressure too. He advantage over Esther imo is her (Hannah) ability to get into the paint and create shots for herself and others. It also spreads the floor bc it gives us a legitimate 3 point shooting threat that teams will eventually have to honor as she gets going. She missed a couple that rimmed out last night that will definitely fall in future games. She's got the potential to be be better than Romeo in that her shot (will eventually be) just as good; but her handle and ability to create shots for teammates will be huge as he confidence grows..Nicea played well too. She was great in limiting Deary's effectiveness. She's always been a great defender. She's still not even playing to her potential there either, and I think that's due to conditioning as well. I've been talking to her about being more aggressive on offense. She's got to shoot the ball. Gotta find ways to get to the basket. She could easily average 12-15 ppg imo. If we get the consistency out of her and Hannah we saw last night we'll have a pretty tough young threesome!

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That's what we've been needing all along. (remember how effective Rachel T was at the very same thing) Get points (or assists) from Nicea and Hannah....or other guards penetrating the paint, even if it's not a full layup...will open up our posts, and change our offense from not so one dimensional.

We need three's obviously, but the dribble drive really opens up our offense, in several ways. (We had maybe two last year that could do that fairly consistently...PLUS could defend against transitions.

We got hammered by Northwestern on their transition offense...that's really what lost the game for us...we were even in many other stats..except their scoring via their transition game) 

We continue to improve...piece by piece.

On 12/28/2016 at 8:39 PM, Bugeaters1 said:

Why do ppl buy a ticket only to leave aa t cruch time

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i personally leave early because I have to drive back to Omaha for work! Trust me if I could I would be there the whole game! #GBR!

On 12/29/2016 at 3:44 PM, Actualfacts1 said:

All great comments! I agree with everyone. Most all the same things I've said as well. I was really impressed with Hannah's play last night. She handles the ball really well - better under pressure too. He advantage over Esther imo is her ability to get into the paint and create shots for herself and others. It also spreads the floor bc it gives us a legitimate 3 point shooting threat that teams will eventually have to honor as she gets going. She missed a couple that rimmed out last night that will definitely fall in future games. She's got the potential to be be better than Romeo in that her shot (will eventually be) just as good; but her handle and ability to create shots for teammates will be huge as he confidence grows..Nicea played well too. She was great in limiting Deary's effectiveness. She's always been a great defender. She's still not even playing to her potential there either, and I think that's due to conditioning as well. I've been talking to her about being more aggressive on offense. She's got to shoot the ball. Gotta find ways to get to the basket. She could easily average 12-15 ppg imo. If we get the consistency out of her and Hannah we saw last night we'll have a pretty tough young threesome!

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imo i always thought Hannah should be starting before Ester...Hannah is more of a threat and if you ever watch Ester she dribbles with a hop, she has been doing this for a while so we can't just blame it on her foot. (once she got across half court she hopped)

On 12/30/2016 at 4:47 AM, caveman said:

Actualfacts1,  Nicea is going to exceed my offensive expectations.  I saw tape on her before she got here and saw 8-12 pts, half dozen boards, a couple steals, a few ast., and a couple blocks.  That being said she was the recruit I was most excited about.  Why, length, lateral quickness and a mind for defense.  I saw a person who, when she learns to scout properly can remove the other teams best guard from the game completely on the offensive end.

I really enjoy watching Nicea! She is a huge asset to this team. I look forward to watching her mature and get better!!! Keep it up Nicea!!!

1 hour ago, Bo4nu1 said:

i personally leave early because I have to drive back to Omaha for work! Trust me if I could I would be there the whole game! #GBR!

I live in Hastings and have to get up and go to work the next day. But we stay for the whole game.

8 hours ago, Bo4nu1 said:

i always thought Hannah should be starting before Ester...Hannah is more of a threat and if you ever watch Ester she dribbles with a hop, she has been doing this for a while so we can't just blame it on her foot. (once she got across half court she hopped)

My wife when watching Esther says the same thing.  She asks me " why does she skip when dribbling the ball"?  It drives her nuts.  I'm glad somebody else noticed it as well.

if no foul play, seems like we see a story or two (unfortunately, maybe more) like this in hs/college athletics practically every year. very sad.