uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 13; ed 16 - Illinois

The encouraging thing about the last few games is atleast weve had spurts of playing good ball.

So close, but the end of regulation was...harrowing. If we keep playing like this I can visualize possibly attaining my new goal for this year; upsetting someone in the first game in Indianapolis. 

I watched the game in its entirety and walked away impressed as a whole.

-Couple guys hit timely 3s that typically don't.

-lat is getting used to big ten players, has strung together a couple good games in a row on both offense and defense.

-Teddy was semi under control today outside of the last possession. 

-Walker is an excellent player for Fred's system. He's great out of the high post and it seems like that's where they want Andre also. 

-Mcgowans I thought was a bit shot happy late and tried to match Ayo down the stretch. 

-final possession, whatever the fuck was supposed to happen, that was a disaster. They had a prime opportunity to walk away with a win and Fred knew it, which is why he was pissed. 

-Banton has continued his rough stretch. He needs to come back and regain confidence. He'll likely get feedback which will be something along the lines of "work on your jumper/FTs". His confirm is shot with his jumper right now, which effects his FT. 

the effort has been there these past few games, which I love. It would be so easy to just back down and quit, especially against the #6 team in the nation. I'm not really into moral victories, and losing 26 straight in a conference as tough as the big ten the past two years is about as bad as it gets. 

Ready for PSU on Sunday. For some reason, that one feels semi winnable, but they've competed in conference games and won, so the hunch is probably wrong. Then UMD on Tues/Wed (fuck you Kevin Warren). That stretch is a good opportunity to get a win, especially if they continue their play and effort. Legs might be shot by UMD though

12 minutes ago, thrasher31 said:

Then UMD on Tues/Wed (fuck you Kevin Warren).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Hoiberg who said he'd like to reschedule all five postponed games by any means possible?

8 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Hoiberg who said he'd like to reschedule all five postponed games by any means possible?

Great question and I'm sure he did. But I'm blaming Kevin Warren still. 

4 minutes ago, thrasher31 said:

13 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Hoiberg who said he'd like to reschedule all five postponed games by any means possible?

Great question and I'm sure he did. But I'm blaming Kevin Warren still. 

Fair enough. 

I always toss and turn after a game thinking about what this means going forward, in context, in our quest to be at least a competitive program and eventually one that wins a game in the NCAA Tournament. Specifically, my thoughts are about which players can contribute to those goals, both in the short and the long term.

For the past two months, those specific players have been Banton and Trey and ....

After last night's insomnia-inducing brain battle against myself, for next year, I have moved Banton from cornerstone to potentially a matchup nightmare off the bench. Trey, Bryce, last night's Teddy, Lat and Derrick would be a starting five that makes us competitive next year. With Dalano, Eduardo, Wilhelm and Keisei off the bench (with an occasional dose of Yvan), we can come close to winning as many as we lose next year in the conference.

In the long run, Andre can be someone in the middle who complements Bryce and Breidenbach in building a team capable of capturing Nebrasketball's Holy Grail. Keep brining in some talented transfers and high school players, and ...

Now pass me the melatonin. I'll wash it down with this Kool-Aid I have here.

I've went back and watched the final possession, it looks like Teddy was supposed to set a screen for Trey and hopefully get Frazier on him. Never happened and Trey probably should've attacked baseline if he was rejecting the screen. Good drawup, horrid execution

2 minutes ago, thrasher31 said:

I've went back and watched the final possession, it looks like Teddy was supposed to set a screen for Trey and hopefully get Frazier on him. Never happened and Trey probably should've attacked baseline if he was rejecting the screen. Good drawup, horrid execution

 

  

Don't even watch the play, watch Hoiberg instead. You can tell there was a lot that broke down during that play just by looking at him.

Just now, HuskerFever said:

 

Don't even watch the play, watch Hoiberg instead. You can tell there was a lot that broke down during that play just by looking at him.

Looks like when Teddy came to the top, he started looking like wtf 

*The end of regulation was atrocious.   I thought Fred's reaction closely mirrored mine.

*I thought the management of playing time was appropriate, especially the bigs.

*I thought we did fairly well on defense...but please take away the studs right hand drives...

*Shots fell, yet offensive struggles still exist.  

*So we played better...but hey, we lost.  Gotta find ways to win.

Loved the defensive effort the entire game. Flow on offense still just disappears for long stretches. I wonder how we can Mayen consistently involved and not just right out of the gate. If either Trey or Banton had to be respected from deep that would be worth at least a few easy baskets a game.

It had been a long time since I last thought "ya know, if we had gotten the officiating edge instead of the other guys, I think we would've won."  So there's progress.

4 hours ago, aphilso1 said:

It had been a long time since I last thought "ya know, if we had gotten the officiating edge instead of the other guys, I think we would've won."  So there's progress.

Maybe, but banton would have needed about six more calls to get another free throw make

4 hours ago, aphilso1 said:

It had been a long time since I last thought "ya know, if we had gotten the officiating edge instead of the other guys, I think we would've won."  So there's progress.

I didn’t think the officiating was bad this game at all.

23 hours ago, huskerbaseball13 said:

We have gone from wondering if we will ever see Nebrasketball win a tourney game to wondering if we will ever win another Big Ten game. 
 

8 more chances this year. 

11. 12 with conference tournament  

I hate to bring this up a day later, but man, Shamiel is one of those guys who just doesn’t value the ball. Unless he’s driving to the hoop and determined to put up a shot. But his one handed passes on the top of the key- resulted in a pick -two, and then another drive where the IL guard cleanly stripped him for another transition basket- those were some real costly turnovers. 

11 minutes ago, Faux Mike Peltz said:

I hate to bring this up a day later, but man, Shamiel is one of those guys who just doesn’t value the ball. Unless he’s driving to the hoop and determined to put up a shot. But his one handed passes on the top of the key- resulted in a pick -two, and then another drive where the IL guard cleanly stripped him for another transition basket- those were some real costly turnovers. 

Yeah, Shamiel's awareness is alarmingly poor for a high-level Div. 1 program rotation player.

14 hours ago, Vinny said:

I didn’t think the officiating was bad this game at all.

Two Nebraskans were in striped shirts...so, there's that.  

47 minutes ago, Huskerpapa said:

Two Nebraskans were in striped shirts...so, there's that.  

Yeah, I went to high school with Wells.

I've every televised game this season. This was the only one I've watched live.

Despite how well we played for the majority of this game it was still a kick in the nuts.

sarcasm*/ BTW, did you know that prior to this game we had lost 25 consecutive conference games */sarcasm

I'm not going to give my thoughts on the game, other than I really liked the energy, but rather present this fantasy scenario, because why not.

What if Fred has these kids solely focusing on the BIG Tournament and everything we are doing now is to get ready for that?

To me it is the only explanation for why some of these kids haven't completed packed it in for the season.

It would be absolutely delicious if our first conference win came in the BIG Tournament.

37 minutes ago, Ron Mexico said:

I've every televised game this season. This was the only one I've watched live.

Despite how well we played for the majority of this game it was still a kick in the nuts.

 

sarcasm*/ BTW, did you know that prior to this game we had lost 25 consecutive conference games */sarcasm

I'm not going to give my thoughts on the game, other than I really liked the energy, but rather present this fantasy scenario, because why not.

What if Fred has these kids solely focusing on the BIG Tournament and everything we are doing now is to get ready for that?

To me it is the only explanation for why some of these kids haven't completed packed it in for the season.

It would be absolutely delicious if our first conference win came in the BIG Tournament.

 

It'd be even better if our five conference wins came in the B1G Tourney.  

20 hours ago, Vinny said:

I didn’t think the officiating was bad this game at all.

Not bad officiating.  They did let Cockburn get away with murder in the paint, but that is somewhat to be expected.  He easily could have been in foul trouble.  I think the way the officiating occurred was consistent, but benefited Illinois.  Easily could have benefited us instead and still been fair.

1 hour ago, aphilso1 said:

 

Not bad officiating.  They did let Cockburn get away with murder in the paint, but that is somewhat to be expected.  He easily could have been in foul trouble.  I think the way the officiating occurred was consistent, but benefited Illinois.  Easily could have benefited us instead and still been fair.

That is not a good way to look at this.  The referees can decide a game before it starts just by deciding how they are going to call it.  For instance, if Illinois is playing Iowa and the refs decide you can murder somebody before a foul is called, Illinois is going to win.  If they call it tight and don't allow physical play, Iowa is going to win going away.  

Similarly to football, if the officials decide they are going to allow a lot of defensive holding in by both sides in a Wisconsin game, Wisconsin will win, because their entire defense is based on holding.  If they call it tight, Wisconsin will lose.  So called "consistent" officiating can still dictate the winner.

That aside, the foul called against McGowens down the stretch was just plain awful.  Whether it was due to implicit bias of thinking Dosunmu was the best player in the conference so obviously it was a foul, or if it was done to protect Illinois NCAA seed, that call was still complete shit.