WBB: Game#24 @ Wisconsin

Rb's & FT (7-14) shooting poor!

That # 35 for Wisconsin makes Shepard look small.

How do you allow a team that shoots 30% in conference shoot over 50 % ? BAD Defense.

Huskers were lucky to beat Rutgers.

And Colorado State for that matter.

5 minutes ago, Fastbreaker said:

And Colorado State for that matter.

That was before well I wont go there.

Lets hope the Men fare better.

think they should go to locker room and grab their street clothes and just jump on the bus/plane, whatever.

maybe do what one of my coaches did------------on a trip back home after getting our butts kicked, dumped us out in the country a few miles before home and made us run to town.

Sad that this program has hit rock bottom.  It is a long climb out of this abyss.  

This team just looks lost.

7 minutes ago, Red Don said:

Lets hope the Men fare better.

Down 1 at half 25-24

1 minute ago, Bugeaters1 said:

This team just looks lost.

hate to agree--------------but, you are correct.

4 minutes ago, Bugeaters1 said:

This team just looks lost.

that would be on the coaches, wouldn't it?

Do they still practice against boys?  I doubt it.

It's like being on a ship that is sinking, you get one hole plugged and another one springs open and then another, to the point where you don't know which one to plug next.

Just now, fred1212 said:

that would be on the coaches, wouldn't it?

 

Do they still practice against boys?  I doubt it.

Yes do practice against men.

I always try to look at the positive, but this was completely discouraging.  Other than an inability to shoot, not wanting to rebound and not even trying on defense we looked pretty good.  What the hell is going on?  To lose by 26 to a team that was 0-10 in the league is incredible.  By this point of the season we should be showing some evidence of coaching, but we don't.  I'm not giving up my tickets but it's getting hard to justify driving to Lincoln and spending 4 1/2 hours to witness this type of play.  Has anyone seen anything positive to cheer me up?

1 minute ago, rand909 said:

I always try to look at the positive, but this was completely discouraging.  Other than an inability to shoot, not wanting to rebound and not even trying on defense we looked pretty good.  What the hell is going on?  To lose by 26 to a team that was 0-10 in the league is incredible.  By this point of the season we should be showing some evidence of coaching, but we don't.  I'm not giving up my tickets but it's getting hard to justify driving to Lincoln and spending 4 1/2 hours to witness this type of play.  Has anyone seen anything positive to cheer me up?

AHH Maddie looked good

3 hours ago, whoopdeedoo said:

think they should go to locker room and grab their street clothes and just jump on the bus/plane, whatever.

 

maybe do what one of my coaches did------------on a trip back home after getting our butts kicked, dumped us out in the country a few miles before home and made us run to town.

I certainly wouldn't rule it out!

That may have been one of the most disappointing games so far. Not because we lost...but we couldn't accomplish much at all. Got our behinds kicked on the boards. And we were asleep at the wheel..... 8 pts in first qtr. ????  There doesn't seem to be much BBall IQ over all....and/or team play. We seem to be so off and on week in and week out.

Guess you call that struggling.

While our records were similar, they/we are completely different teams.  They were the opposite of us in many areas. They played decent defense...we not so much. Their defense was decent, not great, but played their man much closer, and tighter.

They were pretty good offensively around the basket...several had good moves to score in close. We can't hardly score in the lane. So we bomb the air ways with threes.

And they in this game anyway, were better shooters. Their shot selection was better, not so many things just thrown up. Thet're quicker overall....we play slow. Our fast break is none existent. Really lacking in re bounders.

Are we that lacking in overall talent? Or are we getting what we need from the staff to get organized and light a fire under the girls? 

Sorry to be so pessimistic...normally I'm their cheer leader......just tough to watch.....got to know the girls are unhappy.

1 hour ago, redsteve said:

 

 

Are we that lacking in overall talent? Or are we getting what we need from the staff to get organized and light a fire under the girls? 

 

Sorry to be so pessimistic...normally I'm their cheer leader......just tough to watch.....got to know the girls are unhappy.

Steve, to answer your question:  Yes.  We are really lacking in overall talent.  We have just a handful of upper D 1 players.  Lots of marginal players for this level.  It's not about effort or fire or organization or inexperience.  If we ever dig out of this hole Eichorst put our formerly strong program in, it will  take recruiting, recruiting, and some more recruiting.   And that has been slowed while the staff makes contacts and adjusts to this level, since none of them, not one assistant ever coached at a power conference level.  So we take transfers (good move) and 1 player who we had before this staff got here.  I see no effort for jucos or spring signings.  Very surprising to me.  

With our overall talent level, I  think its too early to judge the coaching, game preparation and player development of the staff (although I had hoped for better off-season development from Simon, Washington and Shepherd).   Certainly nothing jumps out as saying they are doing "more with less", but they are hindered by having some D2 players get substantial minutes, and can't publicly say that.  Time will tell on both the recruiting and coaching fronts.  But if the first part of that doesn't quick into gear quickly, we may never know about the second.  

I'm not a big fan of Eichorst, but I don't know that he can be blamed for Yori's resignation.  I recall someone posted that in order for Yori to have custody, she could not coach.  If that was actually part of the divorce and parenting agreement, then she was going to resign no matter what.  Basically a choice between your kid or your career.  Her career can be on the back burner for a while, but the kid cannot and should not be.

As for the "allegations" - I am more and more skeptical of them as time goes on.  It appears to me that some of this immaturity that Romeo mentioned is still on the team and hindering team chemistry.  Did any player on last year's team actually say that Yori was abusive, or was that a rumor floated out there to get the AD breathing down her neck? I have seen perfectly sane people go completely bonkers during divorce and child custody issues. 

And whatever happened to the athletic trainer?

As for the here and now - Williams has a very long road ahead of her.  It is entirely possible that she will be looking at some players transferring out of the program.  She has the two that redshirted and a freshman coming in next year and that is it.  Can she and her staff recruit at this level?  It will be hard to do that when potential recruits see our games like last night.  One thing I noticed with her USD teams is that she had players that could shoot.  And if there was a key injury, there was always someone who could fill in and step it up and there was little to no drop off.  Her last USD team and the current USD team would kick our butts up and down the floor right now (and there are several girls from Nebraska on these teams).  Can she get that same thing accomplished at NU?

I think the priority right now has to be getting a solid defense installed.  With our current roster we are not going to outgun or outrun anyone.  The best approach would be to try and slow the other team down or make them work harder for their shots.  And if we can start to see that defense installed, then that lays a foundation for next season to hopefully start building a better offense.  Hopefully TK can adjust to the D1 level quickly because we are going to need her shooting expertise.

Chode, I didn't intend to start a whole rehash of the whole Yori demise, but just a couple of comments in response:  This was a firing.   You don't pay people 90% of their remaining multi-year contract if they walk in and say they are resigning due to personal issues.   In addition to that common sense observation, and knowledge of many details of the 9 month witch hunt that the department conducted,  I have read the entire divorce file.  I'm pretty comfortable that this wasn't a situation of the stark choice between coaching and the kid.  As for JulieTuttle, she left the department for a brief period of time to work at Creighton, and then quickly returned to the UNL athletic department, where I believe she was assigned to the concussion protocol team.  

Anyway, the transfers should help next year since we really need help at the guard position.  But we'll need much more than that to get back to upper division finishes. Time will tell and I'll hope for the best, but it's hard to fathom how we could have gotten to this place with the program.  

2 hours ago, HB said:

 

Steve, to answer your question:  Yes.  We are really lacking in overall talent.  We have just a handful of upper D 1 players.  Lots of marginal players for this level.  It's not about effort or fire or organization or inexperience.  If we ever dig out of this hole Eichorst put our formerly strong program in, it will  take recruiting, recruiting, and some more recruiting.   And that has been slowed while the staff makes contacts and adjusts to this level, since none of them, not one assistant ever coached at a power conference level.  So we take transfers (good move) and 1 player who we had before this staff got here.  I see no effort for jucos or spring signings.  Very surprising to me.  

 

With our overall talent level, I  think its too early to judge the coaching, game preparation and player development of the staff (although I had hoped for better off-season development from Simon, Washington and Shepherd).   Certainly nothing jumps out as saying they are doing "more with less", but they are hindered by having some D2 players get substantial minutes, and can't publicly say that.  Time will tell on both the recruiting and coaching fronts.  But if the first part of that doesn't quick into gear quickly, we may never know about the second.  

I asked those in the form of questions...to get some discussion going.  I knew what I think were the answers, before I asked the questions.

Pretty much agree with your post.  I didn't mention the AD much ever before  ...but I was concerned when it happened, like everyone here... that the program was turned upside down by Echorst. Not so sure he really understood what might happen.  Where the program goes from here ...?....it will take some time to make positive progress.

2 hours ago, huskerchode said:

I'm not a big fan of Eichorst, but I don't know that he can be blamed for Yori's resignation.  I recall someone posted that in order for Yori to have custody, she could not coach.  If that was actually part of the divorce and parenting agreement, then she was going to resign no matter what.  Basically a choice between your kid or your career.  Her career can be on the back burner for a while, but the kid cannot and should not be.

 

As for the "allegations" - I am more and more skeptical of them as time goes on.  It appears to me that some of this immaturity that Romeo mentioned is still on the team and hindering team chemistry.  Did any player on last year's team actually say that Yori was abusive, or was that a rumor floated out there to get the AD breathing down her neck? I have seen perfectly sane people go completely bonkers during divorce and child custody issues. 

 

And whatever happened to the athletic trainer?

 

As for the here and now - Williams has a very long road ahead of her.  It is entirely possible that she will be looking at some players transferring out of the program.  She has the two that redshirted and a freshman coming in next year and that is it.  Can she and her staff recruit at this level?  It will be hard to do that when potential recruits see our games like last night.  One thing I noticed with her USD teams is that she had players that could shoot.  And if there was a key injury, there was always someone who could fill in and step it up and there was little to no drop off.  Her last USD team and the current USD team would kick our butts up and down the floor right now (and there are several girls from Nebraska on these teams).  Can she get that same thing accomplished at NU?

 

I think the priority right now has to be getting a solid defense installed.  With our current roster we are not going to outgun or outrun anyone.  The best approach would be to try and slow the other team down or make them work harder for their shots.  And if we can start to see that defense installed, then that lays a foundation for next season to hopefully start building a better offense.  Hopefully TK can adjust to the D1 level quickly because we are going to need her shooting expertise.

Some good observations here.

I went to the men's game last night and when we got to the arena we had the Husker women's game on the radio and we were behind 13-3 I thought at the time we could easily erase that deficit and manage to come away with the win. I decide before I would comment on this game here I would watch it first in it's entirety, which I actually didn't get tot do as by the time we got out of the parking garage and back home it was going on 11:45 and I had some other things I needed to get done before we shut the lights out. I finally got to watch the game this afternoon. 

It was not at all how I envisioned it to play out at all after we got behind by 10 early and was surprised the Huskers performed the way they did from there on out. I decided I wouldn't come on here after watching it and complain about some player not doing this or not doing that, but instead sit back and read what others have said as I thought probably at times the banter would not be pleasant at various times. So I logged on just now and read the comments.

My thoughts are as Husker fans we are used to seeing in the past 110% effort, 110%, hustle, 110%  competiveness and a 110% winning attitude in each game we played the past 10 years or so. So we've become a little on edge when we don't see the same production we've seen in past years. 

We're Husker fans though. We're going to support our Huskers no matter which sport and no matter how they're performing. That's just what Husker fans do. We don't jump off the bandwagon after a down year, if that would be the case I probably would have jumped off in the early to mid 90's. 

In 2003 dollar Bill Byrne more-less fired Paul Sanderford and hired of all coaches the Creighton coach Connie Yori. I hated this hire at the time as I thought he could get someone with a lot better credentials than a Creighton coach. 

When she was hired there was all sorts of attrition Our best instate recruit ever at the time Katie Robbinette transferred to Iowa St, Shannan Howell went on to Oregon St an wound up with a great career for the Beavers, Paige Sutton quit the team because she knew that she wouldn't be able to park her butt behind the three point line and not pay defense or rebound like she should have done from the get go. But players like Jina Johansen, Alexa Johnson and Margaret Richards stayed and became huge Husker fans favorites even though wins were few.  

The first year of the Yori regime went almost exactly how it's going this year. Slowly but surely though as the years went, by you could actually see this team starting to come together. So one thing the Yori early years taught us or me anyway that we need to be patient as Husker fans.  The similarities right now are eerily alike as I reminisce. 

Yori had assistants come and go the first few years until she finally got some continuity in the staff and things began to take off. It took her basically seven years to get that unbelievably 32-0 undefeated regular season and our first Sweet 16 appearance. And from that season expectations sky rocketed. Her last years were some of the best we've ever had and we as a fan base seen the influx of thousands of new fans with the results we were producing. 

Now hearken back to this season it's basically the same situation that Yori received when she got the gig in 2003. Us die-hards withstood those early hardships and it paid off for us in the long run. 

I actually think this season is what most of us expected but not what we wanted to see. We as a fan base proved once we had what it took to weather the ups and downs, and now's not much different. Sure we're going to loose some fans with how the season's going now if we haven't all ready, but in the meantime let's give the new coach the same support we gave Yori and good things will surely return.

I'm hoping once Coach Williams get's the parts she wants in line, be it different coaches, players or other personal for the program that the Huskers will get back to where we've been used to seeing this program the past several years. 

Until that time, I ain't going no where and avidly look forward to witness just how good we can become under the new regime.