uneblinstu's postgame chatter: Vol: 10; ed: 21, Michigan

Just now, REDZONEDAN said:

HELL YES!!! That is the team I’ve been waiting to see! Let’s keep this rolling and get our first NCAA win.

LET'S DO IT !!!!!!!

2 minutes ago, huskercwg said:

I am a bit pissed by this attitude.  I don't belive Michigan was surprised.  I do believe they weren't 100% engaged, but not surprised.   I guess Sip was looking for a laugh.

I also keep hearing excuses about how gassed they are after this stretch of the Big Ten. We've played the same amount of games in just as tough minutes (close games). I'm not buying it.

5 minutes ago, TimSmiles said:

still gave up 14 offensive rebounds. that's the 1 area we have to get figured out.

Side effect of making teams shoot so poorly 

Postgame Notes
-The 20-point win over No. 23 Michigan was Nebraska’s largest margin of victory over a ranked opponent since a 28-point win over No. 25 Texas Tech on Feb. 24, 2004 (72-44). The win was also marked the second double-digit win over a ranked opponent under Tim Miles, with both wins coming in Big Ten play this season (also a 78-68 win over No. 14 Minnesota on Dec. 5).

-The win was Nebraska’s first victory over Michigan since the Huskers’ upset the No. 1-ranked Wolverines 74-73 on Dec. 12, 1964. Nebraska snapped a 10-game losing streak to Michigan and defeated the Wolverines for the first time in nine tries in Big Ten Conference play.

-The Huskers handed the Wolverines their biggest loss of the season. Michigan’s previous worst loss was a 15-point setback in an 86-71 loss to No. 13 North Carolina on Nov. 29.

-The win was Nebraska’s largest Big Ten Conference victory since an 87-63 victory over Rutgers on Feb. 6, 2016.

-Nebraska improved to 11-1 this season at Pinnacle Bank Arena, posting its highest win total at home since the 2013-14 season.

-The Huskers improved to 12-2 this year when scoring at least 70 points.

-Nebraska held Michigan to season lows in points (52), 3-pointers made (4) and 3-point percentage (22.2).  The Huskers also held Michigan to 37.5 percent shooting – its second-lowest total of the season – marking the sixth straight opponent Nebraska has held to under 45 percent shooting.

-Nebraska shot 55.3 percent from the field, its third-highest mark of the season. The mark was eight points higher than the Huskers’ previous best Big Ten field-goal percentage, when Nebraska hit 47.2 of its shots in a win over No. 13 Minnesota on Dec. 5.

-NU shot 60.0 percent in the first half, marking the fourth time this season the Huskers have hit at least 60 percent of their shots in the first half.

-Four Huskers scored in double figures as James Palmer Jr. had 19 points, Isaiah Roby added 14 points, Isaac Copeland chipped in 13 points and Anton Gill had 10 points. Nebraska placed at least four players in double figures for the 12^th time this season and for the second time in Big Ten play.

-Isaiah Roby had a career high 14 points and finished with three assists, one shy of his career high. He topped his previous career high of 12 points, set six days ago at Penn State.

Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles
Opening Statement
“I was just very proud of the guys tonight. (Assistant Coach) Kenya Hunter put together a great defensive game plan, spent a lot of time, he and I, even in the offseason, how are we going to beat these guys that spread the floor so well? I thought Kenya made some adjustments, some of the switches and some of that, and our guys bought in. They were very focused, very competitive with energy, and did a great job. I’m really proud of our guys.”

On the atmosphere and the crowd
“Pinnacle Bank Arena is one of the best venues in the country. You watch even the opponents warm up and they have a little extra skip going in their step, and it was phenomenal all night. It’s so nice to send the Huskers home early with a big smile on their face and not wait until the very end, or the bitter end, and really enjoy one. It was really cool, especially that first half when we started to kind of take a lead, it was one of those things that, like I said, I got chills. Students were phenomenal. I thought they really did a great job.”

On building off this win and staying in the conversation
“You got a big road trip and whenever you go two in a row on the road you obviously have to start with, we got to get a split, and that starts the goal, and then you hope you get the first one and then you try and sweep them. That’s just kind of the old-school mentality that I’ve got and be ready forMonday.”

Nebraska Junior Forward Isaac Copeland
On how he would grade Nebraska’s defense 
“Probably like an ‘A’. They still scored. We take pride in it. A good team like that, we want to lock them up and win the game.” 

On Nebraska’s offense
“Everybody touched the ball. Everybody was aggressive. On the stats, you’ll see everybody scored that played pretty much. When we’re like that, we’re hard to guard.”

Junior Guard James Palmer Jr. 
On executing the game plan
“We did a good job. We wanted to switch one through five. We tried to take that away as much as possible. I think we did a good job with that.”

On the atmosphere
“It was a good environment. It definitely helped us and gave us energy leading into the game. When we made our runs, you could definitely hear them out there.”

Sophomore Forward Isaiah Roby
On comparing last year’s home loss to Michigan to today’s win
“It’s big. It’s good to kind of flip the tables on them I guess you could say. It was a big game for us for sure. It was fun to get a win like that.”

On the importance of getting this win at home with a slate of upcoming road games
“It was big for us because it started a win streak for us. We’re going into Ohio State, at Rutgers, so we have a two-game road trip. It’s going to be big to keep the momentum going.”

Michigan Head Coach John Beilein

Opening Statement

“I think you can see tonight why Nebraska is 11-1 at home. They played Kansas really well. Playing small right now is really difficult challenge for people to play against. They were playing short rests, and we were playing on really short rest with the run we are in right now. So credit Nebraska, they have a great team plan. They played much better than us and they get the ‘W’. They have a chance this year to be a very good team. I don’t think we will be the last team that will come out of here and not come away with a win. We’ll grow from it, and I cannot wait to get onto the plane, turn on the computer and find out how I can make our team a better team.”

On Nebraska’s defense
“You can see they’re one of the better teams at that. They switched every screen. [Isaiah] Roby allows them to do that. I don’t know if it will be as successful with the big guys but that is a thing we are going to see again from many teams. Actually, we saw it all at the end of last year. We have to continue to develop what we do in that situation. They hit some timely threes. We chased people off the line too. We’re also low at that. They hit some very timely ones today that were a big difference in the game.”

On trying to attack Nebraska’s switching defense

“Well I just switched everything and then we were trying to make feeds inside. They have really good length. It’s a great team to have when you have a bunch of 6’7” to 6’8” guys that are interchangeable that can do a lot of things. The way we’ve played a lot of times, we couldn’t utilize any types of advantages inside. I think we really had only four or five open threes the entire game. I don’t know if we made any of them. Maybe one or two. We didn’t get many open threes. We didn’t shoot the ball well from three. You have to credit Nebraska, we didn’t get many open threes.

On Pinnacle Bank Arena being a tough arena to play in
“Every arena is really difficult. People in Nebraska should be really proud of what they have here right now. It’s a really good team and they appear to be really good kids. They have a heck of a team. I saw Greg McDermott, Creighton, earlier this year and he said ‘watch out, Nebraska is really good’ and he was right.”

3 minutes ago, huskercwg said:

I am a bit pissed by this attitude.  I don't belive Michigan was surprised.  I do believe they weren't 100% engaged, but not surprised.   I guess Sip was looking for a laugh.

We had not played that well all year.  Even against the bad teams.

The turning point in the second half came early as Michigan came out with a little fire and it had the look of OH NO HERE WE GO BLOWING ANOTHER BIG LEAD

They cut the lead down to 8, Cope misses a 3 and then Roby steals the ball and does a Euro Step for a layup keying a 6-0 run and we never looked back

10 minutes ago, brfrad said:

We had not played that well all year.  Even against the bad teams.

Disagree.  We were easily better in the KU game.  And really, when we played Minnesota I think it was a better team as well.

Tonight was just confirmation of what this team can be.

5 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

The turning point in the second half came early as Michigan came out with a little fire and it had the look of OH NO HERE WE GO BLOWING ANOTHER BIG LEAD

They cut the lead down to 8, Cope misses a 3 and then Roby steals the ball and does a Euro Step for a layup keying a 6-0 run and we never looked back

This was definitely the game changer ...hope Roby keeps playing that aggressive on offense....seems to be getting more comfortable being more assertive

26 minutes ago, TimSmiles said:

still gave up 14 offensive rebounds. that's the 1 area we have to get figured out.

That's the one downside of our small ball (death lineup?). We have lengthy guards that can gang rebound to kind of negate some of this. Hats off to Evan Taylor tonight for being aggressive going for boards. He showed up big time. 

1 hour ago, hhcdimes said:

To-do list

 

• Beat all B1G teams at least once
• Signature Win
• Make NCAA Tournament

• Win NCAA Tournament game

 

 

Fixed it for you.

I saw Greg McDermott earlier and he said watch out, they are really good. And he was right. - Love it.

Haven't heard a lot of calls to fire Jim Molinari lately. Weird.

It should probably be noted...

If we should so happen to tie for fourth with michigan (seems moderately likely) we now have the tiebreaker.

Also have a win toward the total in case of a 3 way tie.

Guess I'm trying to say that the odds just got way better for us in getting a double bye for the conference tourney.

I swear that I heard someone on The B1G Show refer to Isaiah Roby as "one of the best Sophomores in the Country."  Any one else catch that?

6 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

Haven't heard a lot of calls to fire Jim Molinari lately. Weird.

Our defense is getting flat-out nasty. Offense has been up and down a lot of the time, but the D has just been getting better and better during conference play. All hail Mo!

We stepped on their throats the first half and didn't let up the 2nd.  And when was the last time that we won a game against a top 25 team and our student section didn't storm the floor?  Refreshing to see players and fans alike act like wins over top 25 teams is to be expected.

51 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

I swear that I heard someone on The B1G Show refer to Isaiah Roby as "one of the best Sophomores in the Country."  Any one else catch that?

Yeah, I heard that. Did a bit of a double-take. And I also agree with what the color commentator said more than once: Roby doesn't yet know how good he can be. Still some dumb fouls and dumb turnovers, but you can see his confidence and level of play increasing almost half by half over the last few games.

It was Jess Settles who made the comment regarding Isaiah.  His ceiling appears to be getting higher and higher.

Also a shout out to Coach Hunter.  Nicely done Coach!

7 hours ago, hhcdimes said:

The turning point in the second half came early as Michigan came out with a little fire and it had the look of OH NO HERE WE GO BLOWING ANOTHER BIG LEAD

They cut the lead down to 8, Cope misses a 3 and then Roby steals the ball and does a Euro Step for a layup keying a 6-0 run and we never looked back

Totally agree.  I remember at the time thinking that was big.  

1. Gill's 1st 3 ptr came from same spot he airballed one from versus Illinois. NIce adjustment.

2. Enjoyed watching that arrogant UM fan leave early. Even an 8-10 year old didn't like his antics. 

3. Making shots is fun. Bench went nuts when Malcolm Laws made that runner.

4. Thumbs up to the officiating crew. Other than review of possible flagrant foul and Copeland screen call foul thought they did a decent job.

5. Is it legal to stand on the free throw lane stripes during a free throw attempt? Mo had his gun boats not only on the line but sometimes in the lane on attempts. I would think that it should be called since being in the lane too soon is a violation. Refs would've gotten "good job" in #4 if not for this oversight.

As much as it galls me to say it, I thought the double-technical was the right call as well.  Although the homer in me still wants to say "what the hell"

Well that was fun. Now I'm going to hide in my cube and pretend I'm not hungover for 8 more hours and then I can go back to bed. That's not a complaint by the way. I'm perfectly fine with this kind of hangover. 

I like this...a lot:

“We have a few teams in this league who are really elite, and they’re one of those teams that is growing leaps and bounds every single day. Who goes to Northwestern and beats them like that? They’re good. They beat Minnesota when Minnesota had everybody. They’re good, all right? Nebraska is good.”  John Beilein

2 minutes ago, Red Rum said:

Well that was fun. Now I'm going to hide in my cube and pretend I'm not hungover for 8 more hours and then I can go back to bed. That's not a complaint by the way. I'm perfectly fine with this kind of hangover. 

There may be more than a few of us that share this sentiment...

Nothing negative to say about anyone tonight. Beilein was classy in loss, but what else could he do after getting steamrolled? Final question: Was the crowd chanting Vog-ner or Wag-ner? I think the latter would be more annoying to Michigan (with ,of course, my apologies to all of our visitors from Deutschland). Final note of caution: Next two road games are definitely loseable if we start taking ourselves too seriously.