uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 11; ed 26 - Northwestern

Ok... we lost 7 in a row.  We’ve done what we needed to do since then to get back in the conversation.  Go 3-3 in our next 6 and we’ll be in the conversation on Selection Sunday.  Bubble is weak and metrics love us.

We need the “Big 3” to be hittin on all cylinders if we’re gonna have a chance. Everyone else can chip in accordingly but unless the Big Knockers show up it’s all just conversation...

NW is the worst team in the Big 10 and it’s not close.

Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

I'm very confused.

We're 15-11 and I'm not sure how I should be feeling right about now. Past expectations vs. recent reality vs. future possibilities makes this one wild roller coaster.

A win is a win! On to the next one!

It's a win. But that was a bad team playing badly. 

I'm going a game at a time, because a good chunk of tonight's game was the Husker team that was losing 7 in a row. 

We're not "fixed" yet. Not enough, at least, to be thinking about beating anyone else in front of us. 

I'm happy that they won, but that was a win with a ton of red flags. 

16 minutes ago, SkerBall said:

NW is the worst team in the Big 10 and it’s not close.

 

Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

Imagine being a northwestern fan. Gotta be harder to be one of those right now then it is to be us. What do they do with Collins? And how on earth do they replace pardon and law? 

6 minutes ago, B-town hoopsfan said:

Imagine being a northwestern fan. Gotta be harder to be one of those right now then it is to be us. What do they do with Collins? And how on earth do they replace pardon and law? 

no. i would argue being a nebraska fan is a lot harder. collins won a tourney game in 2017.

miles is way more likely to get fired than collins, and if roby leaves we'll basically be starting from scratch as well.

Nice win.

Get the next one.

Ignore the noise.

penn st game will tell me if we've actually improved. it's on the road and penn st just beat michigan.

we can't afford any more 3-17 games from watson or palmer.

Just now, TimSmiles said:

you realize you could say this same thing about nebraska right? except collins actually won a tourney game at northwestern.

Well most of us are calling for miles head while northwestern has a history of letting guys coach forever. And we atleast have roby and Allen as significant underclassmen contributors. They are getting nothing from

underclassmen although they have a solid class coming in. 

1 minute ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

A-freakin-men.

 

Can you people acknowledge it might take a game or two to figure out how to win without Copeland?

 

How we managed to win two games without him is an amazing thing to me. And some of you act like, if we had a good coach, we'd be undefeated or something. Unbelievable.

Yeah... some reactions so far have been pretty disappointing.  We lose 7 in a row... finally win a couple in a row.  Still have a shot at dancing... and people on here talking like their best cow just died.

36 minutes ago, uneblinstu said:

 

- Amir's pretty ... "Craft-y". At least he seems like he could be to me.

Craft played 1100 minutes as a freshmen and shot nearly 38 percent from three. I don’t think I’ve seen Amir shoot a jumper yet.  Nojel eastern of Purdue would be a fantastic player for Amir to develop into IMO 

It was a win with a few really nice bright spots.  Isaiah had some great moments.  When he let's his athleticism loose, he is a sight to behold.  When he thinks...sometimes the results can be ugly.  

Not quite sure why we didn't see any subs in the second half...thought they played collectively well in the first half.

Nana still didn't play.  Methinks the illness may have been just the tip of iceberg, if ya know what I mean.

I thought Tom played well again.  Decent games from James, Glynn an Tanner.   

One thing of note...our passing has been much better the past two games.  Oh yeah, and Isaiah's block off the dudes head was pretty cool.

1 hour ago, HuskerFever said:

I'm very confused.

 

We're 15-11 and I'm not sure how I should be feeling right about now. Past expectations vs. recent reality vs. future possibilities makes this one wild roller coaster.

 

A win is a win! On to the next one!

Nebrasketball's always a roller coaster ride. Just ride the wave of momentum. Enjoy the moment. Live free or die hard. Somethin' like that. GBR !!!

43 minutes ago, TimSmiles said:

penn st game will tell me if we've actually improved. it's on the road and penn st just beat michigan.

 

we can't afford any more 3-17 games from watson or palmer.

Palmer only took 4 shots by halftime along with 4 assists. Shots didn't drop, and a few were late in the shot-clock. Lots of heart and hustle out there, but the shots gotta drop to get dubs from here on out! GBR !!!

Great energy and movement tonight for the most part and we looked like we wanted to be out there. I was pretty impressed with the crowd given the weather and circumstances. There is still hope ... I'm not confident, but there's hope. If we beat PSU ... and then that Purdue game becomes HUGE. We have to have a lot of things going right each game from here out to win them ... can be done, but we shall see.

Seemed like Huskers would get some momentum and have chance to put NW away but poor shot selection/bad turnover/questionable decision making would allow them to hang around.

Holding Pardon under 20 was my hope and when he only had 2 at half but only led by 5 had me concerned.

Watson took it to basket more than he has recently and Allen seems to be more aggressive with the ball in his hands as well.

Not sure there has been much change to the offense but the cuts are harder which has opened up some back door chances.

Roby played very good but does he have Mickey Joseph hands? He has trouble handling the ball on his dribble but boy howdy does go up and get rebounds. He had 2 highlight reel rejections.

And not sure if anyone else heard it but a fan at the top of section 120 or 121 hollered "get Borchardt out of the game". A fan farther down hollered back, "Shut up". This happened after a pass intended for Tanner running the floor was tipped away by NW player. I give credit to both Tanner for hustling to get a possible lay up and whoever attempted the pass. Got to reward big guys when they run the floor.

4 minutes ago, Husker4theSpurs said:

Great energy and movement tonight for the most part and we looked like we wanted to be out there. I was pretty impressed with the crowd given the weather and circumstances. There is still hope ... I'm not confident, but there's hope. If we beat PSU ... and then that Purdue game becomes HUGE. We have to have a lot of things going right each game from here out to win them ... can be done, but we shall see.

Definitely still a glimmer of hope. Each game builds and then it's on to the next. GBR !!!

2 hours ago, rr52 said:

Seemed like Huskers would get some momentum and have chance to put NW away but poor shot selection/bad turnover/questionable decision making would allow them to hang around.

Holding Pardon under 20 was my hope and when he only had 2 at half but only led by 5 had me concerned.

Watson took it to basket more than he has recently and Allen seems to be more aggressive with the ball in his hands as well.

Not sure there has been much change to the offense but the cuts are harder which has opened up some back door chances.

Roby played very good but does he have Mickey Joseph hands? He has trouble handling the ball on his dribble but boy howdy does go up and get rebounds. He had 2 highlight reel rejections.

And not sure if anyone else heard it but a fan at the top of section 120 or 121 hollered "get Borchardt out of the game". A fan farther down hollered back, "Shut up". This happened after a pass intended for Tanner running the floor was tipped away by NW player. I give credit to both Tanner for hustling to get a possible lay up and whoever attempted the pass. Got to reward big guys when they run the floor.

Yes, that guy was right near us ... in section 119 I believe. He got a talking to by security ... and people were mocking him a bit.

If we can get the efficient JPJ and Glynn from the Minny game, and aggressively Roby from tonight, look out.

I wonder if this bothered Palmer from long range tonight

10 hours ago, SkerBall said:

NW is the worst team in the Big 10 and it’s not close.

 

Lets not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

This understates how good this conference is. The difference between NW and Mich/Mich St is nowhere near as large as a team like Wake Forest or West Virginia and the top teams in their leagues.

Nebraska Postgame Notes
*-Nebraska improved to 51-5 under Tim Miles when holding opponents under 60 points, including 17-0 the past three seasons.
*- Nebraska held Northwestern to their second-lowest scoring output of the season with 50 points. 
*- Isaiah Roby notched his third double-double of the season and seventh of his career with 19 points and 16 rebounds. His 16 rebounds was a career-high. Roby also tied his season-high for blocks with five. The last Husker with at least 19 points and 16 rebounds in a game was Aleks Maric against Missouri on Feb. 13, 2008 (32 points, 16 rebounds).
*- Roby also tied his career-high for made three-pointers in a game with three.
*- James Palmer Jr. scored 13 points and now has 1,058 points, one point shy of Herschell Turner for (1,059) for 29th on NU's scoring list.
*- Palmer has reached double figures in 22 consecutive games dating back to Nov. 20 and 25 of 26 games this season.
*-Palmer's six assists were his second-highest total of the season.
*- With his seven made free throws tonight, Palmer now has 156 made free throws this season. He is two behind Dave Hoppen (`158, 1984) for fifth place.
*- Nebraska only committed eight turnovers tonight. The Huskers have now accumulated 10 or less turnovers in five of the last six games.
*- With the victory tonight, Nebraska is 9-6 against Northwestern all-time and the Huskers are now 6-5 against the Wildcats since joining the Big Ten.
*- The seven blocked shots by Nebraska was only one rejection away from tying the season-high as a team.
*- The nine fouls committed by Nebraska tonight tied the fewest amount of fouls committed since the Huskers had nine against Western Illinois (Nov. 24).
*- Nebraska is now 13-7 this season when having at least three players in double figures. Isaiah Roby scored 19, James Palmer Jr. netted 13 and Glynn Watson Jr. chipped in 12 points.

Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles
Opening Statement
“It is always a great weekend when you’re able to bring your alumni back, your former players and your legends. It was a bigger year this year than it had been in the previous few years, and I really enjoy having these guys back. It is great for them to connect with our team and our fans, and I am just really happy. I hope all the former players feel welcome to come back and be a part of our program so we can embrace them and recognize them. It is always cool having the legends back.”

On Isaiah Roby 
“He had those two blocks early and It kind of sent a message. Then he went away for a while from that rim protection type of thing, but boy he ended the game with a flourish. Just look at his line, 19 points. Seems like it wouldn’t have been hard to have more than that with some open misses. He has 16 rebounds, including five offensive (boards). Then you go through and he has five blocks, two assists, two steals, and no fouls. We have an IER chart, individual efficiency, and his numbers will be just through the roof.”

On winning with the defense
“If we don’t, we won’t win. I thought we were really good defensively tonight. I thought we had a very solid defensive effort. And when I say "solid" that is not a dismissive ‘oh we were solid.’ It was like ‘we were rock solid.’” 

Nebraska Players Quotes

Junior Isaiah Roby
On what was working so well for himself on offense and defense tonight
"I would say I got challenged by my teammates a lot just to be more aggressive on both ends that was the biggest thing for me"

On if he was surprised on having so many looks and being aggressive
"That was the game plan for most of our team to be honest. They were packing the paint a lot so driving lanes weren't there so it was just an adjustment we had to make"

Senior Tanner Borchardt
On trying to limit Dereck Pardon
"The coaches put together a great game plan when we are doubling and when we are not playing 1 on 1. We tried to take away his left hand, as he is pretty dominant when he gets to his right shoulder. He has averaged a huge number against us I think it is like 19 and 14 and we were able to hold him to like 12 and 13 I think so we did a good job on him"

On if he thinks the team is feeling better now after a couple of wins
"Yeah you can definitely see the morale starting to rise a little bit. It is a fun environment to be in obviously when you are winning and no one wants to be in that losing streak, but it felt great to get that monkey off the back. I think our guys are playing more freely now even in practice you can see we are enjoying ourselves more.”

Northwestern Head Coach Chris Collins
Opening Statement 
“Congratulations to Nebraska. I thought both teams played incredibly hard tonight. I thought it was just one of those Big Ten, grind-it-our type of games with both teams really digging in on the defensive side of the floor. It was hard for both teams to kind of get a rhythm. We just had that little stretch, and they went to their zone, which they do and you prepare for it. You get in the game and you have to make plays, and I thought we had some real critical live-ball turnovers during that stretch that gave them separation. I’m looking at the stat sheet here and for us to hold them to 59 points, but you see 16 off of live-ball turnovers. In a 50-point game, those are crushers. I love my guys’ effort, and we’re having a hard time scoring. It’s kind of been this script with us for most of the year and teams are good defensively. We have to just stick with it. But, I was not pleased, I mean I wanted to win the game but I thought Nebraska played very well and very hard and certainly they deserve to win.”

On Isaiah Roby and Northwestern's Defensive Effort
“I mean (Isaiah Roby) took 19 shots to get 19 points. He made shots and he played well. He’s 7 for 19, if you play against a good player and your point to shot ratio is 1-to-1, I feel like you’ve done a pretty good job to hold him for 7-for-19. (James) Palmer Jr., three-for-17 and Glynn (Watson Jr.), all three of those guys are under 50 percent from the floor. Overall, somebody has got to score. Isaiah is a terrific player, but if you would have told me he was going to get 19 on 19 shots, and we we’re going to hold (Nebraska) to under 60. It wasn’t our defense. Our defense wasn’t the reason we lost. The reason we lost was we really struggled to score the ball and that little stretch of turnovers against the zone was really a killer for us.”

8 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

“I mean (Isaiah Roby) took 19 shots to get 19 points. He made shots and he played well. He’s 7 for 19, if you play against a good player and your point to shot ratio is 1-to-1, I feel like you’ve done a pretty good job to hold him for 7-for-19.

Roby had such a dominant night I didn't realize how many shots he missed