uneblinstu's postgame chatter : vol 17; ed 21-Illinois

2 minutes ago, jimmykc said:

Is Meah hurt or just in the doghouse? I thought we might at least let him do the tip off in overtime. 

We're better on both ends of the floor with Juwan at the 4. And much better spacing offensively, more room for Brice to operate with a more skilled 5 on the court. I think the combination of those two things just leaves him in a Keita-type sporadic/situational minutes role. 

Pick n roll defense looked light years better than it has during our losing streak.  Claude, Braden, Harper all got whatever they wanted when we were hard hedging or playing drop coverage.  We really neutralized KJ in the pnr who I think is one of the most talented guards in the entire country and he'll be a top 10 pick.  It looked like we were switching more and did a little softer hedge.  The defensive intensity was there our rotations were clean all night.  We still gave up open looks but Illinois hoisted a lot of contested 3's.  Really wish we had a point guard worth a crap though on offense.  

21 minutes ago, jimmykc said:

Is Meah hurt or just in the doghouse? I thought we might at least let him do the tip off in overtime. 

Neither.  He just brings nothing to the table.  Been that way all year.  We are a much better team with him on the bench.

There is a lot to breakdown from this game. 

If that Will Riley three would have went in at the end of regulation, I would have lost my mind.

We got destroyed on the glass, but won the turnover battle. 
Brice was phenomenal in OT. 

We still should have won that game by at least 8 in regulation, but we couldn't make anything.

I thought the offensive flow was a lot better, we just missed too many open looks. 

Although Illinois shot awful in the first half, it was good that we took advantage of the poor shooting by going into half up nine.

Great win, hopefully we can get things turned around. 

4 minutes ago, kldm64 said:

 

Neither.  He just brings nothing to the table.  Been that way all year.  We are a much better team with him on the bench.

The numbers I look at simply do not agree with this assessment and would indicate it's a wash.  Offensively we turn the ball over more but convert better in the paint. Defensively we defend better at the rim but our mid-range defense suffers. If anything, we're worse when Morgan is on the court.

39 minutes ago, jimmykc said:

Is Meah hurt or just in the doghouse? I thought we might at least let him do the tip off in overtime. 

The Oregon game should tell you for sure if it's doghouse or matchup as the Ducks have two centers of large size with one of them a guy who doesn't shoot from the outside

I don't know if its doghouse or matchup issues or maybe a little bit of both, but I listened to the post game presser on the way home, Fred specifically mentioned Meah when he said we need to be ready for the next week's games. I just wish we were better at pick and roll with him. Thats basically what he does on the offensive side of the ball.

That being said, victory beers taste better that sympathy beers. 

Couldn't believe the size of the crowd last night.  Was expecting a lot of empty seats . . . but the fans sowed up!

When Cale spelled Brice for a couple minutes in the first half, he played well--got a rebound, and we extended the lead during his time on the floor.

Rollie’s numbers (outside of assists per game being down) are pretty on par with his entire career. So I don’t see much improvement happening there.

A lot of downers in this post game chat considering we just handled a top 20 team and are firmly on the bubble in February.  

We don't have any bad losses this season.  Some alarming blowouts, sure, but no devastating resumé losses.  We also have some very good wins.  Illinois will stay Top 25.  Creighton will play its way back in to the Top 25 because their conference sucks.  

Beat Oregon and we're talking seeds again, IMO.  

1 minute ago, Fullbacksympathy said:

A lot of downers in this post game chat considering we just handled a top 20 team and are firmly on the bubble in February.  

 

We don't have any bad losses this season.  Some alarming blowouts, sure, but no devastating resumé losses.  We also have some very good wins.  Illinois will stay Top 25.  Creighton will play its way back in to the Top 25 because their conference sucks.  

 

Beat Oregon and we're talking seeds again, IMO.  

Agree with the majority of this. However, I think in current form you probably need to beat Oregon and Washington to confidently be talking seeds again. 
 

However, win those two and you’ve got a string of 5 straight Q1 opportunities with three of those games being at home. THAT sounds appealing!

I think that Illiinios is a much better team when they have their 7 footer inside.  Because the two that they used last night where not good.  

It allowed us to play them straight up on D because even when they tried to get it to the post neither of those two players could catch it and/or  do anything with it.

0 tried to dribble drive the one time and looked like me out there.  Took like 5 dribbles and went nowhere.

They do not have quality depth at all. 

1 hour ago, NUdiehard said:

As sad as it is that our players are such poor shooters that the opponent doesn't even need to guard them at all, I do believe the soft coverage helped lead to the very low number of turnovers by the Huskers last night.

Up until 2019 Underwood had pressured on defense which led to winning at Stephen A. Austin, led to 20 wins in Stillwater, and led to the Illinois job. However, in his first two years at Illinois he was a sub-.500 coach for the first time in his career. In 2019-20 he flipped it into the style of defense you still see today, which with the exception of last season has been top 35. We only had 6 turnovers in part because Illinois isn't trying to pressure you into turnovers.

There's a mixed camp on whether Underwood is a "good" coach or not. Regardless, he's a very effective coach.

So glad we got this one! Wasn’t able to watch last night but am gonna try and squeeze in a replay today. The rebounding in the box score is certainly concerning. 

9 minutes ago, Vinny said:

So glad we got this one! Wasn’t able to watch last night but am gonna try and squeeze in a replay today. The rebounding in the box score is certainly concerning. 

The rebounding was 50-28 at one point, so we actually finished something like 15-8 in favor of us.  It was UGLIER numbers late in the 2nd.

On the missing big man for Illinois, Nebraska has a history of playing well against teams who rely heavily on their post player.

1 hour ago, Red Rum said:

That being said, victory beers taste better that sympathy beers. 

Can verify this statement.

Rollie or the coaches sort of figured it out in the second half.  Yes, fouls, not performance put him on the bench in the first half.  When he wasn't being covered, he began penetrating  to contact in the 2nd half, he could then kick it out or drop it off.  He also took care of the ball.

Also, a follow up note on our intensity.  There really was only one time where we had a player go to the floor and stay there after a hard contact.  That would have been when Juwan got smacked in the face.  It has been my pet peeve all year when our bigs had contact and went to the floor in, what appeared to be, a theatrical move.  This game, when Andrew or Berke went to the floor, it was aggressive and for cause.  Loved to see that subtle difference.

11 hours ago, HuskerBB said:

I have always thought Illinois had bad basketball fans - but there were two guys a couple rows behind me tonight that were just completely obnoxious.    Seemed like lots of Illinois fans had lower bowl seats to this game.   Wish our fans would avoid selling good seats to the opposition but I understand they may not know who is buying them.   Overall our crowd kind of started out slowly but got into the game at the end - especially in overtime.  Much better than the last couple home games.

 

Had 2 Illinois fans sitting in front of me and very cordial. One even admitted that reffing was less than stellar and said the over the back non call versus Gary was terrible miss.

3 minutes ago, roscoe said:

Had 2 Illinois fans sitting in front of me and very cordial. One even admitted that reffing was less than stellar and said the over the back non call versus Gary was terrible miss.

Luck of the draw. Had some yahoo kids up above me in a luxury box that seemed to be chanting some nonsense during Brice's first FTs and then during Illinois' first FTs.  Thankfully they stopped before I felt compelled to comment on the failure of their parents.

4 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

 

Luck of the draw. Had some yahoo kids up above me in a luxury box that seemed to be chanting some nonsense during Brice's first FTs and then during Illinois' first FTs.  Thankfully they stopped before I felt compelled to comment on the failure of their parents.

Speaking of kids hollering during Brice's fts. Did our student section not understand to back off Underwood when Brice was shooting them? And on a side note I have never, ever, ever, ever seen a ref let a coach change a call for him. "High Knees" Anderson is terrible and should've met with dummies 2 & 3 to discuss changing to a jump ball? Had a buddy tell me after game that "HK" looked at possession arrow and saw it pointed NU's way so figured it was okay since we kept ball.

13 minutes ago, roscoe said:

Speaking of kids hollering during Brice's fts. Did our student section not understand to back off Underwood when Brice was shooting them? And on a side note I have never, ever, ever, ever seen a ref let a coach change a call for him. "High Knees" Anderson is terrible and should've met with dummies 2 & 3 to discuss changing to a jump ball? Had a buddy tell me after game that "HK" looked at possession arrow and saw it pointed NU's way so figured it was okay since we kept ball.

That one was a mystery - even the obnoxious Illinois fans behind me admitted they did not know what the ref was thinking in calling that a jump ball.    It certainly did appear Underwood talked him into changing the call - and doing so well after the play was over - and to a call that made no sense.

15 minutes ago, roscoe said:

Speaking of kids hollering during Brice's fts. Did our student section not understand to back off Underwood when Brice was shooting them? And on a side note I have never, ever, ever, ever seen a ref let a coach change a call for him. "High Knees" Anderson is terrible and should've met with dummies 2 & 3 to discuss changing to a jump ball? Had a buddy tell me after game that "HK" looked at possession arrow and saw it pointed NU's way so figured it was okay since we kept ball.

They were commenting on TV that they “didn’t hear a whistle” but there was definitely a whistle during that foul to jump ball scenario.

3 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

They were commenting on TV that they “didn’t hear a whistle” but there was definitely a whistle during that foul to jump ball scenario.

There's a sucking or blowing comment that could be inserted also...in my opinion.

3 hours ago, Fullbacksympathy said:

A lot of downers in this post game chat considering we just handled a top 20 team and are firmly on the bubble in February.  

 

We don't have any bad losses this season.  Some alarming blowouts, sure, but no devastating resumé losses.  We also have some very good wins.  Illinois will stay Top 25.  Creighton will play its way back in to the Top 25 because their conference sucks.  

 

Beat Oregon and we're talking seeds again, IMO.  

I don't agree with we don't have any bad losses.  The USC and Rutgers game are both Q3 home losses those are eye sores on our resume to the committee.  With our brand we have very little room for those slip ups