uneblinstu's postgame chatter : vol 17; ed 1 - UTRGV

1 hour ago, Art Vandalay said:

I would love to see Brice get back up PG minutes and get CE and GG more minutes as I agree on shooters.

Agree completely.  From what I have seen, eems pretty easy to tighten up this rotation.  Unless there are injuries or unusual circumstances, Meah and Ulis are out.  Roll with the remaining 8.  Brice is the backup PG.  Must have more shooting on the floor.

Last night's starting lineup with three non-shooters in Worster, Gary and Meah was sluggish, clogging and a bit brutal to watch.

With that said, would like to see Worster fire up a few more threes.  He was not even looking at the basket from behind the arc until that three at the end of the game.  Even if he only makes 30%, he needs to fire a few up just to keep the defense honest and create some gravity.   

Berke should be PF and backup center.  BTW, Berke is listed on the roster at 6'10" and 244 lbs, which is the exact same height as Morgan and actually 2 pounds heavier.  Berke could be that high post passing center similar to what Mast was last year.

2 hours ago, SkersHoops said:

Rollie, Gary, Connor, BT, Morgan.  Brice was on the bench.

 

Those 6, along with Gavin seem like our top 7.  I think Sam and Meah will play when needed/match ups.  Things could change though.

I feel Ulis is our 8 man, because he is needed more than Sam and Meah

Was a bit confused with the trapping defense which led to some wide open 3s.  With our height didn't expect us to need to do that but maybe that's just the defense Fred wants to run.  Meah if hes going to play needs to stay on post and not be out on perimeter.

57 minutes ago, TourneyBound said:

Was a bit confused with the trapping defense which led to some wide open 3s.  With our height didn't expect us to need to do that but maybe that's just the defense Fred wants to run.  Meah if hes going to play needs to stay on post and not be out on perimeter.

I honestly wonder how much scouting we did and specific game planning vs running our base defense in game one with so many new faces, which would mean doubling the post all the time and leaving the wing/corner wide open.

It had to be hard for everybody with how much subbing there was. Often we had just a couple possessions before at least one new face was coming in. Tough to find a rhythm like that. As the rotation tightens the silly turnovers should go down and the efficiency should go up, on both ends. Also as we learn how to set screens again with the new emphasis there, the offense should get smoother.
 

1 hour ago, TourneyBound said:

Was a bit confused with the trapping defense which led to some wide open 3s.  With our height didn't expect us to need to do that but maybe that's just the defense Fred wants to run.  Meah if hes going to play needs to stay on post and not be out on perimeter.

I had the same thought. My guess is that since it ultimately ends up with dudes sprinting around to cover open guys, Fred said we're running it 100% of the time now so it becomes muscle memory for later in the season when we actually will need it.

Looking back, everything last night was very vanilla.   We were more athletic and physical which allowed us to spread the floor and drive to the hoop with the occasional dump to Morgan.   

I don't anticipate anything much different until, perhaps, St. Mary's.

Brice scored 455 points last season.  There is a chance he ends up scoring 1000 points for the Huskers despite only playing here for two seasons.

My thoughts after one game:

The hero ball talk and some guys going one on one I think are a combination of first game jitters but also the coaching staff knowing we would have mis-matches and telling the guys to exploit those.  It's always a fine line between getting your points through your offense and not forcing but at the same time taking what they give you.

I never really feel Brice forces shots.  He takes shots he can make.  He obviously will be the go to guy, like Petteway a few years ago, and could put up big numbers but I don't see him scoring in the same way Petteway did.

I think the staff is not giving away any sets for Conner E yet, but I can see him getting the same treatment like KT did last year (as one poster pointed out)  Brice is the consistent guy and CE can get hot in a heartbeat.  If Conner is off, we need GG to hit shots.  If both are off, we will struggle, if both are on we will be tough.

Meah is probably better coming off the bench but coach likes to get him a quick bucket off the tip with a low post iso.  He ended up playing the same minutes as someone off the bench.

I like what Morgan gives us and like his aggressive play but he won't be able to power over people in the Big Ten like he did last night. 

I hope the team starts to click soon as far a running the offense smoothly.  Might have to play Sam a little more just to get the proper movement and back cuts.

Overall the team looks a bit slow but we are bigger.  I have no idea how good we are (or bad we are) right now.  We have a lot of potential and a lot of questions.

5 hours ago, millerhusker said:

Hoiberg saying we can't be tinkering and messing around too much this year was music to my ears. You can mess around with lineups throughout the non-con schedule at Kansas, but not so much if you're coaching a team that could potentially be on the bubble imo. You need to figure it out quickly. I've always thought coaches with bubble-ish teams can cost their team a tourney bid with early season personnel decisions, we just tend to forget about those head-scratchers by the time resume evaluation comes around in March. Every game truly matters for us. We can't afford even 1 mid-major non-con loss. And definitely need to have things honed in by the Saint Mary's game. Most important game of the year imo, as (aside from Creighton) it's our best chance at a non-con resume building win. 

Agreed. We tinkered and messed around a lot in the first half especially and look where that got us. Obviously we really can't afford to lose a non-conference home game. Not that I thought we were going to, but 69-65 with 5 minutes left was a little stressful. 

I think the +/- from last night is pretty telling, moreso than it usually is:

Juwan +26

Berke +21

Worster +21

Essegian +15

Brice +8

Morgan +6

Meah +5

Griffiths +4

Ulis -1

Hoiberg -5

Those top 6 are your core. Really like what Morgan can do in this system and he just seems like a way more natural/better fit for what Fred likes to do than Meah does.

In my opinion, Berke and Morgan should be the clear Reink and Josiah replacements. Meah should fill Keita's role (except actually be available), playing situationally against giants or sparing guys who are in foul trouble. 

I like Griffiths and he will shoot it better than he did last night, he's the 7th guy for me. Ulis and Hoiberg get spot minutes. 

By the way, UTRGV went 13-41 from deep and we still won by 20. 

Last year when we gave up that many 3s:

Iowa 15-35 (lost by 18)

Creighton 14-40 (lost by 29)

Illinois 13-35 (lost by 11)

Purdue 13-33 (won by 16)

Wisconsin 13-26 (lost by 16)

A&M 13-23 (lost by 15)

So this was a funky matchup given their play style, and considering we were outscored 39-18 from the 3 point line and still won by 20, that's encouraging. In many other older worlds of Nebraska Basketball we lose that game. 

4 minutes ago, GhostOfJoeMcCray said:

By the way, UTRGV went 13-41 from deep and we still won by 20. 

 

Last year when we gave up that many 3s:

Iowa 15-35 (lost by 18)

Creighton 14-40 (lost by 29)

Illinois 13-35 (lost by 11)

Purdue 13-33 (won by 16)

Wisconsin 13-26 (lost by 16)

A&M 13-23 (lost by 15)

 

So this was a funky matchup given their play style, and considering we were outscored 39-18 from the 3 point line and still won by 20, that's encouraging. In many other older worlds of Nebraska Basketball we lose that game. 

That's some great info, wondered about that last night after the game.

1 hour ago, GhostOfJoeMcCray said:

Agreed. We tinkered and messed around a lot in the first half especially and look where that got us. Obviously we really can't afford to lose a non-conference home game. Not that I thought we were going to, but 69-65 with 5 minutes left was a little stressful. 

having it so close that late is concerning.  the 18-2 run (in only 5 minutes) to end the game is encouraging.

Frager and Janowski remain on redshirt watch

19 minutes ago, Silverbacked1 said:

Just great to be back in my seats and watching my Huskers play basketball.

Agreed, sliver.

14 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

 

Vs smaller teams it seems like you can mostly roll with Morgan and Berke at the 5

And they can both step back & knock down 3’s. I’m sure you’ll see them on the Court together more often as we get into Conference play. 

12 hours ago, Silverbacked1 said:

Just great to be back in my seats and watching my Huskers play basketball.

They gave you working tickets!

10 hours ago, hhcmatt said:

 

They gave you working tickets!

Yep got everything up and running

UTRGV is not a bad team apparently, they just took Creighton down to the wire. It took Kalkbrenner being taller than everyone and scoring 49 points to squeeze past them.

Radio Broadcast

https://huskerhoopscentral.com/2024-25/RadioBroadcasts/2024-11-04 Nebraska vs UTRGV.mp3