uneblinstu’s postgame chatter: vol 12; ed 19 - at wisconsin

18 treys, when only avg. 7.5 a game.

Paging Me. Cheatham, paging Mr. Cheatham....

Noticed he looked a bit out of it against Indiana- counted four if not five three’s made by IU on hands down close outs by him.

Seemed a bit out of sorts tonight as well. We need him and his steadiness- it’s been quite noticeably gone the past couple of games.

On a plus side, I thought Burke and Cross played with some real confidence.  I no longer consider Charlie a walk-on. Guy can and should be getting regular minutes for his defense alone.

Wish our guys would’ve been better prepared or executed on their preparation against the basic pick and roll...

Entertaining watching Burke Put some of Wisconsin’s defenders on skates on Lincoln residential streets- his quickness really showed tonight

Wasn’t expecting a lot out of this season, but the fact that we aren’t competing is concerning for me personally.  We shouldn’t have to mount a furious comeback and go on a 10-0 run just to get the game to single digits.  I expected more out of this team this far into the season.  A loss is fine.  Being down 10+ night in and night out is not going to do it for me.

If we aren’t going to play Cross and Yvan together, then it’s time to start Cross and give him 25min a game to Yvan’s 15.  
 

Cross just scored 17 in 20 minutes.  That’s not normal for a freshman.  We could at least stand to give him the green light to start games and see how he’s doing.  
 

Really a pretty good effort against an average to decent team who happened to have their greatest shooting night ever.  I think we beat Wiscy at home.  Our guards are quite a bit more athletic.  

Great game from Burke.  We need Mack to have a notable second half one of these days.  He’s been a monster the first half of the last two games.  
 

We are undermanned but there was plenty to like tonight.  

4 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

Wasn’t expecting a lot out of this season, but the fact that we aren’t competing is concerning for me personally.  We shouldn’t have to mount a furious comeback and go on a 10-0 run just to get the game to single digits.  I expected more out of this team this far into the season.  A loss is fine.  Being down 10+ night in and night out is not going to do it for me.

I actually thought we did compete tonight- but Wisconsin setting a program record on three’s and just total confusion on defending the pick and roll won’t get it done- need to shore that up ASAP- was hoping Doc would have our defense better- absolutely no need to triple team ANY big guy from Wisconsin. I don’t see Nigel Hayes or Ethan Happ or Frank Kominsky on this team...

We are who we are.  Our lack of size kills us.  I thought we played with good effort and tried to execute defensively.  Wisconsin is well drilled and moved the ball well to get, and make shots.  Opening the 2nd half they executed flex cuts to get shots inside and outside.  We are missing an inside scoring threat and that is not a criticism of Yvan.  The rest of the season is about development, not winning games.

7 hours ago, Faux Mike Peltz said:

I actually thought we did compete tonight- but Wisconsin setting a program record on three’s and just total confusion on defending the pick and roll won’t get it done- need to shore that up ASAP- was hoping Doc would have our defense better- absolutely no need to triple team ANY big guy from Wisconsin. I don’t see Nigel Hayes or Ethan Happ or Frank Kominsky on this team...

You’re probably right.  I just haven’t gotten into this season much since we lost three buy games.  Another year of no postseason and no hope just took its toll I think.  I haven’t even been going as long as some on here either.  Future is hopefully bright, but it’s always tough to see the light.

Hang in there- there is always next year, I’ve been a season ticket holder since 1991....I believe I have grey hair as a result...

A big positive for me was Cross tonight.  The threes are nice but the one play where he pump faked and exploded to the basket for a bucket plus the foul was a thing of beauty.  He is going to be a good one.  Get him and Yvan in the weight room this summer and they will take very big steps forward next year.  Oh, and add in the three athletic sit out transfers and you have a team that can compete for a full 40 minutes.  

54 minutes ago, Faux Mike Peltz said:

Paging Me. Cheatham, paging Mr. Cheatham....

 

Noticed he looked a bit out of it against Indiana- counted four if not five three’s made by IU on hands down close outs by him.

Seemed a bit out of sorts tonight as well. We need him and his steadiness- it’s been quite noticeably gone the past couple of games.

 

On a plus side, I thought Burke and Cross played with some real confidence.  I no longer consider Charlie a walk-on. Guy can and should be getting regular minutes for his defense alone.

 

Wish our guys would’ve been better prepared or executed on their preparation against the basic pick and roll...

 

Entertaining watching Burke Put some of Wisconsin’s defenders on skates on Lincoln residential streets- his quickness really showed tonight

 

Yeah, noticed Cheatham has been struggling lately. We only played him 21 minutes this game, a season low.

2 hours ago, LK1 said:

If we aren’t going to play Cross and Yvan together, then it’s time to start Cross and give him 25min a game to Yvan’s 15.  
 

Cross just scored 17 in 20 minutes.  That’s not normal for a freshman.  We could at least stand to give him the green light to start games and see how he’s doing.  
 

Really a pretty good effort against an average to decent team who happened to have their greatest shooting night ever.  I think we beat Wiscy at home.  Our guards are quite a bit more athletic.  

 

Great game from Burke.  We need Mack to have a notable second half one of these days.  He’s been a monster the first half of the last two games.  
 

We are undermanned but there was plenty to like tonight.  

Agreed on a lot of that, especially with Cam, Dachon & Kevin torching UW; and I think NU gives 'em a great game in Lincoln.

There were a lot of good things to see tonight, as long as one lowers expectations on the 'result' end of the equation, that is.

This season is probably going to get really really ugly.

The 3 noncon losses still blow my mind, but I'm encouraged by how we've played in conference. Our talent level's not there, but you can see what we're trying to do and we're competing. 

If you would've told me before the game that Wisky would make 8 3s, I figured we'd be in trouble. When they throw in 18 of them and we're still within 5 with 5 to go on the road, that's pretty good, considering how we have to play defense right now. If the opponent is making 3s, we're just not going to win. We need more Iowa-like performances from the opponent.

There's probably more games left where we'll be a double-digit underdog than a single-digit 'dog or - ha - favored, so hopefully we can keep taking baby steps forward, because we're not going to win much. I think last night was a step forward.

6 hours ago, PimpMario said:

This season is probably going to get really really ugly.

FIFY.

Lots to like from last night and really other than getting sloppy a couple times in the second half when we were clawing back into the game for a second time, my only frustration was not adjusting the defense to defend the 3 point line.

It is clear that at 17 Yvan really needed a year to bulk up and tone some skills.  There are flashes of what will come but he really struggled last night.

Cross was really really good last night.  Said it many times already, but with some readjusting weight and adding strength, he could be a really match up nightmare.

Burke was just fun to watch last night.  Not sure they had anyone that could stay in front of him.

Mack had a good game, just seemed at a couple key times he tried to do to much.

Thor - solid game for what he can give us.

Cheatham has just disappeared the last couple games.  Wondering if we've run the legs out from under him.  We need him to get back in his grove.

Easley - less one trip where he was way late closing out (he wasn't alone on this) solid solid night on defensive end.  With how we struggle to score at times, we just can't have he and Yvan on the floor at same time.  Makes it to easy when you have to guard just three guys.

Green - just needs something good to happen for him.  The move to the basket in the first half was a thing a beauty other than not finishing

Like the effort last night.  Biggest disappointment is in the lack of defensive adjustments when it was clear they could throw the ball up from behind their backs from 3 and it was going in.  Understand why we started with that mentality, but the game was lost from lack of defending the 3 point line.

Someone mentioned in the game thread that Fred's offense once it gets it's pieces is going to cause nightmares for teams like Wisconsin who are plodders.  It was clear last night this statement is true.

I wasn't ever a huge fan of Doc when he was our head coach mainly because he played a boring style and only worried about defense.  And one of my issues with Doc is he is very predictable with defense assignments.  It isn't to hard to figure out the Doc loves to double and sometimes even triple team in the post.  Any good coach will adjust to just let the ball go into the paint and have you post player wait for the double team and then kick it out for a wide open shot.  That is just shooting practice for the other team.  We went to a zone for a little bit and should have went to it more often but Doc (and for the most part Fred) are sold that you only play man to man.  Doc needs to evolve how he coaches defense or it won't matter how good we are offensively if we can't ever prevent the other team from scoring.

Trying to come up with a cogent comment this morning but the game went pretty much as expected. Watched it on live tv at least, just to avoid the impeachment stuff. I'll stop here and refrain from pettifogging.

That was a pretty frustrating game and honestly the first game I’m going to squarely put on Coach Hoiberg’s shoulders.

There were many things that we were doing that Wisconsin was not stopping, and somehow we managed to go away from all of them. Burke could not be stopped. Nothing was done to get him more touches. That down-screen/curl action on the wing into different actions could not be stopped, and he went away from it. Whenever we just iso’ed a side on one of their poor defenders, it always worked, and we didn’t stick with it. Instead we pussyfooted around the perimeter trying to run different things. 
 

Last, when do you go away from your defensive game plan when it’s clearly not working? Did they even try to force a post player to make a great play? Once Wisconsin got going from 3 there was no stopping them. At the rate they were making their 3’s, why not just give up post touches and see if he can score or not?

Frustrating game. I wanted that one. 

I see Wisconsin is still there old "flopping" self too.  I thought flopping was not going to be allowed anymore.  I counted at least 3 obvious flops on the Badgers that were all called offensive fouls on us.  

Obviously, not the reason NU lost, but still frustrating.  

I think UW could have started throwing up Kareem sky hooks from the 3 point line and they would have gone in....

13 hours ago, Cazzie22 said:

We are who we are.  Our lack of size kills us.  I thought we played with good effort and tried to execute defensively.  Wisconsin is well drilled and moved the ball well to get, and make shots.  Opening the 2nd half they executed flex cuts to get shots inside and outside.  We are missing an inside scoring threat and that is not a criticism of Yvan.  The rest of the season is about development, not winning games.

You are dead on. We are limited as to what we can do defensively this year. When we have more size/athleticism on the floor (next year, hopefully), Doc will be able to develop more sophisticated defensive game plans. It did appear to me that we competed and played hard. Had Wisconsin merely shot 40% from 3, we would have given them a real scare. We were able to break them down pretty consistently, which is not something you see teams doing against Wisconsin very often.  

We dared them to beat us with 3’s, and they did...

1 hour ago, Handy Johnson said:

We dared them to beat us with 3’s, and they did...

Not the worst strategy. I wasn't overly mad about it, because we shut them down in other areas. We took the gamble. They just made the shots.