11/15/2012 - Valparaiso Report Card

A number of things were quite concerning to me on the offensive end.

1. The inability to get Dylan Talley the ball with any kind of space and the inability to get him the ball where he could shoot the three. He never even attempted one and he is our best long range shooter. There is no way Rey Gallegos will shoot like he did in opening 4-4 from downtown, but luckily, he also won't finish as cold as he did, either. The point is, we will HAVE to get Talley going, both outside and to the hole, to have any kind of success this year.

2. Andre Almeida has GOT to find a different move besides the guarded hook shot and layups. He has not gotten any better since two years ago and really, you could argue he's regressed. Foot work might be a tad better but that's about it.

3. Nebraska needs to find a way to score in the open court. There were a few times tonight they could have pushed and gotten to the line. They MUST get to the line more than 11 times if they're going to compete this year. To do that they'll need to push the issue. I expect that will come with more experience from Benny Parker and others.

4. Nebraska needs to get easy baskets off of its defense. I don't recall a single time tonight where they were even remotely close to a steal and easy basket at the other end. Of course, the flip side to that is, they never went for it, and probably saved themselves 2-6 points by doing so. That could have also been the difference in the game, playing "at home" and disciplined defense, so this one goes both ways.

DEFENSE: A

I don't think you can spin the defense any other way - they "stayed at home," kept Valpo away from fastbreak points (they had zero) and did a nice job of hedging some screens to help prevent shots from downtown.

Valpo can fill it up and Nebraska did a nice job of keeping them out of that. Some of that was Valpo probably played a "D" level game offensively, but you have to give Nebraska at least 50% of the credit for that.

Was very impressed with the defense of David Rivers tonight. I believe he'll develop into an adequate offensive player with time and be a very good 8th or 9th man his last two years at NU. He is one of the few guys on this team that we can expect to be in the rotation next year (him, Parker, Shields and Gallegos).

Holding Valpo to 48 points is HUGE.

REBOUNDING: B+

Somehow, Nebraska gave up eight offensive rebounds and lost the battle on the glass by four (36 to 32).

But from watching this game, I never felt like NU did a poor job on the boards. It didn't even seem they got out rebounded. Do you agree?

Talley once again plays big on the boards, leading the 'Skers with 6.

BALL HANDLING: B-

12 assists, 12 turnovers. You can live with it. Again, 12 turnovers in the Big 10 is ideal. 12 against Valpo is maybe a tad elevated. But not bad, either.

As noted above, and in previous report cards, I'm a bit concerned about NU at the point guard position. I do think Benny Parker will become a pretty good one, though, but he's still so young. He does have a nice shot.

Peltz looked a lot more capable tonight than he did against Southern. Eventually he'll need to at least show that he's willing to shoot, however, or teams will completely not guard him. I like the unselfish attitude though and he moved better tonight.

COACHING: B

Wasn't real thrilled with Miles' use (or misuse) of timeouts.

You have a use it or lose it in the first half, and never took it. It's not as if we were smooth on offense and didn't want to stop a run.

In second half, we only used two, and one of them was taken in the last few seconds. Again, we had about seven minutes where we didn't score and during that, used ONE timeout. There was a time we nearly got five seconds, no timeout. Two times we had the ball at ends of shot clocks in a 4-6 point game with under 3 minutes left, no timeouts. Perhaps this is how Miles always is, and perhaps he wants them to play through things and not be babied - a young team growing stronger. But I didn't like it tonight.

Great job on substitutions to keep Rivers, Almeida and Ubel from fouling out. All three big men had four fouls and never fouled out.

He did a nice job of shuffling walk ons in and out so that they were never on floor for too long. Defense was spectacular. Offense, as Miles described, was "like a root canal."

OVERALL GRADE: B+

A nice win at home against a likely NCAA Tournament team or at worst, a high seed in the NIT.

It wasn't pretty and the way it was won was very unlikely - the Skers won't win another game this year by scoring 50.

But for tonight, it got the job done, and any win this team can get to get them towards .500 for the season is huge.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Ray Gallegos

2012-2013 PLAYER OF THE GAME STANDINGS:

BRANDON UBEL - 1

RAY GALLEGOS - 1