uneblinst's postgame chatter: vol 16; ed 21 - Maryland

I know it’s because we’ve been kicked in the nuts so many times, but I can’t shake the feeling that this season ends in disappointment. Please lord let this end well. 

Tuesday

Saturday

Not too worried about it.  Hopefully Gary is recovering.  We need somebody that can get rebounds.  Maybe need to try Diop against some of these athletic forwards?

Even if we win 100% of our remaining home games, losing out on all road games puts us at 20-11.

We're not at razor thin margins just yet, but we're not far off if this road performance continues.

I don’t know if I have ever seen a team with more variance in their performances than this team. It’s remarkable. Obviously there’s the home and away element but that doesn’t entirely answer everything.

What it screams is a lack of general athleticism and/or lack of size/length. Those things make up for energy/effort/crowd. 
 

I wouldn’t stray too far away from what we’re doing X’s and O’s, talent eval wise, but we certainly have to get a little better athlete at certain positions. 

This was a terrible performance.  Nuf said.

The sky is not falling.  If Gary doesn't get hurt, we beat Rutgers.  Regroup against Wisconsin, and win a couple road games. It's that simple.

Realizing now that this is the fewest points in a game we've scored all season. And it sure felt like it.

Not too high, not too low

Maryland has long athletes.   That causes problems with turnovers and offensive rebounds.  Maryland a tough matchup for us.

1 hour ago, HuskerFever said:

Even if we win 100% of our remaining home games, losing out on all road games puts us at 20-11.

 

We're not at razor thin margins just yet, but we're not far off if this road performance continues.

That’s what I came here to say. Is that enough to get in? We’d be about 5th-6th in the league. 

10 minutes ago, unl said:

That’s what I came here to say. Is that enough to get in? We’d be about 5th-6th in the league. 

More than likely, not in. 22 feels like the right magic number to me when factoring in the Big Ten Tournament. Maybe 21 depending on who we would beat.

it's all mental at this point!!!  

6 minutes ago, HuskerActuary said:

More than likely, not in. 22 feels like the right magic number to me when factoring in the Big Ten Tournament. Maybe 21 depending on who we would beat.

I agree with this.  The only remaining road games I think NU has a good shot would be Michigan or Ohio State. Today could easily be the start of a 1-3 stretch. If I’m right, we may have work to do in the big ten conference tournament. 
 

Maybe you need to take my cousin to more games!

21 in regular season should do it IMO. Especially if Wisconsin is one of them 

4 minutes ago, ConkintheCorner said:

21 in regular season should do it IMO. Especially if Wisconsin is one of them 

That's where I'm at. Could maybe get by with 20+BTT win, but you're leaving the decision in the committee hands at that point, which I'm not comfortable about. Just get to 21 and they should be comfortable 

11 minutes ago, unl said:

 

I agree with this.  The only remaining road games I think NU has a good shot would be Michigan or Ohio State. Today could easily be the start of a 1-3 stretch. If I’m right, we may have work to do in the big ten conference tournament. 
 

Maybe you need to take my cousin to more games!

Indiana has not played very well.  Outside of Illinois,  we match up pretty well with all the road teams we play, if we play up to our ability.  The problem is we play no where near our ability on the road.

3 minutes ago, thrasher31 said:

That's where I'm at. Could maybe get by with 20+BTT win, but you're leaving the decision in the committee hands at that point, which I'm not comfortable about. Just get to 21 and they should be comfortable 

Yeah but if we win 21 in the regular season, we are most likely a 5 or 6 seed and playing a double-digit seed in our first conference tournament game (5 plays winner of 12/13, 6 plays winner of 11/14). And if we lose to that team, that's a clunker to end it - I would not be comfortable in that scenario.

I'm trying to think like the committee would think, and this focus on overall wins isn't prudent if you're O-fer on the road. The tourney requires competent play outside of your own gym. Marginal teams on selection day are going to be competing with other teams and I can almost guarantee you that everything else being equal, the team that has proven it can win at least a couple of road games is going to be picked over a home court juggernaut with bupkis for road wins. 

Edit: Right now, honestly, we look like a perfect NIT team....as long as we draw the match at home. 

More than anything, I think Feb. 1 will be telling whether we can hide behind this mirage of Selection Sunday stability or not.

Win, and we can keep this optimism through that our wins are enough to get in. Lose and we can no longer rely on the past success; absolutely would need road wins at that point.

45 minutes ago, kldm64 said:

it's all mental at this point!!!  

I'd say it is mostly a physical advantage that Maryland had over Nebraska, combined with role players for UMd playing better at home. Nebraska would likely have a decent shot of overcoming the Terps in a tighter contest in Lincoln, but it's mostly due to our own role players playing better at home than anything mental per se.

Last year at this time we played Maryland and we were 10-12 and this year, 15-6.

Keep winning at home. Learn and grow to win on the road.

I’m hoping that at the end of this season, that forward Julian Reese enters the transfer portal straight to Lincoln. Athletic, skilled, explosive, active rebounder, man would he and Mast compliment each other next year. If I only had a million dollars to spare….