uneblinstu's postgame chatter: vol 14; ed 9 - at Indiana

Looked like a tired team, not real suprising considering 4 ot and back to back road games.

Indiana was sleepwalking the 1st 10 minutes or so kept it close for a while

What was expected, sadly.

Now at a robust 27.1% from 3 basically at the 1/3 mark of the season. This staff should be on the hot seat. You don’t need “time” to turn around a basketball program. And when you have a 5 star freshman who is probably gone after one year and you look as bad as ever, well, why should we believe it will be better next year? Or the following?

Sadly, NU outmatched today, expect more of that. I thought the refs let a lot of bullying go unnoticed. Then they decided to call Verge on an offensive foul with a min. left. Yeah, way to take control of the situation, refs. That was weak sauce when the outcome was no longer in doubt...

2 minutes ago, AuroranHusker said:

Sadly, NU outmatched today, expect more of that. I thought the refs let a lot of bullying go unnoticed. Then they decided to call Verge on an offensive foul with a min. left. Yeah, way to take control of the situation, refs. That was weak sauce when the outcome was no longer in doubt...

 

 

I'm thinking about rooting for the refs, they are unbeatable in both non- and conference play.

I quit watching after halftime. Haven’t done that since the Cam Mack year and never before that. Is this program in a better place than it was 3 years ago? I would certainly argue no. This offense is horrendous and can’t take much longer than an hour for the opposing team to scout. Thank you Doc for keeping it close, tell your buddy Hoiberg to hold up his end of the bargain. 

Too much dribble, no passing, standing around, hero ball, no development or roles for cetain players, etc.....This is not what I expected in year 3 under Fred.  Another long year.  This team may not get to 10 wins.  Very frustrating.  If you're gonna recruit stars they better fit or develop to fit into your system, which Im not sure what it is at this point.  I just dont see any promise the rest of this year.

Pretty embarrassing offensive performance in this one. Verge's numbers and shooting percentages again will look good in the box score. Why does it seem like Hoiberg's best offensive players at Nebraska are often the ones holding us back? Today it felt like anytime we tried to make a run to come back in the game, Verge decided he needed to take over, which led to contested fadeaway or turnover that killed momentum. Kobe was visibly upset with Verge a few times in this game. 

Our shooters need to make shots. Hoiberg told us Keisei and CJ are two of the three best shooters he's EVER coached, along with some other kid at Iowa State. We heard similar things about Lat before last season. They all had plenty of open looks in this one. They can obviously shoot the ball. Why can't they make them once they get to Nebraska? I miss the days of always thinking the ball was going in when certain guys shot it (Cochran, Conklin, Velander, Perry). 

Wilhelm was a bright spot today. He's a strong dude. TJD collided with him a couple times, and Wilhelm looked immovable. Needs to play more. We're a pretty soft team without Trey and he gives us some toughness. Speaking of soft, why continue to start Lat? Defensive liability and he doesn't give you much of anything at the start of either half, then you don't trust him enough to play him at all in the final 12 minutes of the game. 

Having said all that, I thought the effort and energy was pretty good today, especially considering how drained they were after the NC State game. Bring that energy at home against Michigan and I believe we can beat them.

Really like how TJD and Thompson play the game. TJD should be frontrunner for B1G POY. If I could choose any player in America to add to our roster, it'd be him. Not very often you have a superstar that's also a lunch pail guy. 

Outside of those two, wasn't really impressed with this Indiana team. 

fred has to start running set plays to get open 3s. that is the only chance of this team becoming successful. 

our iso ball is terrible. we have nobody that is going to finish at the basket against big 10 defenses.

Not exactly the hottest take in the history of mankind, but this offense looks really bad when no one can make a 3-pt shot.

Maybe it was tired legs, but I think it had more to do with our really poor offensive flow today. Seems like our point guard kind of gives up on running the offense when the other guys aren't making shots right away. My guess is when Verge is our leading scorer this season, we will lose a lot. (Granted, we probably will lose a lot either way.)

Half court defense was good most of the way, but we had one guy making bad switch calls and freelancing too much once again. 

I did like starting Keisei - thought the offensive flow was best in those first several minutes when he was in there. I like the way he moves without the ball, and it seems to get other guys moving a bit too. I do think Edwards can play at this level, but they need to figure out a good role for him.

Our offense gets folks open looks.  We didn’t get many layups today because Indiana has an absolute stud down low and scouted our pick and roll also.  This offensive philosophy isn’t nearly as bad as it appears.  You could have Phil Jackson running the triangle and it would look like garbage if you can’t make open looks.

Wilcher and Tominaga starting up an ice cube factory didn’t help either.  Pretty rough first start for Keisei.

The best part of the game was our ability to play some defense…when we want to, we can do it.  Pretty clear we are a team where defensive effort leads to offensive points.

Bryce got a real necessary lesson today.  Let’s see what he does with it moving forward.

Unfortunately, if we don’t start to play better on offense, I think the narrative on Fred changes quickly…

It’s really really hard to understand. Fred wants an offense that spaces and moves the ball and can shoot. And they recruit a ball-dominant transfer guard who can’t shoot and isn’t inclined to pass, a ball-dominant 5 star freshman whose biggest offensive flaw is perimeter shooting, and those two players would not pass a lie detector test if they said yes that Nebraska basketball winning was more important than impressing NBA scouts in this 5 months of season. Then we still have no inside presence to compete in the Big Ten, and also either some bad luck or poor coaching that Mayen and Wilcher and Tominaga all came in as highly rated shooters but for whatever reason they have all struggled, some more than others.

Today wasn't all that surprising honestly. Couple notes. None good

IU has two very good and experienced post players. Held TJD in check most on the night, but race Thompson was the difference maker. 

-Verge didn't stick to the gameplan, which burned possession after possession. He's going to be like this all year, so I'm just bracing myself. Good thing is he seemingly has a very short leash with the staff. They pull him after mistakes constantly. 

-bryce had a very rough outing. Hopefully getting back to home in Tuesday helps. 

-Lat needs a very short leash moving forward. He rebounds the ball ok for his position, but nothing I've seen from him so far has led me to think he should continue to start. 

-Wilhelm surprised me with holding his own. 

-No one could shoot. Happens. But sucked. 

The faster Trey comes back, the better. He is a calming factor and can help this team in multiple ways right now. Move onto Michigan on Tuesday and try to capitalize while they are struggling. They're 4-3 and up 8 on SDSU right now. 

1 minute ago, FredsSlacks said:

fred has to start running set plays to get open 3s. that is the only chance of this team becoming successful. 

 

our iso ball is terrible. we have nobody that is going to finish at the basket against big 10 defenses.

This is worth a shot. Seemed like we had quite a few good looks out of timeouts today.

Another option - stop having Verge initiate the offense ... because it never leaves his hands way too often when he does that. Or when it does leave his hands, far too often it's a wild pass that no one can catch and shoot because he has dribbled into pressure with no plan.

Maybe keep him out of it until he shot clock winds down. Much of what he does seems like late shot clock desperation anyway, so just wait until that point in the possession to let him handle the offense. They did that one or two times today where he went and stood in the corner while the other guys tried to initiate something.

Clearly, something has to change. We'll have a handful of B1G games where we light it up from outside and win, but I imagine the majority of B1G games will look like what today did.

6 minutes ago, OurDecay said:

Our offense gets folks open looks.  We didn’t get many layups today because Indiana has an absolute stud down low and scouted our pick and roll also.  This offensive philosophy isn’t nearly as bad as it appears.  You could have Phil Jackson running the triangle and it would look like garbage if you can’t make open looks.

 

Wilcher and Tominaga starting up an ice cube factory didn’t help either.  Pretty rough first start for Keisei.

 

The best part of the game was our ability to play some defense…when we want to, we can do it.  Pretty clear we are a team where defensive effort leads to offensive points.

 

Bryce got a real necessary lesson today.  Let’s see what he does with it moving forward.

I get that but at what point are players not making shots year after year on Fred? This is like Frost saying his system works great as long as the snaps are accurate, as long as the O Line blocks, as long as we don’t fumble the ball, as long as we don’t false start or hold, etc etc etc. Fred and Matt A bring in the players who are supposed to be elite shooters. So why do we have the worst 3 point shooting team at Nebraska in the last 20 years?

11 minutes ago, OurDecay said:

Our offense gets folks open looks.  We didn’t get many layups today because Indiana has an absolute stud down low and scouted our pick and roll also.  This offensive philosophy isn’t nearly as bad as it appears.  You could have Phil Jackson running the triangle and it would look like garbage if you can’t make open looks.

 

Wilcher and Tominaga starting up an ice cube factory didn’t help either.  Pretty rough first start for Keisei.

 

The best part of the game was our ability to play some defense…when we want to, we can do it.  Pretty clear we are a team where defensive effort leads to offensive points.

 

Bryce got a real necessary lesson today.  Let’s see what he does with it moving forward.

Maybe I'm off here but I didn't think we were running it into the lane enough against a defense clearly camping out at the 3pt line. We had a lot of success today inside when we committed to going there and that's when you get 3pt looks that aren't NBA range

1st and foremost, this is not a post to say that Tim Miles should be our coach and that Fred Hoiberg was an awful hire. I was as excited as anybody about getting Fred even though we were getting rid of one of my all time favorite coaches. Having said that, it is a bit disturbing when looking at statistics for this season, San Jose State is in the top 15 in 3 point percentage, and we are hovering in the 300s. And its not like our strengths of schedule are that different at this point of the season. Our offense often looks more stagnant than it did with Miles. I can recall lots of times where we would complain about a lack of ball movement. But with guys like Verge, Teddy Allen, and even Bryce McGowens, there is not any more ball movement than we witnessed under the Miles regime. I don't think any of us would have thought that this is where we'd be under 3 years of Hoiberg. Do I think he's a great coach, absolutely. However, how can you be 6-41 against P5/6 schools and have a job or at least feel the seat warming quickly. Did the NBA mentality follow him back to college? There's no lottery pick waiting when we miss postseason again. I am just at a total loss of words...

9 minutes ago, jason2486 said:

1st and foremost, this is not a post to say that Tim Miles should be our coach and that Fred Hoiberg was an awful hire. I was as excited as anybody about getting Fred even though we were getting rid of one of my all time favorite coaches. Having said that, it is a bit disturbing when looking at statistics for this season, San Jose State is in the top 15 in 3 point percentage, and we are hovering in the 300s. And its not like our strengths of schedule are that different at this point of the season. Our offense often looks more stagnant than it did with Miles. I can recall lots of times where we would complain about a lack of ball movement. But with guys like Verge, Teddy Allen, and even Bryce McGowens, there is not any more ball movement than we witnessed under the Miles regime. I don't think any of us would have thought that this is where we'd be under 3 years of Hoiberg. Do I think he's a great coach, absolutely. However, how can you be 6-41 against P5/6 schools and have a job or at least feel the seat warming quickly. Did the NBA mentality follow him back to college? There's no lottery pick waiting when we miss postseason again. I am just at a total loss of words...

But doesn’t that bold part contradict itself? Is he a great coach? Or is he just really knowledgeable about basketball and how it should be played but could only translate it into success for a few years? Big difference in my opinion. Why do we bring in all these shooters who have great numbers and they get here and fail? There are only two explanations IMO: 1) we are just cursed, or 2) there’s some over coaching or under coaching going on. I’m not saying it’s 2 either. We very well may be cursed. 

Team would be better without Verge and Mayen IMO

48 minutes ago, FredsSlacks said:

we have nobody that is going to finish at the basket against big 10 defenses

I had the same thought today. Indiana was so much beefier than our team. It literally looked like men vs. boys out on the court with certain lineups.

Game was a bit frustrating because our offense took a big step back today.  I would say we started decent moving the ball except Bryce kept playing hero ball.  The couple times he took the “easy” basketball play, he scored.  As our shooters missed open looks, hero ball krept in more.  At the end, even Kobe was playing hero ball, and I would guess that was caused by the way the rest of the team wasn’t running the offense.  It was disheartening after how we played at NC State.

Wilhelm started rough with that ill-advised 3.  After that he actually played a pretty good game.  Lat, on the other hand, is wasted time at this point.  He rebounds very poorly for his size.  And not putting a body on Thompson on that put back dunk was disgusting.  Keon Edwards should get all of Lat’s minutes and platoon with Wilhelm at the 4.

Verge’s numbers don’t look too bad until you reach the turnover column.  Really, really hurts when your PG is coughing it up like that.

Bryce got a big lesson in big-boy basketball today.  He was absolutely horrible with his hero ball crap.  What disappointed me the most is Fred never called time outs to coach him at his worst moments.  The kid is a freshmen.  Coach him!  Ugh….
 

57 minutes ago, OurDecay said:

Our offense gets folks open looks.  We didn’t get many layups today because Indiana has an absolute stud down low and scouted our pick and roll also.  This offensive philosophy isn’t nearly as bad as it appears.  You could have Phil Jackson running the triangle and it would look like garbage if you can’t make open looks.

 

Wilcher and Tominaga starting up an ice cube factory didn’t help either.  Pretty rough first start for Keisei.

 

The best part of the game was our ability to play some defense…when we want to, we can do it.  Pretty clear we are a team where defensive effort leads to offensive points.

 

Bryce got a real necessary lesson today.  Let’s see what he does with it moving forward.

I agree with this completely.  It's not a bad system.  Unfortunately, you can see with what we are trying to do, the horses aren't all there yet.  I have no idea why the 3's aren't falling for Tominaga and Wilcher, but they aren't right now.  Everything else works so much better when they're falling.  I wish I could say Lat was better, but he's just not doing much for us.  I don't see him as a Big Ten caliber player.  And don't forget we're still down Trey.

I don't agree that we're getting good looks. How many shots come off the second or (gasp!) third pass, with no dribbling in between? I think we have competent shooters, but they rush them too much just to get them off.

NOBODY passes up a shot to get a better shot for a teammate. This is clown ball. You put Wilcher or a Kensei on a real TEAM and they'd drain them.