longtimefan

You would Coach Williams would have some under our basket in bounds plays. Rediculous losing two of those in a row. Bourne really has some nice moves around the basket. Too bad Cain doesn't have any moves. Other than a few blocks she doesn't give us much. Smaller players always outjump her or out quick her to a rebounds.

Why do you keep saying Brown might have been a cancer? Would you like to share where you're getting your information? Just because she left it seems like you're trying to throw her under the bus. If I was her (and I know lots of other people who feel like me) I would of considered looking around. There was no question she was our best offensive player, especially for how many minutes she played. I'll probably get hammered for saying this but in my opinion Whitish didn't deserve the playing time she got. She was a terrible ball handler, was slow and played bad defense, could not attack the basket and quite frankly she didn't hustle. She was only a spot 3 point shooter and very streaky at that. So if I'm Brown (or other players) and seeing what Whitish was bringing to the court and I wasn't starting or getting more playing time, I'd of probably been checking out other programs.

Well from the few minutes she has got on the floor I didn't see her doing any worse than any of her teammates. Our team defense was bad. We let them have uncontested 3 point shots all night. Fortunately, they didn't shoot well. We constantly let them drive to the basket and fortunately they missed a lot of uncontested lay ups. Stewart had 2 rebounds in 9 minutes of playing time. Bourne had 3 in 29 min, Brady 5 in 27min and Cain 5 in 28 minutes. So triple Stewarts playing time and she beats all three. I agree playing good defense is great, but you still have to outscore your opponents to win. And I don't think Stewart is thinking I have to score to be a starter. But after her first two games I would think she is thinking she deserves more playing time than these first two games.

Sorry but I don't buy that at all.

I hope Coach Williams doesn't screw Stewart over like she screwed Brown over for the last 2 years. I said Brown might just leave (and she did) because who has your top scorer always come off the bench. Stewart is a scorer. Looks like she is a threat from outside or inside, unlike Cain. She only played 9 minutes and and was one point off from being the high scorer. I'm not saying she should start over Cain right now but she deserves a lot more playing time.

I'm not surprised she'd transferring. Long time ago I commented that I thought she should of been starting (including her freshman year) and that she was getting screwed by her coach. I said that it wouldn't surprise me if she transferred because what kind of coach doesn't start your leading scorer? This coming off the bench for the good of the team was B.S.. If you had 5 super starters then maybe I can see it but we didn't have 5 super starters. What kind of players want to come to NU and possibly be the best offensive player on the team and get stuck on the bench? You come to play and start. She should of been leading the team in minutes played by far (instead of 4th in playing time). I think the experiment with Coach Williams should be ended. Unless she pulls a rabbit of of her hat, next year is going to look like the men's team did this year. I would hope Moos would go out and get a top quality coach. We seem to always have the money to go after top coaches these days.

This was the worst display of shooting free throws that I or probably anybody on this board has ever seen. I could make a lot more than 8-30 with my eyes closed and have done it several times. I'm don't mean to brag but I can shoot a better percentage shooting free throws with my back to the basket. Heck, I'm not sure why the coach doesn't have them shoot the two handed underhand shot like Shaq used to do. All my daughters 5th grade bb teams could shoot better than that and it takes all their strength to just get it there. These players should be so embarrassed to show their face on campus. I get so disgusted watching Cam Mack do the show boating crap whenever he makes a basket. Who the heck misses 3 free throws in a row? Does he make some good passes to his teammates? Yes. Does he throw a lot of bad passes? Yes. Does he finish at the rim? Probably misses more than he makes. Can he shoot 3's well? Not really. It won't hurt my feelings if he doesn't come back. Him going pro???? That's a laugh. I'm glad we have probably one game left and can bury this season. Hopefully Hoiberg can come up with one post player that can score around the rim, play defense and rebound.

The announcers said tonight that Brown was the leading scorer of her team and is not a starter. They said that no other Big 10 team had a nonstarter that was their leading scorer. I would say that of all the division I schools and maybe all levels of college ball don't have their leading scorer not start. If there are, I bet it's only a very very small percentage. I just don't get Coach Williams thinking (and probably every coach at all levels too). For example, tonight we didn't score for the first 3 1/2 minutes of the game. Finally Williams puts in Brown and she hits her first shot right away. I think she had 9 of our 13 total points in the first quarter. She should be starting and playing as long as she can. She is the only player on our team that is a consistent scorer. Whitish and Cain can't create their shots. Cain is the only post player that I know that catches the ball 3-4 feet from the basket and ends up taking 6-9 foot fall away shots with limited success. They have never been able to teach her any kind of moves towards the basket. Every team we play has a post player who knows how to maneuver around the basket and get those easy point blank layups. I worry that Williams will continue to stick with her idea for next year that it's great for the team if the leading scorer sits the bench to start games. I know some people don't think she plays good defense. I will say that there is only one person on the team that plays good defense and that is Eliley. The rest of the players all struggle. I'm ready for this season to be over with. Sadly though, I don't see next years team being any better and probably worse. I'm not sure how long Moos will put up with this kind of basketball program. We always seem to have money to go out and get a good quality coach that can recruit. It wouldn't hurt my feeling if he did it sooner than later. Sorry if I'm being a little tough but she makes a lot of money and I guess I expect a better product.

I watch all the games and get so frustrated when I see our players consistently make silly unforced errors, miss way too many bunny layups, not get rebounds, throw up wild shots, make dumb fouls, not hustle after loose balls, play lazy defense or play for the last shot of the quarter and end up taking a bad shot or none at all. I try to rationalize that' it's not the coaches fault that the players do all the above. I'm pretty sure the coaches constantly teach the players to not do the above things. And I realize that all players whether they are 1 star or 5 stars will make some of the above mistakes. So is the mistakes the coaches fault or the players? In my opinion it falls mostly on the coaches because they recruited these players. If they recruited better players, then there wouldn't be as many mistakes being made. So Coach Williams better start recruiting a lot better talented players than she has or she probably won't be around for very long. She's in her 4th year and I'm not too excited about next years team. So far I haven't seen much from Helms or Brady. I know I haven't seen much playing time from Helms but what I've seen so far isn't encouraging. She doesn't even think about shooting or driving to the basket. Pretty much just been catch and pass. Brady hasn't shown too much either other than shooting 3's. Her ball handling skills is really week. Bourne is the only freshman that I see some potential, although I'm not sure I like her shooting 3's. I don't know much about the new girls coming in next year. I hope they shock me in how good they are. I do wish Coach Williams had a solid post player that could score and rebound. Like the men's team, I'm ready for season to end because they are so frustrating to watch.

Along with a point guard we need to recruit 6'2-5" players that can jump. We get killed every game with poor rebounding. Even when our girls kind of block out their person, the opposition girl outjumps our girls to get the ball or just tips it back to her teammates. Also it would be nice if Coach Williams recruited a post player that could jump and had some inside moves for easy layups. So right now I don't see next year's team being any better than a middle of the road team. Williams recruiting has got to get a lot better.

I very seldom comment on this board. I just like to read it to see if there is anything new in recruiting or whatever. The only reason I commented was that whoopdeedo said Brown needs to become a more consistent scorer. I felt that was a silly or unfair statement I felt if anyone was inconsistent it was Whitish. And that led me to commenting that I thought Brown needed to play more or be a starter. That's all I wanted to say. Next huskerchode starts on Brown's defense as to why she doesn't start. Again I felt I had to defend Brown's defensive skills versus the rest of the team. I felt Whitish's defensive skills are no better than Brown's, probably worse in my opinion. Then Red Don put up the Whitish 3+ years of accomplishments. I applaud her past accomplishments but she is regressing as statistics show it. I'm not making a mountain out of a molehill as 12dozen states. I'm just defending my comments because some rebuttals I feel are totally wrong. I liked the Havlicek info.. It brought back lots of memories of watching him. I'm curious though. I know he was the 6th man, but did he lead the team in scoring when he was the 6th man, a nonstarter? If yes, how many years? Also how many years was he a starter and not the 6th man? Lastly I'm done commenting on why I think Brown should be starting. I'm not the coach and have no say. This is just an opinion board and that's all I was doing. Like I said in the beginning, whoopdeedoo got me started with his comment on Brown needing to be a more consistent scorer. I hope the people that disagree with anything I said can just agree that we disagree and let it go at that.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make in saying that Sam and Hannah had more points per game than Leigha last year. Whitish averaged 10.1 points, Sam averaged 10.0 and Leigha averaged 9.6. However, Whitish averaged 29.5 minutes/game, Sam 21.0 min./game to Leigha's 18.9 min/game. So Whitish played 10 minutes ( a whole quarter) more and only scored half a point more than Leigha. You state that maybe some players are more comfortable not starting? I've never heard that one before. If you're not comfortable in starting at this level, then maybe you should quit playing sports.

12dozen said it shouldn't matter who starts, because it's a team sport. Fastbreaker said starting is overrated. I respectfully disagree with both of these statements. Any kid out for sports has a goal of being a starter. Nobody says I'm happy with just coming off the bench. You want to see proof that starting matters, just look at how recruiting goes. Recruits are looking at schools where they think they have a good chance of starting their freshman year. And look at all the transferring being done these days when they are not happy about not starting. I guess I'm kind of looking at our recruiting picture. If you're a top recruit are you going to go to a school where you are the top scorer for the team but have to come off the bench? The top recruits want to start and play a lot of minutes.

Last year Nebraska's bench was the highest scoring bench of all the teams (last I heard anyway). This tells me that some bench players probably could or should have been starters. I'm not going to try and look this up (somebody smarter than me probably can look it up) but I would guess that Brown may be the only nonstarter of all the teams that leads their team in scoring. That's got to be a rare thing. Heck, I can't remember any basketball team whether it be grade school level or all the way up to the NBA where the leading scorer (and by quite a bit) is a nonstarter. It just doesn't seem fair to the kid. I think she deserves to be a starter and playing a lot more minutes. Take her out for a rest as needed but keep her on the floor as much as possible. I know the old saying that offense wins games and defense wins championships. However, at where this program is at, I'm more interested in winning games and will take offense over defense right now. You can more easily teach someone to play defense but it's a lot harder to teach someone to be a scorer. One more thing. Some of you seem to think Brown's defense is bad. I agree that she needs to get better, along with everyone else, but Whitish's defense is no better than Brown's and I think worse. Whitish is the slowest player on the team with the exception of Cain, which is understandable.

I knew someone would probably throw this out here. However, I'm judging players on what their doing now, now in the past. As I stated, Whitish is currently averaging 7.6 points, shooting 33.9% from 3 point line and playing 27.7 min. per game. Last year she averaged 10.1, shooting 36.7% from 3 and 29.5 min.. In 2017-18 she averaged 12.6 points, 38.0% from 3 and 31.0 minutes. In 2016-17 she averaged 9.0, shooting 40.7% from 3 and 25.1 minutes per game. My point being, she's regressing. Why? I don't know. Am I glad she's on the team? Yes, I just think that Brown deserves more playing time and should start. When Brown's in there, our offense looks better. She's like the everready bunny. She's moving all the time and making things happen.

Whitish defense is no better than Brown's. The only player who plays good defense on this team is Eliely

I can't believe that whoopdeedoo thinks Brown needs to be more of a consistent scorer. She's the most consistent scorer we have and top scorer. If you want to talk about a player that is not consistent, then look at Whitish. Brown should be getting more minutes and starting and Whitish getting less and not starting. Does Brown get out of control sometimes? Yes but I'd rather have that because she creates her own shots and draws lots of fouls and scores. By the way, Brown only has 9 turnovers to Whitish's 23 turnovers. Brown helps us get to the free throw line with all the fouls on her. She is 46-57 for 80.7% compared to Whitish's 4-4 ( and 4 free throws were in one game and were 2 intentional fouls). I would think it's almost impossible to be the starting point guard and play the most minutes and yet only have taken 4 free throws 11 games in. That is not good. Whitish cannot create her own shot. She is strictly a 3 pt. shooter if someone feeds her and she only shoots .339% compared to Brown's 31.3%. If the coach wants to work with somebody on shooting 3's it should be Eliely who shoots .125%. And Red Steve, I think Brown has always had the go ahead to shoot 3's if she's open. Why wouldn''t she?

We do have the worst ball handlers (with Haiby the exception) with Whitish leading the way. I don't understand why every team doesn't full court press us the entire game. Thank goodness we won but watching our team reminds me of the days I watched my daughters during their 6th and 7th grade years. One turnover or bad decision after another. Hopefully the next class will have some ball handlers.

One thing I know about this team is we can never be far enough ahead so I'm feeling like we'll win. On the other hand, when we're behind quite a ways I don't feel like were out of it. We are such a streaky team on scoring. Difficult team to watch. I have to give props to Whitish and Simon. Simon's best offensive game this year. Maybe best ever. I like Whitish hitting her 3's but dang I wish she would stop making all those silly unforced turnovers. We still seem to get outhustled for rebounds and loose balls. I should be used to it by now. Good thing we shot well from outside because our inside game is almost nonexistent. I wish the coach would tell the players to stop lobbing the ball to Cain. She can't jump and has bricks for hands.

I'm sorry but I don't understand Coach William's use of Brown. She is finally starting and that's good. She hits two 3's and has a great assist and at the 6 minute mark of the first quarter she pulls her out. I know she can't be tired already. What I do know is that when you have a player that's feeling it, you don't take them out for the rest of the quarter. Good grief, she didn't even get 19 minutes for the entire game. Also she had more rebounds than anyone else who had a lot more playing minutes. She is one of the few players that can actually create a decent shot or get fouled doing it. I'm not saying it will happen but it wouldn't surprise me if Brown decided to transfer next year to get more playing time. With having basically every back next year she may decide that she doesn't want to go through another year like this with her limited playing time. Speaking of playing time, I'm not sure why Mershon gets as many minutes as she does considering she gives you basically nothing on the offensive end. I would also prefer her not taking 3 point shots. I'm surprised Coach gives her the green light. Her stat line is pretty weak every game. Some people will say her defense is her strong suit but I'm not sure it's worth the loss of her offense. It's great to get the win and thank god the other team made as many dumb turnovers as we did and didn't shoot well.

First of all it was a nice win. Here are my thoughts. 1. I guess I'll never understand the coaches thinking on playing time. I agree with Simon not starting and getting less playing time. I''m not sure about Mershon starting and getting as many minutes. She has 22+ minutes with 2 points and 2 rebounds. I like Veerbeek and feel she deserves much more playing time. She only got 16+ minutes of playing but had 6 points and 5 rebounds. She is a threat to score anytime she gets her hands on the ball. I can't say that about Mershon or Cain. Cain had a whopping 0 rebounds and 4 points in 23+ minutes. Haiby, our top scorer has 16 points and 3 rebounds in 19+ minutes. And she gets a lot of her points on layups, which no other player can say that. Why isn't she on the floor more? 2. Somehow Kissinger has to get more shots. She may have the best 3 point shooting average but if you take only a few shots a game that's not good for the team. Teams are playing her so tight that it seems the coach should set up some backdoor plays for her to loosen things up for her. 3. Brown has to be getting more playing time. It just befuddles me when she scores a few points and then the coach takes her out. Actually she did the same with Veerbeek. I always thought if a player was feeling it and scoring you leave them in till they cool down or really need a rest. 4. Lastly our rebounding is bad. It seemed like every time Minn. shot they would get the offensive rebound and shoot again. Luckily they weren't shooting well tonight. For some reason we don't seem to be able to grab the ball. A lot of the time we are just outhustled. And this happens most every game. I'm not sure how you're going to fix that. Even though we won I think we could be a lot better team with the right people getting better playing time.

Here's my thoughts after watching this game. I think the coach needs to change the starting lineup for the good of the team. 4 of the starters need to start coming off the bench. Start the 4 freshmen and Kissinger. The 5 starters today scored a whopping total of 22 points. While the 4 freshmen scored 34 points. The starters just aren''t getting it done. They've had half a season to prove themselves and they are continuously not playing well. Leigha Brown definitely deserves to start. Better than anyone, she can create a good shot almost any time. Sam Haiby would be our next best. Brown also has a way of creating fouls and getting us into the bonus on free throws. I would play her until she is tired and takes herself out. Sam Haiby needs to be on the floor a lot more than Hannah Whitish. Whitish is just too slow and can't create a decent shot. She is strictly a 3 point shooter and not really that great. I would say that almost every game I've seen, Hannah will have the ball taken away from her with the other team getting a layup or layups. Also Whitish should not have the ball when were taking the last shot. Haiby or Brown should. For whatever reason, Kate Cain was better last year. This year she looks likes she's playing in slow motion. She may be 6'5" but she can't jump off the floor to get rebounds. Too many times shorter and faster players will outjump or outscrap her for the rebound. Unfortunately she doesn't have any effective post moves around the basket either. I also think we should stop trying to force passes or lobs into her because she either mishandles the pass, the defensive player intercepts it, the pass is just too far and goes out of bounds or if Kate catches it, there is only a 50% chance she catches it and scores. It's also hard to believe that after 16 games I think she's only taken 11 free throws. Also the inbounds pass under our basket to her has to stop. We lose the ball more times than she catches it. Ashtyn Veerbeek, although not real tall at leat has some offensive moves around the basket. She can shoot 3's and is always getting fouled. She deserves to start. Even Kayla Mershon gives you more than Cain is giving us now. Nicea Eliely it seems only shows up to play in the 4th quarter. I may be wrong but it seemed like the first shot she took was in the 4th quarter. She has to give us 4 quarters of wanting to score. Maddie Simon's playing time has decreased and deservedly so. Being a senior she has gone backwards. Taylor Kissinger has to find a way to get open on the 3 point line. I know she tries to drive to the basket at times but her ball handling skills aren't the best and limits what she can do. Last year I was totally surprised that we won so many games with the team we had. It seemed like we always stayed close with every team we played and had things almost always go our way towards the end of the game. This year again we are staying relatively close despite all our mistakes but in the end we don't make the plays to win. We miss shots, have silly turnovers, fail to get crucial defensive rebounds and miss crucial free throws. I don't know if things will turn around but I personally would like to see a new starting line up to see what happens.

After watching our 11 games, here's my thoughts. Simon should not be starting. I'm sorry to come down on the kid but she's not a good shooter, doesn't handle the ball well, misses too many bunnies and has way too many turnovers. I know she's the senior but she's not helping the team. Whitish is probably the slowest point guard I can remember.I've seen her get out hustled in way too many games. Haiby should be starting and playing as much time as she's able. We need her on the floor.Also Haiby should always be handling the ball for the last shot of a quarter. Veerbeek needs to play more. She should be starting over Simon.She has good moves around the basket, finishes well, draws fouls and can shoot the 3 decently. I wish Kate Cain could position herself better to receive passes. We have way too many turnovers trying to get her the ball. I will agree that some of the problem is bad entry passes. She needsto score in double figures every game. Kissinger has to work harder to get herself open on the 3 point line. They need to set more screens for her to get open and then get her the ball. I think she only took 7 shots tonight and only 4 3's. Brown is a hustler and if she ever gets her shot down better she'll be a real threat. Right now I think she has a lot of potential. Somehow we have to learn to play better defense. We let the other teams have way too many wide open 3's. We just seem slow footed. Also we give up too many layups.

Bugs, I haven't posted in quite a while but I do appreciate your time and effort on the women's side. I'm always checking to see what's new. I like that the women have cut down on the turnovers. Much of the season it's felt like I was watching a 7th grade game with all the silly turnovers. In my opinion, Whitish has been the biggest disappointment this year. I'm hoping she will be able to step up her game and give us more points than she has with all her playing time. I'm really impressed with the freshmen girls, especially Vanderbeek.

We had 20 turnovers and I would say most of them were bad passes. I'm not sure why we are such a bad passing team. I don't remember the past teams being such bad passers. It seems like we did every kind of bad pass there is--sloppy ones, forced ones and I'm going to thread the needle kind of passes which are low percentage of success passes. I'm sure they are being coached to make good passes so what can you do? I know we were out rebounded but was surprised it was by only 3. All game it seemed like we were just outhustled for rebounds. We would have pretty good position and still not get the rebound. Sometimes I think we forget to jump. One time we had 3 players standing close to each other and they all watched the ball land on the floor between them. It's not a good attitude to think I won't go get the ball because my teammate is going to go get it. Meanwhile your teammate is thinking the same about you.