basketballjones

Not to be argumentative, but I disagree with that assessment. I think you can run motion with anyone you have because it's so flexible. 5 out, 4 out & 1 in, 3 out & 2 in, you can focus on cutting or screening or ball screens or handoffs or dribble drives. You can go from very basic to very complicated based on your personal. And we run lots of set pieces or quick hitters if you will, double low picks for the pop followed by the curl cut, the back pick someone was talking about as a secondary. There are lots of ways to be successful at basketball. I like motion. They way it looks and feels, they way it makes the defense guard all 5 players all the time, the freedom it gives the players to be creative which makes it harder to guard. You can win running the Flex (Sorry flex guys but I see it as the antithesis to the motion). You don't have to run a motion to be successful. I just wish they would. I do agree with you when you said "we seemed to have more movement and better natural flow, cutting, passing, etc last season." We don't have that now and I am wishing we could get it back. Spot on, Dean. The evolution of the (what I'll call Bobby Knight) Motion Offense (reading screens, post entry, spacing) with the addition of Dribble Drive Motion and Read and React Motion offenses has turned "motion" into the most desirable thing to run - and when operated properly, the most beautiful thing to watch. I've been VERY disappointed with our offense and our offensive philosophy the past three years. It's not what I thought we were getting with Coach Miles. I believe I've been pretty vocal about it too. It's the one thing that needs to be corrected. He's proven that he's gonna get dudes in here that can play. Our style should be suffocating defense (which it has been when we play well) because of our athletes, and attack at you, motion-style, transition offense. It's anti-Big10 basketball, quite frankly - but sometimes you need to go against the grain when everyone else is doing things one way.

Norm, Tia, quite frankly, is just not a very good player. He really just doesn't do anything well. Exceptionally poor shooter (3-21 on the year from 3, 14%. 9-56 for his career, 16%), a terrible off ball defender (and tonight showed he can also be a terrible on ball defender - my lord he got blown by all game). I really don't know what anyone could consider the strength of his game right now. I just don't know what he brings to the team... I'd hate to see his +/-. I just can't stand his game. Hope he figured it out. He's just a kid so I don't like talking negative about him, but if we're looking at him objectively - his minutes need to go bye-bye.

We are not pathetic and our fixes are easy in my opinion. Shot selection is terrible. Spacing is terrible. Offensive transition is very bad. A couple individuals (not the team in general) make very poor decisions on defense. Cough Tia cough. Film, film, film we'll solve these problems. Not more convoluted sets and actions. We could be a great team. I'm not too worried.

The team, their spacing, and shot selection were pathetic.

Thank you. That's what I'm saying.

Yep, Dean. And we do run a variation of that UNC break with the backscreen for the trailer every once in a while. We space the floor differently than normal though, which I'm not a huge fan of, but to each his own (prolly best to just go with the guy making 7 figures I guess).

Great question Dimes and thanks for the opinion Dean. My thing is there's a massive difference between running a secondary break, and just kicking it ahead more often to wide running wings who can attack the hoop. Big difference. I would imagine we have lanes to run in transition. Doesn't necessarily need to be a secondary break.

For sure - they hit a ton of bad shots too.FWIW, I'm more analyzing what I think has been the culprit of some of our offensive woes.

Even on made buckets. You cannot stop 6'7" and strong Petteway and Shields attacking from the wings in transition. Just can't do it. Those guys are such strong drivers. They're, at minimum, gonna get fouled. Also, Benny is a beast with the ball when he has a full head of steam. And both Tia and Tarrin are good, long, athletic finishers at the rim on the break. We really like to pound that ball around and grind out that ball screen game, but when a team is as athletic and aggressive as UTM was, Petteway and Shields aren't quick enough to manipulate those ball screens, and we have zero post presence in the half court (Moses has no back to the basket game and Walt doesn't step inside the 3pt line). I coach HS ball out of town, and tonight was my first opportunity to see a Husker game live in quite a while. Prolly only my 2nd game of the TM era. And those were just might thoughts as I saw us break and run our lanes. Found myself saying, "kick it, get it ahead," under my breathe all game, because the angles and lanes are there. Give that UT-M coach a pat on the back - he's got a good squad. Not necessarily tall, but lots of length and quickness, and he uses it well. They got lucky to hit some bad shots tonight (nearly 50% on 3's, very few were clean kickouts). He also had us scouted pretty well. Called out all of our actions and his guys responded. Edit: forgot to add - what an incredible atmosphere! Those pre game intros are sick!

I don't know if I can remember a player who had a better year, yet still has soooo much to work on. An incredible dichotomy, for sure. Here's to a productive summer for TP. He needs it - and will put in the work. He could be a superstar here.

I think what you have here is Miles replacing Smith as his in-game adjustment guy because of his years of experience. Then, you just have to imagine that the guy knows just about everyone in the nation and has recruiting connections anywhere. So Miles is basically saying he trusts himself, Harriman, and Hunter to now be able to sell themselves in all the new areas that Mo potentially opens for us.

Who would those targets be?

I cringe real hard reading those tweets of people openly campaigning for a job. Realy hard...

Well he just ruined that for anyone else by telling his story haha.

Great post. Rarely do we think about it this way. You always hear coaches talking about the "what ifs" at the end of the season and they also revolve around "that one point loss" here and there... Yet no one ever talks about all the close games they barely won.

Lots of really negative stuff on their boards about him as a teammate, even before the transfer. Seemed to take quite a bit of blame for their terrible season.

I feel like you got some stuff off your chest.

I feel like a hipster, but I must admit it feels great being apart of something "before it was cool." Been a Nebrasketball fan for so long it just never felt like this was gonna happen.... Feels so good!!!

I have no idea where I am right now is this real....

Well said, Norm!

Circling back around, there are 330 or so Div 1 schools. Why didn't Beranek receive an offer from any other school? Why didn't he receive an offer from UNO? Do you know he didn't? There's a lot more to a recruitment than you guys know when it comes to offers/interests. And to your point about the other 350 schools... Hasn't this been beaten to death enough? Why would any other school, especially nowhere near Nebraska, travel to Ravenna to find role players when they can probably find their own role players in their own states? Also, he did receive quite a bit attention from some MVC schools, and I believe (don't quote me on this please), had a contingent offer with Northern Iowa. He just wasn't interested. And again, this is all just my theory and idea. You can always beat down theories with specifics instances and whatnot, but I think my logic is pretty sound, and in general, we could do a better job of finding some damn decent contributors out of the state of Nebraska versus going to wherever the hell we found Kyle Marks, et al.

You're onto something with your, "Nee found a solid contributor..."I've been arguing for years that there has to be kids we're flatout missing in this state who could be incredible contributors after a couple years. We're just unwilling to make an investment on a kid who just is who he is and you know exactly what they'll be in a few years. Everyone is so worried about potential and athleticism. Finding possible NBA products who can dunk, block shots, and have a 80" wingspan. Not all 5 guys have to have those qualities, and certainly not all 13 scholarships need to be filled with that. Sometimes you can just find a "basketball player," who has skills, can shoot, knows the game really well, and plays hard. Regardless of size and athleticism. For the poster who said why aren't D2 and NAIA teams completely dominating then? Well it takes a whole team to win, not just one player. No one is saying there are 20 kids out there a year from Nebraska who are flying under the radar. But there certainly has to be a couple we miss out on. Nick Reed at Doane just scored over 2,000 points in his career - what if we had brought him in knowing he can shoot, and has a great build (6'4", 215lbs)? May never get 20ppg here, but by his junior or senior year could be a great role player or contributor. Who knows? Connor Beranek has a couple 40 point games this year at UNK, and has them playing their best ball in quite a while. And hell, he's 6'7" -- same with Ethan Brozek who is doing great things for them this year. We'll never find Pettaway's consistently in the state of Nebraska. And Stricklands are a once-in-a-generation players. But I fully believe there are role players and contributors out there who we are missing out on because we'd rather take a kid from out of state who is "athletic." Doc Sadlers classes were full of that crap, when we could have had much more solid, reliable players. I got blasted on here not too far back by suggesting Miles try a sway a fringe prospect to walk on with the idea that they could possibly develop into a contributer off the bench. I do know he invited Beranek to come try out for a walk on spot but Beranek wanted to go to Doane instead. But that's entirely my point - Connor Beranek has earned the right to go to college for free to play basketball - he shouldn't have to be swayed to walk on somewhere. Just not fair to him in my opinion. You have to take a "chance," on guys like this sometimes. And I put chance in quotations here because in all reality it's exactly opposite of taking a chance. You know EXACTLY what he'd provide for you down the line. He can only exceed your expectations.You're taking a chance when you recruit some raw, moderately athletically gifted player, just because of the allure of what he could be.

You're onto something with your, "Nee found a solid contributor..."I've been arguing for years that there has to be kids we're flatout missing in this state who could be incredible contributors after a couple years. We're just unwilling to make an investment on a kid who just is who he is and you know exactly what they'll be in a few years. Everyone is so worried about potential and athleticism. Finding possible NBA products who can dunk, block shots, and have a 80" wingspan. Not all 5 guys have to have those qualities, and certainly not all 13 scholarships need to be filled with that. Sometimes you can just find a "basketball player," who has skills, can shoot, knows the game really well, and plays hard. Regardless of size and athleticism. For the poster who said why aren't D2 and NAIA teams completely dominating then? Well it takes a whole team to win, not just one player. No one is saying there are 20 kids out there a year from Nebraska who are flying under the radar. But there certainly has to be a couple we miss out on. Nick Reed at Doane just scored over 2,000 points in his career - what if we had brought him in knowing he can shoot, and has a great build (6'4", 215lbs)? May never get 20ppg here, but by his junior or senior year could be a great role player or contributor. Who knows? Connor Beranek has a couple 40 point games this year at UNK, and has them playing their best ball in quite a while. And hell, he's 6'7" -- same with Ethan Brozek who is doing great things for them this year. We'll never find Pettaway's consistently in the state of Nebraska. And Stricklands are a once-in-a-generation players. But I fully believe there are role players and contributors out there who we are missing out on because we'd rather take a kid from out of state who is "athletic." Doc Sadlers classes were full of that crap, when we could have had much more solid, reliable players. I got blasted on here not too far back by suggesting Miles try a sway a fringe prospect to walk on with the idea that they could possibly develop into a contributer off the bench. I do know he invited Beranek to come try out for a walk on spot but Beranek wanted to go to Doane instead. But that's entirely my point - Connor Beranek has earned the right to go to college for free to play basketball - he shouldn't have to be swayed to walk on somewhere. Just not fair to him in my opinion. You have to take a "chance," on guys like this sometimes. And I put chance in quotations here because in all reality it's exactly opposite of taking a chance. You know EXACTLY what he'd provide for you down the line. He can only exceed your expectations.You're taking a chance when you recruit some raw, moderately athletically gifted player, just because of the allure of what he could be.

You're onto something with your, "Nee found a solid contributor..." I've been arguing for years that there has to be kids we're flatout missing in this state who could be incredible contributors after a couple years. We're just unwilling to make an investment on a kid who just is who he is and you know exactly what they'll be in a few years. Everyone is so worried about potential and athleticism. Finding possible NBA products who can dunk, block shots, and have a 80" wingspan. Not all 5 guys have to have those qualities, and certainly not all 13 scholarships need to be filled with that. Sometimes you can just find a "basketball player," who has skills, can shoot, knows the game really well, and plays hard. Regardless of size and athleticism. For the poster who said why aren't D2 and NAIA teams completely dominating then? Well it takes a whole team to win, not just one player. No one is saying there are 20 kids out there a year from Nebraska who are flying under the radar. But there certainly has to be a couple we miss out on. Nick Reed at Doane just scored over 2,000 points in his career - what if we had brought him in knowing he can shoot, and has a great build (6'4", 215lbs)? May never get 20ppg here, but by his junior or senior year could be a great role player or contributor. Who knows? Connor Beranek has a couple 40 point games this year at UNK, and has them playing their best ball in quite a while. And hell, he's 6'7" -- same with Ethan Brozek who is doing great things for them this year. We'll never find Pettaway's consistently in the state of Nebraska. And Stricklands are a once-in-a-generation players. But I fully believe there are role players and contributors out there who we are missing out on because we'd rather take a kid from out of state who is "athletic." Doc Sadlers classes were full of that crap, when we could have had much more solid, reliable players.

NOOOOOOThe answer is sit your butt down until you've proven you're mentally tough and can do other things on the court outside of hitting shots. Forget about shooting - are you an incredible help defender? Rebounding your tail off? Setting great screens? Running the floor with a purpose? Creating for other teammates with the dribble drive? Maybe shots will fall after that. I think it's already been established that he is a pretty good defender. Plus, he in my opinion, he's a pretty decent rebounder for a guard. I don't have the trained eye, thoughSorry just disagree with you 100%. Rey is an open gym player. Capable of doing many good things at any given time, so he looks like a good player. There's just zero consistency with his game. Which is what makes a solid basketball player. He can make highlight plays, which is why you think you have to play him. But can he make basic plays every possession? The answer to that in my opinion is no.But, I'm really just not a fan of his game - and when I start arguing I'll literally say anything to sound right even if I have no idea what in talking about. So who knows haha?