Timmy

This is the 2014 equivalent of our UAB loss a year ago. We overcame that bad loss and will this one. Just means we need to go on the road and win one we weren't expected to. Wichita St. upset or Florida St (although that will be a bad loss w/ the way they are playing).

I know Tim feels that way, but I disagree. I really wasn't impressed with Rhode Island tonight. They will be a work in progress this year and will finish the year outside of the RPI top 100.

-Ball needs to be in the Shavon's hands when it is clear Petteway is off his game. -Pitchford should have won the tip in OT. That is on the four other players, not Walt, as they all stood around and watched the ball. Standing around and watching happened a lot tonight. -Our offense with Terran and Shavon is largely dependent on the ball screen. Unfortunately, Moses is no threat offensively so when he is in, opposition can double hard without even taking into account Moses. Walt's man can also hedge a little harder now as well due to Walt's slump. RI gave him a ton of open looks tonight and weren't really respecting him as other teams did last year. -I know Miles likes this group to play slow-tempo and a half-court game. Really felt they needed to push the issue tonight on the offensive end and get out and pressure more defensively. -No more zone please. We were fine in man second half and for whatever reason switched and RI went on a little run and took the lead. -No development at PG and no post presence is really going to hurt this team. As of right now, unless those things get better, we are looking at a NIT team.

Nebraska-Omaha upsets Marquette.

11/22 Games Non-con opponents Northern Kentucky (1-2) vs Ohio Midwestern Central Arkansas (0-3) vs SE Missouri St (1-2) Nebraska-Omaha (1-1) @ Marquette (1-1) Florida St (1-1) @ Providence (3-0) Incarnate Word (2-0) @ Princeton (1-2) B1G Games Northwestern (3-0) vs Elon (1-1) #21 Nebraska (2-0) @ Rhode Island (2-0) Indiana (3-0) vs Lamar (1-2) Minnesota (2-1) vs Maryland-Baltimore County (0-2) #3 Wisconsin (3-0) vs Boise St (3-0)

11/21 Results - Big win by Hawaii at home against Pittsburgh. They can be dangerous. Non-con opponents Hawaii 74 Pittsburgh 70 W B1G Games #23 Syracuse 66 Iowa 63 L #19 Michigan St 87 Loyola Chicago 52 W Illinois 107 Austin Peay 66 W Penn St 72 Cornell 71 W

My goodness, I make a comment that we need to control Creighton's big men and people get awfully sensitive around here. Everyone knows we have some deficiencies down low, so not sure why we should get bent out of shape for saying Creighton may have better players at the 5 position than we do. I think that is a fair statement.

It's a bit of both. Creighton reached an intensity level on the defensive end that I don't think they even thought they had. Chatman is a really good player and an equally good leader. With that said, I think Benny can shut him down when we play. My main concern for NU is handling their bigs. They have three, none great, but all very active and serviceable that I would take on our team in a heartbeat. I hope we don't get dominated on the glass as Creighton will shoot and miss a lot of perimeter shots. Such as whom? I would have taken Echinique from a couple of years ago. This year, though? Hegner is kind of a Walt Pitchford player. Nearly 75% of his shots come from beyond the arc. Groselle and Hansen combine for 20 minutes/game and 8 1/2 points. Artino might be averaging 12 ppg but he's only playing 19 minutes and he was only 1-4 from the field against OU. If I could poach a big from some other team, it wouldn't be Creighton. I think it is more of an indictment on our post game than it is saying those guys on CU are very talented. Thus far, they have offered much more in rebounding and scoring than our guys. I know the sample size is small, but here is what you got: Pitchford/Abraham/Hammond - 7.5 ppg/9.5 rpg/7 blocks Artino/Hanson/Groselle - 20.9 ppg/12.7 rpg/4 blocks Your telling me you wouldn't trade Artino and Hanson for Abraham and Hammond? I would in a heartbeat.

It's a bit of both. Creighton reached an intensity level on the defensive end that I don't think they even thought they had. Chatman is a really good player and an equally good leader. With that said, I think Benny can shut him down when we play. My main concern for NU is handling their bigs. They have three, none great, but all very active and serviceable that I would take on our team in a heartbeat. I hope we don't get dominated on the glass as Creighton will shoot and miss a lot of perimeter shots.

Must say that I've been a bit disappointed with Dough thus far in the NBA. I really thought he would be a solid contributor on this years Bulls team and a Korver like 3 point shooter in the NBA. I've watched him quite a bit as I'm a Bulls follower and he seems to be out of depth a bit and really struggling.

15 points, 13 rebounds last night. Good start to a career. She is averaging 17 pts and 11 rebounds thru three games.

11/21 Games Non-con opponents Hawaii (3-1) vs Pittsburgh (2-0) B1G Games Iowa (2-1) vs #23 Syracuse (2-1) ***2k Classic consolation game #19 Michigan St (1-1) vs Loyola Chicago (2-0) Illinois (2-0) vs Austin Peay (1-2) Penn St (2-1) vs Cornell (2-2) ***Charleston Classic losers bracket game

11/20 Results Non-con opponents Tennessee Martin 115 Champion Baptist College 29 (anybody know who the hell Champion Baptist College is?) B1G Games Charlotte 106 Penn St 97 2OT L*** #24 Michigan 71 Detroit 62 W #10 Texas 71 Iowa 57 L*** Purdue 82 Grambling 30 W Maryland 66 Fordham 50 W Indiana 74 #22 SMU 68 W Minnesota 109 Franklin Pierce 57 W Northwestern 69 North Florida 67 W ***neutral site game

Indiana with a big win at home against SMU. James Blackmon Jr is really good. Best frosh I've seen thus far in the conference. 25 points tonight, kid can stroke it from 3.

Anybody not impressed with the individual player development going on at Iowa? A lot of those guys are the same players they were the last 1-2 years. I've watched a lot of Gesell being a Nebraska boy and being in the B1G now and I can honestly say he is pretty much the same player he was towards the end of his freshman year showing very little improvement year to year. I think the same can be said for Woodbury, Uthoff, and Oglesby (he's always been pretty limited). I really haven't seen the jump I would be expecting from those guys.

Nice summary of their first two games from a guy who covers the teams. Talks personnel and strength and weaknesses.http://www.coxhub.com/articles/uri-rams-basketball-observations-from-the-weekend?utm_campaign=2014-2015%20URI%20Basketball&utm_content=9743399&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Starting to look at Rhode Island's talent and getting a bit nervous for this game on Saturday. It is going to be a tough matchup. They start three Rivals 150 guys in their starting five. All are young, either Soph or Fresh. Out of the two sophomores, one was co-A10 newcomer of the year and the other was on the all-newcomer team for the A10. The freshman maybe their most talented yet and chose Rhode Island over some major schools - Okie St, Oklahoma, KU, etc. Also got a transfer from Rutgers who was very productive in the Big East his frosh and soph years, average 9 and 5 per game. Hope the guys are ready to play. This team is talented. Starters G Jared Terrell - Freshman - 4 Star and #66 ranked player on Rivals in 2014 G Biggie Minnis - Junior - NR out of HS, attended Texas Tech and saw time as a freshman before transferring to RI. Started 21 games for them last year as a RS Soph. G EC Matthews - Sophomore - 4 star and #101 ranked player on Rivals in 2013. Was co-newcomer of the year in A10 last year averaging 15.3 ppg F Gilvydas Biruta - Junior - 3 star out of HS, attended Rutgers for first two years and was on the all-rookie team his freshman year after averaging 9.6 ppg and 5.6 rpg as a freshman. Put up pretty much identical numbers at Rutgers his Soph season. Transferred to RI and sat out last year. St. Benedict's kid. F Martin Hassan - Sophomore - 3 star and #124 ranked player on Rivals in 2013. Averaged 6.3 ppg and 2.5 blocks per game in 2014 as a frosh, making the all-rookie team of the A10.

11/20 Games Non-con opponents Tennessee Martin (1-1) vs Champion Baptist College B1G Games Penn St (2-0) vs Charlotte (1-0)*** #24 Michigan (2-0) vs Detroit (1-1) Iowa (2-0) vs #10 Texas (2-0)*** Purdue (2-0) vs Grambling (1-1) Maryland (2-0) vs Fordham (1-1) Indiana (2-0) vs #22 SMU (1-1) Minnesota (1-1) vs Franklin Pierce (2-1) Northwestern (2-0) vs North Florida (1-1) ***neutral site game

11/19 Results Non-con opponents Creighton 65 Oklahoma 63 W Cincinnati 69 Morehead St 61 W Hawaii 89 Hawaii Hilo 71 W Seattle 98 Omaha 74 L Northern Kentucky 68 North Carolina A&T 55 W B1G Games Rutgers 61 Farleigh Dickinson 44 W Wisconsin 84 Green Bay 60 W

LJS chat today with Brian Rosenthal somebody said they heard at the game that Fuller had turf toe. Rosenthal said he hadn't heard anything on that.

Anybody know if Omaha area counts? I live out in the country about 15 miles South of Omaha and have DirecTV. Fingers crossed.

I applaud the effort but college basketball +/- tend to be worthless, especially on the game level. I agree if you are looking at it to evaluate individuals. I will disagree in that in that it is very helpful when looking at it from a lineup perspective and trying to find winning rotations. Does the +/- take into account the opposing players who are on the floor at the time? If not, wouldn't you have to factor that into the formula. If LeBron is playing against Kobe, his stats are going to look different than if he was playing against a less skilled player. In the game last night, it seemed that CA starters were off the floor by the first media time out. If so, are you comparing apples to apples? Not trying to get in an argument about +/-. I was more interested in seeing how many different lineups Miles played last night and the +/- was easy enough to track when I was pulling that research, so I did and shared my findings. Take from it what you would like.

I applaud the effort but college basketball +/- tend to be worthless, especially on the game level. I agree if you are looking at it to evaluate individuals. I will disagree in that in that it is very helpful when looking at it from a lineup perspective and trying to find winning rotations.

By my count, Miles played 19 different sets of players on the floor last night. Surprisingly, the group that did the worst from a +/- perspective was the starting unit. It appears we are strongest when we go a big lineup with Parker at point of Parker/Petteway/Shields/Rivers and either Abraham or Pitchford. Both of those groups were each +7 when on the floor. I'll have to take a look at the N. Kentucky game to see how that stacked up. Webster/Petteway/Shields/Rivers/Pitchford: 20:00 to 16:27 - -4 (trail 11-7) 20:00 to 16:32 - -4 (led 47-42) 6:25 to 5:29 - -1 (led 71-49) Total : -9 +/- Parker/Petteway/Shields/Rivers/Abraham: 16:27 to 14:03 - +7 (led 14-11) Parker/Smith/Webster/Rivers/Abraham: 14:03 to 13:50 - -1 (led 14-12) Parker/Smith/Webster/Shields/Abraham: 13:50 to 12:57 - 0 (led 16-14) Parker/Smith/Webster/Shields/Pitchford: 12:57 to 10:37 - +3 (led 21-16) Parker/Smith/Petteway/Shields/Pitchford: 10:37 to 9:54 - -2 (led 21-18) Parker/Smith/Petteway/Shields/Abraham: 9:54 to 8:56 - 0 (led 21-18) Parker/Smith/Petteway/Shields/Hammond: 8:56 to 8:51 - +2 (led 23-18) Parker/Webster/Petteway/Shields/Hammond: 8:51 to 5:11 - -1 (led 30-26) Parker/Webster/Petteway/Shields/Abraham: 5:11 to :23 - +5 (led 43 - 34) Parker/Webster/Petteway/Shields/Pitchford: :23 to :00 - 0 (led 43-34) Parker/Webster/Petteway/Shields/Rivers: 16:32 to 15:26 - +4 (led 51-42) Parker/Smith/Petteway/Rivers/Pitchford 15:26 to 14:16 - +2 (led 53-42) Parker/Smith/Shields/Rivers/Pitchford 14:16 to 9:43 - +4 (led 61-46) Parker/Petteway/Shields/Rivers/Pitchford 9:43 to 7:51 - +7 (led 68-46) Webster/Petteway/Shields/Rivers/Abraham 7:51 to 6:25 - +1 (led 71-48) Smith/Webster/Fuller/Rivers/Pitchford 5:29 to 3:59 - +1 (led 73-50) Smith/Webster/Fuller/Rivers/Hammond 3:59 to 2:57 - +6 (led 79-50) Smith/Menke/Fuller/Kurkowski/Hammond 2:57 to :00 - -3 (led 82-56)

11/19 Games Non-con opponents Creighton (2-0) vs Oklahoma (1-0) Cincinnati (1-0) vs Morehead St (1-1) Hawaii (2-1) vs Hawaii Hilo (1-1) Omaha (1-0) @ Seattle (0-1) Northern Kentucky (0-2) vs North Carolina A&T (1-1) B1G Games Rutgers (0-1) vs Farleigh Dickinson (2-0) Wisconsin (2-0) vs Green Bay (1-0)