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- Pretty frustrating start to this one. The Citadel was clearly the aggressor and NU gave them every reason to believe the first 15 minutes or so. - That said, after NU went on that run to end the half, hey controlled the action for basically the rest of the way. - Petteway doesn't seem to me to be forcing the issue as much. I like how he's fitting into the flow right now and I like that every time on the break he's looking to take it to the rim. We haven't had a guy do what he can do in transition in a long time. - Webster's in his own head right now. Exhibit A: The kickout with a wide open layup (or maybe dunk...) available to him. I'm betting this is the first time in his life he's ever struggled or not been the best player on the court or team. He'll get it figured out, but he's fighting it right now. - Ray didn't score much tonight, but I thought he did pretty well in a variety of other areas tonight. Looked to take the ball of the dribble more and finished with, I think, 3 assists. - Shields got overshadowed by Petteway, but his play in the first half of the second half might have been the difference in the game. - Solid night from Smith that could have been a huge night if not for a few turnovers and missed opportunities at the rim. Double double from the big man. - Big crowd tonight, which I was pleasantly surprised by, but not much energy (except when the guy hit the half court shot and at halftime). - Not Pitchford's best night. It happens. - Huskers had 9 turnovers at half time and 13 for the game. Just not much was good in the first half. Played, I think, pretty well in the second. - Liked that they brought back the press in the second half. - They did a better job of attacking the rim tonight, as evidenced by shooting 52% from the floor despite going 5-17 from 3 and the 34 free throw attempts, but they've got to do better 65%. Honestly, I was shocked they shot that high a percentage because they were hovering between 50% and 55% most of the night. They hit them down the stretch, which, is good, sometimes it's when you get them as much as anything. - Also, we've said it before, but rebounding...oof... That's all for now. Merry Christmas, everyone!

We're not very good, and how that could be a big surprise to anyone is mind boggling. This is the time of year I'll start spending less time on here, as it's not that fun to live in the moment, and those moments will include a lot of losses. With this young and inexperienced group, that will include some really bad losses. Let the meltdowns begin. The nature of the message board beast is that there must be BLAME. Someone is always at fault and deserves blame. As opposed to things being a natural result of a program hitting rock bottom and finishing dead last in our league 2 of 3 years, and then needing to start over and begin a gradual, rather than immediate, ascent. This will take time, and there will be some one step forward two steps back moments. Mainly, we will just need it to be next year, to develop the callouses this young group will need to figure things out. We can analyze the hell out everything, but getting experience and maturation, not to mention a post defender, is what will be needed.

OFFENSE: D+ I really wasn't happy with most anything from tonight, so I apologize in advance if my feathers are a little ruffled! Offensively, Nebraska came out taking stupid, quick shots and when it wasn't doing that, it was turning the ball over. The Huskers clanked more free throws than me at the gym (22-34) and continue to leave Shavon Shields' face on milk cartons with how they forget about him halves (and sometimes games) at a time. In this particular contest, you almost forgot Shields was there until the first two possession of the second half. For awhile, I chalked this up to a young team and a young man (Shields) who needs to do a better job of asserting himself. But I'm starting to wonder if some of this comes back to my hero (Coach Miles), too. This is one of the biggest problems with this team right now - the lack of consistent Shields in the NU offense. Thanks to a fairly nice second half (when NU shot a sizzling 63%), the Big Red were able to finish 52% from the field for the night while scoring a respectable 77 against their Southern Conference opponent. Still, don't be fooled - this was not pretty. DEFENSE: C- I will start by saying that The Citadel got 18 points off of turnovers (though Nebraska, shockingly, got 22). That keeps this grade from being lower. With that said, it's still a sad state of affairs that NU let The Citadel connect on 50% of its shots in the first half and for the night, score 62. The Huskers had no answer for Ashton Moore, who put in a team high 21 points. REBOUNDING: F Nebraska got out rebounded by The Citadel (34 to 30). Repeating, Nebraska got out rebounded by The Citadel. While Leslee Smith needed to put some stick 'um on his hands to cut down the turnovers, he did finish with a quiet double double (10 points, 10 rebounds) and Shields grabbed 6 boards. Pitchford continued his Santa Claus down the chimney like quietness on the boards, pulling down just two in just 12 minutes. BALL HANDLING: F This was perhaps the most maddening facet of the game. First of all, the various zone defenses and looks gave Nebraska fits as it tried to set up its offense. Second of all, The Citadel put very little pressure on the Huskers, who turned the ball over NINE times in the first half (just four in the second; 13 total). Third, Tai Webster (3 turnovers) and Deverell Biggs (2 turnovers) continue to concern me, especially considering both seemingly had double that amount tonight. I think both have tremendous upside (most notably Webster) but we're getting to the meat of the schedule and its time to start seeing some progress. In the case of Webster, it's almost like he's gone downhill since the FCGU and Georgia games, where he looked the part. Mentally, I think he's really struggling, from turning his back on Coach Miles at halftime of Creighton, to not taking a wide open layup tonight (instead throwing it out to the corner) to getting overly frustrated with turnovers, to missing free throws. He will be fine; I hope Miles continues sticking with him in the lineup. But that still does concern me a bit, that we haven't seen hardly any progress from him since the Charleston Classic (correct me if I'm wrong on that; that's just my opinion). COACHING: F Tim, I love you to death. You're my boy, blue. But that was a completely garbage effort tonight. The first half was EMBARASSING. We're talking Barry Collier losing to Alaska Fairbanks embarrassing. We're talking Collier losing to UMKC embarrassing; we're talking Nee to Western Carolina embarrassing. Nebraska should have TRAILED at the half. It didn't even enjoy a 5 point lead until the game was 3/4 over!!! I listen to most every Miles press conference/post game, and his players adopted his outlook of this game, plain and simple. And that outlook was, NU would show up and win, because it was much better. It didn't even have to gameplan much. It could look ahead. Miles has even all but said as much, that he allows his players (in a way) to look ahead. As a player, that must be an awesome thing. As a fan it is, too. I don't want Coach to ever be less honest and not shoot straight, telling us how it is. Obviously if he did hide more, I wouldn't have been fairly certain this was his view, so I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. But Coach, this team is nowhere near ready for that attitude. I get that it makes them like you more. I get that its relatable. Hell, I get that its common sense, because every single person is doing that (myself included). But this is too many times now that this team has come out flat, especially at home, to just "chalk up" to inexperience and laugh off. I was greatly, greatly concerned about this game and the effort. The first half was BRUTAL. That has been a common theme at home this year against several opponents. That comes back to coaching/motivation/focus. There's no excuses; this was NOT a true 15 point win. The team played like garbage against a garbage opponent and was lucky Eddie Hightower's crew blew the whistle as it did. OVERALL GRADE: D You can tell me you don't see this game as alarming and I will understand. I totally get that viewpoint. However, I don't share it. To me, this game was just as much of a debacle as Creighton (just in a different way). That marks about the fifth time we've come out with our fingers up our butts this year in the first half. We are NOWHERE NEAR good enough for that. Do you honestly think we're all of a sudden just going to turn it on come Big 10? That this will never repeat itself? Its just a few isolated incidents? No chance. Habits are learned and mentally, this team is in big, big trouble right now. If we want to ignore that and drink the Kool Aid, I'm fine with that. But if we're being real here, this is pretty damn disturbing. Not the kind of effort I would expect against the second worst team on our schedule in a "tune up" game. I hope these guys are as good as they think they are and will now just flip a switch, because it sure doesn't seem like they're working toward it on at least 20% of the 30 times a year they play. PLAYER OF THE GAME: TERRAN PETTEWAY 2013-2014 PLAYER OF THE GAME RESULTS: TERRAN PETTEWAY - 5 TAI WEBSTER - 2 WALTER PITCHFORD - 2 LESLEE SMITH - 1 SHAVON SHIELDS - 1 This post has been promoted to an article

So we just need to be ranked higher!

Nailed it here. This is a very young team with some deficiencies, and while the deficiencies can't be ignored, this team will be fine. In time. We will take our lumps this year. We will be up and down, as coach has stated numerous times. As the season goes along we will figure things out. We've become accustomed to teams over the last several years that we knew what we were getting and everything else was a bonus. We would have 2 or 3 guys who could potentially produce and you knew you wouldn't get anything out of the rest. When they did, huge bonus. Teams that were pretty much void of talent. Now we get a team full of talented but brand new pieces, all extremely young and inexperienced. Getting these pieces to learn their roles, mesh, and gain proper experience is going to take time. But at least the potential is there. Miles got last years team to buy in and they improved all the way to the end of the season. I thinks it's too early to say we're in huge trouble this season. Are we going to have some big losses coming up? Absolutely. But I'm not about to complain about a 15 point win. Was it pretty? No way. But as it was pointed out, it could've easily been 30, and if that happens everyone is happy that the team did what they were supposed to. Multiple bunnies were missed, and many FTs rimmed out. The rattling type that were pretty much dead center but caromed out. Focus on those small things (which we obviously need to do) and the result is different. We will be fine.

Holy cow, did we lose by 10 or something? Sounds like the sky is falling. We're probably not gonna beat Cincinnati, but I don't think we can already call this team and season a wash. When the team is on, they can still compete with most of the big ten. May not beat them, but they have the talent to compete. Not going to hold a fifteen point win against anyone. Especially when you know the team wasn't exactly juiced up to play a far inferior opponent when they are the only ones on campus and would just like to go home.

I watched a number of CSU games when Miles was there, his teams were scrappers and team players, so I don't think it's a philosophy issue. Miles had a lot of medium to small guys taking the fight to the opponent every night and winning. I think Pettaway and Pitchford are BIg Ten caliber players, but they are not complete players nor team leaders, yet. I'm not knocking them, I find a lot to like about them, but at this point, roles on this team are still being defined and we lack true leadership on the court. Why? Our senior is a shooting specialist (I wish he'd shoot more, but missing those early games and the injury seems to have sapped some confidence) Webster, our point guard and floor orchestrator isn't shooting at all and seems too nervous with the ball. One of our glue guys last year, Rivers, is watching the entire game from the bench. Shields, the only guy returning from last year who looked Big Ten ready, is invisible for long stretches. We take too many questionable threes, and the easy transition baskets aren't there because we lack a confident primary ball handler. We are trailing in rebounding, and when we do rebound, I'm not seeing quick outlet passes, I'm seeing lateral and backward passes so we come down to face a set defense rather than transition. The thing that gives me hope is that Pettaway and Shields have shown the ability to get to the rim, and finish. Pettaway has been fairly consistent with that, and Shields showed some spark with it to start the second half last night. I think we need to find someone on the team who is going to rebound (Rivers?) and someone who is going to push in transition (Parker? Biggs?) There are minutes to be claimed by guys who want to claim these roles. Now's the time fellas. Also, a crying shame that in the most whistle-plentiful season in living memory, we are missing foul shots. Drive, draw fouls, deliver 2 points. Let's go Huskers!

Even if they think its a cakewalk, that's only an excuse for the first 10 minutes. And even if they thought it was a cake walk, they have to beat his team by a minimum of 15 points.

Why are people pretending that we, a program who has never won an NCAA tournament game, don't even want a transfer from a guy who sees the floor with the defending national champions? Ridiculous.

What ever he did has to be worse than sex in a restaurant booth because that won't get you suspended at Louisville