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Coaches kid

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  1. There have been some great perspectives shared on HHC during this period of angst. We are just sick about what has happened, and, because we are loyal fans, we will keep rooting for our guys and hoping against hope. That despite having our hearts ripped out too many times to count. Obviously, Coach Miles and staff want to get this ship righted more than any of us. I don't watch practice and I've never been paid to be a coach. But as a guy who loves and has watched lots of basketball, I have reached the following opinions about our current team (I admit they may miss the mark and I would love to see differing perspectives): 1) Miles' offense is ISO heavy and is predicated on guys being able to make exceptional plays in order to score. That has especially been the case since we've gone all in on playing small ball. If you've got enough talented guys to do that, it may work out fine. It was effective last year when it was new and we had a deeper roster, but I think the Big 10 has adjusted to us, and we are not making our own adjustments accordingly. It appears that our high ball screen, dribble hand off sets have become very mechanical, and predictable. It puts so much pressure on our playmakers. We have to draw up something to help them out. When we move the ball from side to side and move ball and man, we seem to have much more success. Problem is we never have enough discipline to continue doing the things which give us the best chance to succeed. Moreover, it seems like we don't mix in designed sets which put our guys in great position to get consistently good looks. For example, we had those set plays for the free throw line curls we ran for Cope, and a nifty high back screen against Ohio State which freed Glynn for a layup. Those are few and far between. 2) Many of our ISOs do not put our players in the best possible position to score. JPJ is often starting his ISOs 20-25 feet from the basket. Roby gets isolated on guys he could take off the dribble, but we're asking him to do that from the top of the key outside of the 3 pt. line. It's almost impossible to get to the basket from those positions. How about spacing the floor and isolating JPG or Roby in the short corner or high post, where they can attack off 2 or 3 dribbles? An example would be on the play where Roby took Happ off the dribble from the baseline about 15-17 feet and got a dunk. It could be that Coach has been harping on ball movement and discipline with these guys, but that they have simply tuned him out. Problem is, our bench is so thin, we have no viable options to turn to right now to keep guys accountable. Defensively, we knew we were gonna struggle with legit 4's and 5's, but the fire, the tenacity, the "want to," doesn't seem near the level we saw last year. That's at least partially attributable to losing guys like Gill and Taylor, and even Jordy (a legit post defender). Hope we can salvage things. We'll see. At least I know I'm not suffering alone.
  2. Fair point about the players. I guess I feel bad for the program, the season ticket holders, the students... We had the chance to turn a corner and it will not happen. As for missing the bunnies, I think it's a sign of players pressing and playing without confidence.
  3. I usually stay away for a day or two after games like this, but listening to Coach after the game put me over the edge. He said we took too many quick shots with some questionable shot selection. He says that after every loss. The truth is, that is on him. I don't think Wisconsin is a great team. As bad as we played, we were up by three in the second half and if we don't go 9 for 27 from inside the paint, we have a real chance to win the game. Hard to believe, but true. That being said, I was impressed with Wisconsin's discipline and toughness. It was a story of a team which was dedicated to a game plan and one that did not even have one. Wisconsin doggedly runs their sets with purpose. They had a plan to take advantage of mismatches and they executed it. They understood their roles - Pritzl, Ruevers, Trice and that little pain in the butt Davison. Are they more talented than Glynn, Roby, James or TA? Don't think so, but we don't display that same discipline. And if we had an offensive game plan, I can't tell you what it was and we obviously did not execute it. I just feel so bad for the players and for what has happened to what could have been a truly special year.
  4. Make a few shots in the lane and this is an even game. Much better defensive intensity for the last 8 minutes of the half. Going to have to make some shots though
  5. Thor before Nana right now. Not even close. We never look at the guy driving to the basket. Never.
  6. Nana's body language was not good either. Given our current state, I don't think we can afford to give up on Amir. He at least has the potential to add some defense, ball handling and rebounding. I would hope the more he sees the floor and gets comfortable, the more he locks in and the defensive mistakes we saw on Saturday go away. Nana's shot looks different lately. I watched him shooting at halftime (Miles was standing right next to him observing). It looks like he's stopping the ball at the top of his shot and he's slinging the ball like a catapult. Unless he starts making shots, I'd like to see Amir get the minutes (unless the defensive lapses persist). Another positive could be that Brady gets a chance to develop by playing meaningful minutes. Sometimes when bench guys get their chance, they play with a sense of urgency and reckless abandon. We haven't really seen much of that from our starting 5. Trying to be a glass half full guy, but it's not easy.
  7. Well said. My dad coached high school basketball for nearly 30 years. This vocation is tough on families. While it's fair to critique the job done by the coach, in the end, they are human beings (with families) who deserve to be treated with some dignity and respect. The prospect of knowing that your livelihood may be gone in a matter of two months cannot be easy to deal with.
  8. I had forgotten about losing Jack. It would be nice to have him as a contributor this year. As good as I think our starting 5 is, until recently I was wearing rose colored glasses about this team's shortcomings. Though nearly every team out there has weaknesses, our current woes have shined the light on our weaknesses. We are probably a bench player or two away from being a sure-fire upper echelon big ten team. The Xavier Johnson decommit was significant as well, though I think Amir will be a solid player for us. Xavier would have been a major contributor right away. I share the concern that our coach is not a great psychologist with this bunch. It appears to me they aren't having a lot of fun playing the game right now. A little bit of Scott Frost's mantra of "having a desire to excel without the fear of failure" would do these guys good right now.
  9. I thought we had an identity last year as a small ball team which would create mismatches and attack the rim, and on defense, as a team which would lock in a take away other teams' primary options. This year, I don't think we have that identity. We have to figure out what we're gonna do with our post defense. Neither Roby or Cope is a true post defender. It appears to me that they worry about picking up fouls and that inhibits their aggressiveness (and they end up picking up fouls anyway). Tanner plays his butt off, but Jordy's absence has been a factor. The mere presence of a 7'0", 275 pound guy off of the bench is significant. We miss Taylor's toughness on defense (probably Gill's as well). That said, you have to adjust, whether it be more on-ball pressure and attempts to create turnovers, aggressive hedges and double-teams, or multiple zone looks (don't know if we're equipped to do that, but we're getting killed in the lane). Regardless, in the homestretch, I hope we see a team that attacks on offense and gets its 3's coming inside-out. There's still time to get the ship going in the right direction, but not much.
  10. Good point. With Isaiah, passing up the 3 is probably a confidence issue. With Tom, I would gather that it's more likely a deferral issue. Nearly every time Tom pulls the trigger, I think the ball is going in. He needs to let it fly. The other thing with Isaiah is that he often gets his iso's 25 feet from the basket. It is really hard to get to the rim taking your defender off of the dribble from that far out. I'd like to see more high post or turn and face baseline iso opportunities for Roby.
  11. The team that was up 18 in the first half was what I was expecting to see more of this year. Moving the ball, cutting with purpose, active and locked in defensively. Many, including me, were hard on Cope after PSU. He came to play tonight. Kudos to him. That was vintage Glynn Watson tonight - on both ends. We are very tough when he scores the ball. JPG had a nice all-around game, despite continuing questionable shot selection. He picked it up on D and went to the glass. He should have been on the line at least 3 or 4 times but didn't get the whistle (which Langford did all night). We were able to withstand Roby's foul trouble. He affects the game in so many ways, even when he doesn't score. Thomas Allen has been playing lights out. He's the perfect complimentary piece on this team. Tanner Borchardt - what a great, gritty performance. He's such a smart player. Hope his root canal goes well and that he's ready for Thursday. We will need him against Ward, Tillman and co. GBR! And, by the way, after looking at the garbage message boards from some other schools, I'm thankful we have HHC.
  12. Not looking at statistics, but from being at the game and watching on Thursday, it wasn't good. He had a very hard time staying in front of his guy on numerous possessions. He looked like his feet were in cement at times. I can't say I noticed that in previous games, but it sure was evident on Thursday. The other guy who has had trouble stopping dribble penetration lately has been Glynn. He reaches in and gambles on steals quite a bit. When the ball gets in the lane we are in scramble mode and even if they miss, that puts us in a more difficult position for rebounding.
  13. Sitting here and everybody in my section in the 200s is nervous. We are soooooo mechanical on offense. Hardly any movement away from the ball. Nobody has to guard our cutters because they either don't cut either purpose or we don't even look to get it to them. We have been beaten defensively on the baseline 3 times. Hate to say it but we don't look prepared. We don't get into any sets until there's 16 seconds left on the shot clock. Gotta pick it up.
  14. I have tried not to think about this because in the grand scheme of things, I know the fate of Nebrasketball is a very small matter, but this skid still bugs me. I believe this team has the capability of making a 5 of 6 or 6 of 8 run, but we've got to figure things out soon. The frustrating thing for me was that the only real chance Iowa had to keep us below 90 points was to throw some gimmick zones at us, and we looked like we'd never prepared for it. Absent Cook and maybe Moss, Iowa is not athletic. We needed to make individual defenders actually have to guard us in the zone, and we eventually began attacking and had some success. Heck, we scored 84 points only making 4 3's. Problem was when we did attack, we couldn't get stops on the defensive end. It appears to me that we are lacking the mental toughness, especially on the defensive end, that spurred our run in conference play last year. We seemed to have a will and desire to get stops that is not present now. Maybe Taylor and Gill were more important than we thought. Miles has repeatedly said that the "aggressor almost always wins." We are not playing that way right now, or, when we do get aggressive, we aren't playing smart. For example, when JPG attempted on several occasions to dribble through two defenders 25 feet away from the basket. There was also a transition opportunity where Glynn had Bohannon backpedaling, and instead of attacking the basket, Glynn stopped and kicked it back out, and we eventually missed a contested 3. I won't lose hope that we can turn this around. Nobody wants to do that more than the coaching staff and players, and they take a lot of garbage from message board posters like me. However it comes about, the staff needs to restore some confidence and instill the killer attitude which appears to be missing. Remind and instruct them how they can be successful and drill into them an attitude of discipline not to stray from the plan (and hopefully have some fun playing basketball). Get some momentum by beating Penn State and then move on. GBR!!
  15. This is spot on. There were several possessions where it seemed like Fernando spent at least 3 seconds dribbling in the lane while backing the defender down. My son also noticed that Fernando preferred to turn to the baseline and didn't want to pivot to the middle. I remember being at Hastings College basketball camp with Coach Doc Farrell (that really dates me). He taught that when you're being backed down, the key was to make the post player pick up his dribble and force the issue before he got too close to the hoop - anything to disrupt him to make the offensive player commit before he wanted to. Once Fernando got too low, there really wasn't much you could do to stop him. If you can't make him pick up the dribble man-to-man, you can bring help. I would still have rather doubled him aggressively, as I don't think he's a great passer from the post. It will be interesting to see how we play him when they visit PBA in February.
  16. Hard to swallow that one, but resiliency and mental toughness will be essential to surviving the conference schedule. From a layman's perspective, there are a couple of common threads to the two conference road losses: 1) the most glaring one is the offense stalls when JPJ decides to go into ISO mode. We obviously want JPJ to be attacking the rim, but I think the way in which he attacks is the key issue. Things go more smoothly when he's attacking off of dribble hand offs or coming off of screens and catching the ball on the wing - situations where he's already on the move. The dry spells against Maryland (and Minnesota) came when he gets dribble happy and stands in place or even backs away from the hoop in an attempt to find driving lanes. In those cases, everybody stands around watching James dribble or we get a late high screen which actually brings another defender to the ball, and most of the time, those possessions don't end well. I think James has to learn to give the ball up quickly when the driving lane isn't there. We have enough guys who can score when the ball moves. For instance, they ran several sets where James had the ball at the point, and Cope ran out and slip screened to the top of the key. I can't remember one time where James gave the ball up to Cope. We just don't score when the ball doesn't move; 2) defensively, when we can't stop the ball from getting into the lane, or are not aggressive when it gets there, we don't get stops. When we do cause a miss, we don't finish the possession by getting a rebound. Granted, Fernando is a tough guard, and Maryland shot it better than expected. That said, I'd rather force the issue by aggressively double-teaming or hedging off of ball screens. I could be entirely off base ( and probably am), but that's the way I see it. We can beat Iowa, and I think we're a better team (straight-up) than Maryland. Win the next game and move on.
  17. It will be interesting to see how we play the pick and roll with Fernando and Cowan. We had difficulty against Minnesota with Coffey and Murphy. The little I've watched Maryland this year, they had a tendency to make unforced turnovers. Hoping that will be the case this evening. It would be huge if Roby is close to 100%, but I have a gut feeling they will struggle guarding JPJ. GBR!
  18. This! He looks comfortable on the floor and it appears he has the intangibles to be a very good player. I agree with what Norm had said earlier. His shot needs to be deconstructed (and reconstructed). We don't need him to score to contribute this year, but to take it to another level, he needs a shot doctor and the discipline to take 1,000 shots a day.
  19. Ha! My brother works at a firm tainted with Bluejay bluebloods. He told me he would not have showed up for work today had we lost. I have a feeling he really enjoyed work today.
  20. Par for the course for Ty-shon. He is a serial barker, as I've noticed in the Creighton games I've watched this year. That was the most fun I've had at a basketball game in a long, long time. Kudos to the students for bringing their A-game. Heck, I even had people near me in the 200 section standing for long periods of time, and other than Wisconsin, I never remember that happening. I think I will prolong the celebration by getting a round of red-icing donuts tomorrow for the Creighton grads on my floor at work.
  21. Going into this game, I wasn't expecting to win so I would have considered this icing on the cake. However, since we had a double digit lead on several occasions and lead for 37 minutes, it's kind of tough to take. Roby missing a chippy after a nice take and T Allen missing the front end which would have kept it a two possession lead were big plays. JPJ was not himself this evening, on both the offensive and defensive ends. Cope did not get enough touches in the last 5 minutes and we were horrible stopping dribble penetration. Offense stalled too much down the stretch. We looked very good for 35 minutes, but it's little consolation because we were so out of sorts in crunch time. A win Saturday would go a long way to ease the pain of this one.
  22. We scored 75 points on only 46 field goal attempts, but made up for that with 30 free throw attempts. We were averaging a little over 59 FG attempts coming into this game. I remember looking at the clock with a little over 3 minutes left in the first half, and at that point we had only 15 shot attempts. Borchardt had some real quality minutes at the beginning of the game after Roby got poked in the eye. The big Euro guy scored on his first possession, but after that got nothing on him. Tanner also blocked a shot and grabbed a few rebounds. More impressive to me was how he redirected cutters and played help defense off of the ball. He understands his role and has a high basketball IQ. It's nice to see him contributing and having success. Amir gave us quality minutes on the defensive end in the first half and played a nice floor game. If he could shoot he'd see an expanded role. When Illinois went zone, Harris went to the bench. Ditto to all of the "Illinois is hard to watch" comments. If they are playing on tv, I will watch another game. It is aesthetically unpleasant and is more like watching rugby, team handball or some other sport which is not basketball. It's really quite remarkable that Underwood can get them to play like that for nearly every possession. There must be a substantial fear factor in playing for him.
  23. Ha! Thank goodness we don't have to watch them anymore.
  24. The old Wooden phrase, "Be quick, but don't hurry" will likely be relevant in this game. Illinois wants you goad you into playing in a frenzy. We need to make them pay for their high risk style of defense without getting sloppy. It is aesthetically unpleasant watching Illinois play. Any other teams people can think of that are simply hard to watch, due to style of play?
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