Fullbacksympathy

Man. I think you worded this articulately but there’s no way I’d change our defensive philosophy from the last two seasons. Teaching good m2m is about 75% help rotation, regardless of how extreme the help is. We’ve beaten two top 10 teams in the last two seasons with this sort of defense. I think it’s mostly awesome. It’s definitely a variant of m2m. Every m2m worth its salt has one on ball and four in zone after every pass. This version has extreme help in rotation. I agree with you that it’s difficult to sustain but it sure is a thing of beauty when it’s done right. I also agree about offensive tempo and intention. But I’m not sick of this defensive philosophy at all. I love watching it.

Bunch of adults playing ball out there for us this year. Sheesh. Ice water .

We should be ranked now because we beat the fucking shit out of the #1 team.

Not upset. I saw plenty of effort and we scored the ball fine. Wiscy has really figured out their offense. Best they’ve looked as a team since Kaminsky. Wiscy is at the top of the conference records for a reason. They may very well be the best team in the B1G. Two of their three losses were to top 10 teams, and the other to Providence who is ranked. They also handled Marquette by double digits who was ranked 7th. This was nothing like Minnesota. So that’s good. I think we’ve got a prayer against Purdue at home.

Sam got fouled twice before he started bleeding. Still no call.

Wiscy is a tough matchup for us. We don’t really have a discernible advantage at any position outside of Keisei. Usually we have a step with quickness, but we’re sorta Wiscy lite this year, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Law of averages says we tighten it up a bit. Don’t think Wiscy can keep that efficiency up. We’ll adjust.

Identity. This is really impressive defense and smart offense. We should be ranked if we beat Wiscy on Saturday. We deserve votes either way.

We have a good coaching staff.

It’s early. There are some things to iron out. My .02. I hear y’all though. He needs the improvement to happen a lot sooner than the last five games or so. It needs to get turned before January.

Tough matchup. If we hit our normal shooting percentage from three we probably lose by about 5. Sometimes that's the difference--they hit shots and we didn't. Their ball movement was an absolute clinic and a wakeup call to what defensive urgency actually requires. Take the asswhooping from a better team and learn from it. Rienk wasn't his normal self at all tonight, and we needed him to put in a double double. Juwan only getting 1 rebound in 24 minutes is not like him. I don't know. It just looked to me like we got worn out by a couple of NBA players. A true matchup zone might have made more sense after the lefty made his 6th three in the first half. We don't have any lateral quickness outside of JL and SH, but we certainly have length. I wouldn't be surprised to see a little more zone wrinkled in this season.

Duquesne is very talented. They have 3-4 power 5 starters on that team. They should have beat Princeton. They will win a ton in the A10. This win will look better than Oregon State at the end of the season. Our team IQ on both ends is crazy high. As mentioned after Oregon State… we just have a bunch of adults out there. Mast, Allick, and Gary are an extremely tough, skilled, diverse front court. Both Mast and Allick are showing how valuable it is to have bigs who can pass. Our guards are smart and play within themselves. 12pt, 7rb, 5a from Allick with no TO is an incredible stat line. Really fun to watch us just bully teams into submission.

This is very well put.

There are some packline principles at play in this defense with a few differences like forcing baseline as many have pointed out. Packline (see Virginia) is basically a matchup zone with heavy on-ball closeouts where you force your man into help/bad shots. The anticipation of rotation is a very good thing. Most teams--even elite ones--aren't going to have elite passing. Forcing opponents into the worst shot in basketball (long baseline 2s) is definitely a good ethos. Running people off threes and into already-rotating help is totally doable and a real PITA if you have smart, hard-working players. Hoiberg's first few years' rosters wouldn't have dreamed of being able to execute this defense properly. Now that he has more coachable, hard working kids, the only way to really dismantle them is with coachable, unselfish, hard working kids on the other side, which will be rare. When you think about last year's group of guys like Bando, Griesel, Gary, etc. they were probably a Top 25 team before injuries. Absolute dogs on defense. It certainly looks to me like defense will be non-negotiable moving forward. I don't see any dropoff. Offense will sort itself out.

Very interesting Frager is reclassifying. He’ll handle it fine as he was easily the most physically dominant kid around here this past summer as a sophomore. Buckets of fun for ‘24.

He and Eli are very similar and will be a matchup nightmare at the 3-4 as athletic lefties who can stretch the court from 3 or muscle it inside and dunk on you. Pick your poison. What a great get. He’s an outstanding passer and defender to boot. He’ll fit in extremely well. You’re going to have a hell of a time finding a more athletic 3-5 than Frager, Rice, and Diop in the entire country let alone the B1G. Add a top 100 player like Janowski at the 2 and sprinkle some transfers in with JL at the 1. Scoring, skill, shooting, and athleticism everywhere. It’s about to get scary for NU moving forward, and I’m not really a sunshine pumper. Fred fixed the culture last season and the athletes followed. Kudos to the staff.

They look like a tournament team. Crazy depth, and diverse enough to create matchup problems with just about anyone. Diop would be wise to learn how to play like Gary. If he learns to be a versatile defender and energy guy, yikes. Mikki Moore was the last big who could jump like that, but I’ve literally never seen a big at Nebraska RUN like that. I’m far and out most excited for Eli. Honestly, if I hadn’t been familiar with the roster, I’d think he was the guy we were building around. I didn’t realize how explosive he was athletically. Josiah, Eli, and Diop are all newcomers, and they are also the three most athletic players on the roster. And remember Gary is a freak of nature in his own right. Holy crap.

I got stuck guarding him in a pickup game over the summer. The kid is a monster. Huge pickup.

Hopefully Gary can show him how to match effort to his gifts. I like him!

High school. Took a bathroom pass from math and saw a crowd gathered in the library around the television as the first plane had hit. I stared at the television in shock the rest of the school day as the rest of the events unfolded. I don't think I said a single word. Still haunts me a bit.

No real glaring weaknesses on this team, and lots of depth. I’m sure they’ll have a team goal to be dancing in March. Very impressive roster.

I think we have an absolute guru coaching us up defensively. As long as we have kids that close out and rotate that hard every possession, we’re going to be a problem.

Yes he did, but I think he had another 20lbs to lose.

If he's healthy he might be our best two way player. His energy and defensive ability change games enough to win some of them. He, Mast, and Allick provide a decent amount of versatility at the 4-5. I could see Allick getting the same minutes as both of them because he can play the 4 or 5. Gary can't play the 5, Mast can't play the 4, and I don't think Allick is a better 4 than Gary. So you might see lineups where we are doing the PITA half court offense run through Mast, who should look a hell of a lot like Walker last season. But you could also run Gary and Allick at the 4-5 and have an insanely fast front court who can jump through the roof and help a ton with perimeter defense.

Brice had a great looking stat line. Those threes will drop. Assists/steals/blocks from the wing = yay. Eli is a man. Glad he can shoot fts. Looks like a kid who can manufacture points.