uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 13; ed 2 - Nevada

What a big ol Thanksgiving letdown.  

3 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

What a big ol Thanksgiving letdown.  

Can we allocate some of our surplus points from yesterday to this game?

Didn't watch. Why were Thor and Trey scoreless? ("They didn't make any shots" will not do as an appropriate answer, though I probably deserve it for not watching.)

good news is that the scoring... and I hope its getting closer to being relevant and useful in the Big ten play... is getting there, quickly. a lot of things to like from yesterday and today as well. that scoring will help legitimize the small game we seem to be hoiberging in our gameplan. need that big guy though still, like you say norm. thats my "expert" opinion, fwiw. lol

6 minutes ago, jayschool said:

Didn't watch. Why were Thor and Trey scoreless? ("They didn't make any shots" will not do as an appropriate answer, though I probably deserve it for not watching.)

Trey was in a little foul trouble and Thor recognized he was off and tried to play within himself.

Young team.  Young season.  Disappointing loss.  We’ll get better.

Just now, hskr4life said:

Trey was in a little foul trouble and Thro recognized he was off and tried to play within himself.

Would it be a reasonable experiment to have Stevenson start and play Thor's minutes and have Thor off the bench?

I'm hoping Andre can bring something to the rotation when the Big Ten season rolls around. The team we have should go 4-3 or 5-2 non-conference, and the team we'll have with Andre and then Walker hopefully can win between 6 and 8 in the conference. Bring everybody back, add Lakes, Tominaga, Breidenbach and that one kid from South Carolina, and be a tourney team.

Baby steps sometimes means the baby falls down. Time to get back up.

Poor rebounding, horrible shooting and not driving the ball when you are bricking threes and the ref’s are calling defensive fouls if the defender even looks at the ball handler.

The rebounding and shooting reminded me of last year. We even had our usual quota of air balls. Maybe our bad shooting was because our legs were dead from yesterday’s game but our misses were bricks. 

Banton’s last shot was unfortunate as it was deeper then necessary and rushed. This was a winnable game as Nevada is picked to finish 7th in the Mountain West Conference.

The season is young but we looked so “last year”.

I was upset a bit, more upset about the final shot than anything. 

-Stevenson is impressing me. Wasn't high on him going into the year, but I'm on board

-Lat has been extremely up and down. The live ball dribble turnover with under a minute left was a horrible decision on his part. Shoot the ball there or pass out. You gave up a possession essentially

-banton very good. Shot is good, defense is great, and knows how to pass. ONE THING I think he can work on is his dribbling, he looks a bit sloppy at times with it. I think I saw about 2 times today where he lost his dribble and a couple others where it seemed really loose. But he's my favorite player on this team

-Yvan. Well. Oof. He will probably get more minutes in big ten play, but I'm not seeing much improvement. I do trust him to correct his mistakes but it's not a good start out the gate. 

-trey is a hellish defender and Kobe will be a very good offensive player for us. Rotating both of them makes sense

Not overly upset, a little bit but not really. I never really get upset though granted. I thought they fought, just some dumb execution down the stretch that should get corrected. Defense is all over the place. Need to attack the rim though. I'm looking at Georgia tech now though

I am surprised how good we have looked defensively.  Forcing lots of turnovers and contested shots, Banton's length at the top of the key is cluttering passing lanes, and Trey looks the part of a lockdown defender.

Offensively, we looked out of sorts.  Guys lost confidence and were hesitant to pull the trigger when open.  This game reminded me of the Doc Sadler era, but from the other side of the fence.  So often under Doc we had teams that were out-talented but forced the opposition out of their comfort zone.  Ultimately, Doc's teams often found ways to beat a superior foe.  That's what today looked like to my eyes.

Disappointing.    I wish when we got our lead we could of worked the clock a bit before throwing up a 3 especially when your not hitting.    We let them get into the paint too easily. 

Nebrasketball giveth and Nebrasetball taketh away. 

Yvan. Oof. I expected more gains in his game from the offseason work he put in.  He was last in minutes so I don't think they go down much. 

I really like Webster. He seems to get so high so quick on his jump shot. 

I really like this team and am still pretty high on them. But I think I can temper down my Cinderella run into the tourney daydreams for a moment

Key plays to me:

1. Early on Benton makes a steal and tries to dunk it instead of just making a layup. If he makes the simple play we are up 12-4 and rolling. They stick a 3 right after which always happens after a missed layup and the momentum is gone. 

2. Hand check on Allen late that allows them to shoot free throws without having to earn a hoop in the clutch and tie the game.

3. Lack of execution on the 2 for 1 play. Lat hesitates on the open three.

If Banton cannot penetrate we had a tough time getting open looks.  29% shooting and being out-rebounded by 18 spells defeat.  

1 hour ago, Cazzie22 said:

29% shooting and being out-rebounded by 18 spells defeat.  

Boom.

Thor was bad on both ends today.  He may end up just being a zone buster on this team.  He can’t defend guards.  
 

Lat was softish on the boards.
 

Banton needs to go to the rack against tall defenders as a default.  He can get in at will and draw help if he doesn’t score.  

Kobe and Shamiel are making serious cases to start.  
 

Trey didn’t show up offensively but he willed us back into the game on defense.  Can’t fault him for this one.  
 

Teddy was abysmal in the first half but I think he’s figuring out how to manufacture his points at this level.  
 

The team was too unselfish when open.  Shoot the friggin ball when you catch it in rhythm.  Fred was losing his mind on those plays.  
 

Yvan was Yvan.  We know what we have there.  

Bottom line:  if you can’t get a stop or a friggin rebound, the system can’t thrive.  It didn’t help that the refs manufactured a comeback for Nevada.  There were some insane calls.  I really think that was the difference.  I thought we defended very well in the second half and got screwed for it.  

Live by the 3, Die by the 3... when we were up 10 that should have been “Ballgame” Stevenson certainly needs more minutes & how did Teddy score all those points with that Homemade jump shot...?

3 hours ago, jayschool said:

Didn't watch. Why were Thor and Trey scoreless? ("They didn't make any shots" will not do as an appropriate answer, though I probably deserve it for not watching.)

Cause Fred got his ass out coached big time by Alford.  

3 hours ago, jayschool said:

Would it be a reasonable experiment to have Stevenson start and play Thor's minutes and have Thor off the bench?

 

I'm hoping Andre can bring something to the rotation when the Big Ten season rolls around. The team we have should go 4-3 or 5-2 non-conference, and the team we'll have with Andre and then Walker hopefully can win between 6 and 8 in the conference. Bring everybody back, add Lakes, Tominaga, Breidenbach and that one kid from South Carolina, and be a tourney team.

 

Baby steps sometimes means the baby falls down. Time to get back up.

Thor is  not the problem.  We play better with him in the game.  One of the highest hoops IQ ever.   And he doesn’t need his, unlike some of the guys today.  

22 minutes ago, HB said:

Thor is  not the problem.  We play better with him in the game.  One of the highest hoops IQ ever.   And he doesn’t need his, unlike some of the guys today.  

You can kinda tell when Teddy Allen is going to take a shot.

I think we need to be a little more clear about what qualifies as a good shot for certain people.  

18 minutes ago, royalfan said:

I think we need to be a little more clear about what qualifies as a good shot for certain people.  

Yes, agreed.

The hardest part about coaching is when you have a philosophy and it isn’t working. How do you get the guys to adjust styles without losing confidence in the philosophy or putting a name to the issue. 
 

Coach and the leaders on the court didn’t manage this one well today. 

What we witnessed is the down side of an offense that relies so heavily on 3 pointers.  When you don't have proven, consistent, reliable shooters (which, by definition is Nebrasketball), you're going to struggle in many games.  2/3rds of fg attempts being 3 pointers is not going to be a successful formula for this team.  Just don't have the dead-eye shooters needed.  I'm afraid we're going to see a lot of games the rest of this year remarkably similar to this one as every team is going to try to replicate the defensive plan executed by Nevada.

That being said, I don't think the team is this bad at shooting - they obviously shot much better yesterday against a crappy team.  They just had a terrible game today.  Make a couple more shots and you win the game (realistically, should have won by 10 or 15 with all the turnovers Nevada committed).  But, the vast majority of possessions were 5 guys standing outside the arc with very little movement, very little threat of attacking the lane and hoisting up bad 3 pointers (this, of course, also contributed to very little chance of offensive rebounds).  They did get some good looks at times, but just couldn't make anything.  Don't know if the game plan wasn't executed very well, but you would think a coaching staff led by someone with Hoiberg's reputation could scheme something to get some reasonable looks in the paint from time to time, especially with as whistle-happy as the Three Stooges were in the second half.

Couple of other things that really hurt IMO:

Allowing No. 4 to score 16 points on perfect shooting in the last 10 minutes of the first half.  Oooof.

The 6 or 7 fouls called on Nebraska in about a one-minute stretch early in the second half.  I felt that limited the defensive aggressiveness and obviously caused a lot of lineup juggling.

No. 25 getting to the basket at will because it was a foregone conclusion that an immediate whistle was coming no matter what happened in reality.

Positives to take away:  Played like dog doo against a decent team and had the lead in the final minute.

2 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

You can kinda tell when Teddy Allen is going to take a shot.

Pretty much when he touches the ball, I'd say.  He forces some horrible shots and the offense does not flow well when he's in the lineup.