uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 11; ed 5 - Texas Tech (HHCDave edition)

Hello All,

Longtime lurker, first time poster. The first part is true, at least.

I thought I would chime in with my thoughts on tonights game since I was able to attend in person (last night as well).

We will break this down as "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly"

THE GOOD:

-Our starting five is scary talented. The athleticism and INDIVIDUAL players are there.

-We have better depth than I anticipated. I have been pleasantly surprised by Nana, Tanner and Brady (though we didn't see him tonight). Amir hasn't shown me much yet but that's to be expected by a true freshman.

-Isaac Copeland is off to a great start.

-Glynn Watson shows the energy and glue you need.

-The defense has been pretty dawgone good.

THE BAD:

-We have NO ACTION OFFENSIVELY. AT ALL. It's all iso.

-Our in bounds plays leave........ a lot to be desired.

-We will struggle rebounding against bigger teams (though we won that battle last night and we already knew this fact going into the season).

-We are very selfish and there's very little fluidity to the offense.

-James Palmer has looked brutal in all but one game, really. Is he banged up more than we know?

THE UGLY:

-This game.

Look...... We could afford ONE game like this in the nonconference. ONE.

The problem is, we now have used it up, and have no margin for error until Big 10.

We literally CAN'T lose more than one more nonconference game if we want to get to the NCAA Tournament. I really believe that.

Think about it, if we lose to Clemson AND either Creighton or Oklahoma State, we have the exact same problem as last year - we lost to the good teams in nonconference, and picked up 1-2 marginally good wins.

AKA, its doubtful Seton Hall is a signature win. So losing to Clemson, Texas Tech and either Creighto nor OSU would give us nothing impressive in the noncon.

GRANTED, the Big 10 is much stronger this year and finishing in the Top 5 would mean more.

BUT if we can't beat OSU on a neutral court and Creighton at home - after already getting TROUNCED by Texas Tech - we likely aren't going to finish Top 5 in the Big 10 anyways, especially since we aren't likely to see an experienced team get a whole lot better at this point in the process.

I was EXTREMELY frustrated tonight at the game... Can honestly say I cussed out loud for the first time ever as a Husker fan in public toward Coach... and I'm not proud of myself for that. I love Tim Miles. I really do.

I love James Palmer. I love Isaac Copeland. I love Roby. Etc. I want all these guys to have the pro careers they want, too.

There is a LOT invested in this team, program and INDIVIDUALS future.

That's one thing I'm really worried about, is how individual'ized this team looked the last two days.

I have yet to read any other posts on the board so I might be in left field with these thoughts, or maybe I'm dead on. I just wanted to get my thoughts on "paper" before reading others and while they were fresh in my mind.

Tonight certainly felt like any number of nights throughout the last 20 years, didn't it? It could have been any coach or any team we've had with high expectations - and there's been more than we realize.

The good news is the season is VERY young and its quite possible we just had an off night. It's also possible Texas Tech is a Top 15 team and this ends up not hurting us in the least.

BUT at some point, we have to start beating good and great teams if we plan on A. Making the NCAA Tournament and B. Winning a couple of games.

And anything less this year would be a massive failure.