Breslin Petteway

Huskers 80 Gophers 66

Couldn't watch last night, traveling but was able to listen to the second half...... Kent and Jake are a lot of fun. Jake was in midseason form, angry at the officials and their inconsistency. Jake brought B1G Conference intensity. Kent was a true grizzled vet rounding into form, easing into the season. Once called "got it" on a CJ airball. Line of the night was Jake complaining that Rienk's mask could not get knocked off his face by itself and that he had to be fouled. Kent responded that his CPAP mask seems to work its way off his face without much contact

Huskers-75 Rider-62

It's nice to take care of business. My overreactions: -Rienk bandwagon going to get full in a hurry. Pretty sure I saw point Rienk on a couple possessions which will be interesting. -Eli sure isn't shy. I like what he potentially brings. Scoring at every level, can get into the lane off the dribble. Preseason cupcakes should get him plenty of minutes hopefully the shot selection improves. -Brice is so steady, glad to see his rebounding numbers pick up from game 1. -Sam is going to be really, really hard not to play. -Ready for Keisei -Too many turnover and ugly misses but winning ugly by 27 is pretty enough for me.

No experience with it, but I like it. We have an identity and guys seem to know where they need to be. The way I see it is there is always someone at the rim to take away layups, and we do our best to run guys off the three point line. That leaves the mid range, the shot all teams are taught to avoid. I think that our biggest issues come from quick skip passes that create long close outs, and giving up open corner threes. Games where we are just a step slow rotating can lead to open threes. If I remember rights B1G teams seemed to have some success with this last year, but when we had Bando, Gary, Sammy G flying around we were deadly. We don't have that length this year obviously, but Sam and Jamarques sure fly around and play great defense. I think teams make the baseline drive a part of their offense in today's game, and we are often in great position to make steals out of that rotation. I'm no expert, but it's just nice to have an identity on that end of the floor, one I think puts our guys in a pretty good spot to make steals and be aggressive.

Nebraska-78 A&M-58

Skers-79 Lind-52 10 non-con 22 reg season

It's good to have Husker hoops back!! My overreactions and meaningless opinion: -Missing 5 key players (including Keisei) I thought we actually looked pretty good. -First I think the continuity in the coaching staff is important. The defensive scheme looked similar to last year and the returners really fly around on defense and play confidently. Offensively things looked similar at times as well. I thought our interior passing and cutting looked better than the past which may be something we see more of. -Sam and Jamarques are fun to watch on defense. They are active and get their hands on balls. Sam totally disrupts the other teams offense with his hustle. My biggest overreaction is that Sam's energy and effort on defense is similar to what Keisei gives us on offense. (nothing like beating an NAIA team) -I liked a couple actions we ran for Jamarques when he was off the ball. I think two of his open looks were on sets similar to the shots he got last year. -Williams moves well without the ball and I think will be a great fit. Coleman has some Griesel in his game. He backed down shorter defenders and most of his scoring came off a mismatch. He doesn't move the ball as well as the rest of the group but if he can give us a couple back down baskets a game v smaller guards that would be nice. -Eli is a scorer. His corner 3's looked silky smooth. Like any freshman his shot selection and defense needs work. I thought there were 3-4 plays where he could have gotten an easy steal if he was engaged. If he can guard he will play. -I definitely don't questions this staff's ability in player development. Guys get better under this group and the staff does a good job putting them in positions to be successful. I worry about our ability to get into the lane off the dribble. I don't see a lot of guys able to break people down off the dribble on the roster, cutting and spacing will be key.

Skers-77 Other-71

Our defensive style in general is so different this year compared to years past. The "no middle" defense is a wrinkle teams have to prep for. When they shoot like APB did in the first half and we are slow to rotate it looks awful, not sure on the metrics but in general the guys seem bought into the scheme. I have to think that Howard's fingerprints are all over the defense but help me out if I am wrong

Hell of a win! Now lets see what we are made of. Hard to make too many judgements about the team until we see Walker with Sam, Gary, Bando, and CJ. He is a rock on both ends of the floor.

NU-78 St. Johns-77

Interesting observations. I place shot selection right behind roster building on the list of criticisms of Fred's tenure. I get that he wants to give guys freedom to take shots but the light is a little too green for some. I agree that there is definite improvement this year already but we do not have a lot of guys that can blow by their man and get to the rim, which also means we don't have a lot of drive and kick to open shooters. Overall the offense looks better, but having to rely on set pieces to get good looks without a guy to create open looks off the dribble seems more difficult so I don't know if we should expect our shot quality ranking to improve that much.

We defend, we rebound, we compete.....I think we are onto something

Fair, obviously Andre was a flawed and raw player, but In terms of a back up big man, I liked the rim protection he provided better than what I have seen from Keita so far. But we will see how it plays out in time, and from a culture point of view, it was probably okay to move on from Ed and whatever that disaster of a culture was last season.