Coaches kid

THe answer to my question? Teddy Valentine

The second half was more fun than I've had at a Nebrasketball game in a long time. The second unit really played well together on both ends of the floor. Seemed to me there was more urgency and dedication on the defensive end than I've seen all year. It looked like the defensive energy transferred over to the offensive end. There was more movement and we got great looks at the hoop. The lineup of Webster, CJ, Wil, Tominaga and Bryce plays well together. 
 
Two things I noticed in particular: 1) CJ moves well without the ball and makes some great cuts to the basket; and 2) Bryce, when locked in, has the ability to be a good defender and rebounder. He has made marked improvement from the first few games. 
 
Also, Wil had several hustle plays which added to our momentum during the run which put the game out of reach. I hope we can be competitive and put ourselves in a position to win a few of the upcoming games against some tough competition. 

An underrated takeaway. 

The second half was more fun than I've had at a Nebrasketball game in a long time. The second unit really played well together on both ends of the floor. Seemed to me there was more urgency and dedication on the defensive end than I've seen all year. It looked like the defensive energy transferred over to the offensive end. There was more movement and we got great looks at the hoop. The lineup of Webster, CJ, Wil, Tominaga and Bryce plays well together. 
 
Two things I noticed in particular: 1) CJ moves well without the ball and makes some great cuts to the basket; and 2) Bryce, when locked in, has the ability to be a good defender and rebounder. He has made marked improvement from the first few games. 
 
Also, Wil had several hustle plays which added to our momentum during the run which put the game out of reach. I hope we can be competitive and put ourselves in a position to win a few of the upcoming games against some tough competition. 

The second half was more fun than I've had at a Nebrasketball game in a long time. The second unit really played well together on both ends of the floor. Seemed to me there was more urgency and dedication on the defensive end than I've seen all year. It looked like the defensive energy transferred over to the offensive end. There was more movement and we got great looks at the hoop. The lineup of Webster, CJ, Wil, Tominaga and Bryce plays well together. 
 
Two things I noticed in particular: 1) CJ moves well without the ball and makes some great cuts to the basket; and 2) Bryce, when locked in, has the ability to be a good defender and rebounder. He has made marked improvement from the first few games. 
 
Also, Wil had several hustle plays which added to our momentum during the run which put the game out of reach. I hope we can be competitive and put ourselves in a position to win a few of the upcoming games against some tough competition. 

Enjoyed this game. A mild, windy walk to the north doors of PBA. I was nervous when South Dakota went up 21-16…Verge had some flashes but also made some Verge type of mistakes, and Fred wasn’t having it. 
Good effort by Walker today. I agree with Matt, Lat does indeed look lost out there. 
kobe is such a luxury to have off the bench. 
Tominaga was a difference maker. His off the ball movement stresses out opposing defenses and really is a reason why the defense is scrambled up.
 
glad to get this win 

Watched the game on DVR yesterday. What stuck out to me is that we just don't seem to be connected on defense. I get what we're attempting to do with the constant switching, but we clearly don't communicate well and guys don't seem to play with urgency and passion on that end. They are not locked in.  There are also certain guys who just don't do a good job of staying in front of the ball off of the dribble. We need to have people buy in on defensive end to have any chance of winning games in conference play. 
 
I've seen enough on offense to at least feel a bit positive that we can become dangerous when guys share the ball and hit shots. I agree with the sentiments about Lat. He can't handle the ball and he even has trouble catching it. He's not a rim defender and he's not an aggressive rebounder. Play Edwards and Breidenbach. Granted, Wil had a bad game against TSU, but I'm not as down on him as some seem to be. Might as well get him minutes and let him learn on the fly. I sense Edwards will mature into a nice player once he gains some confidence and experience. 

Watched the game on DVR yesterday. What stuck out to me is that we just don't seem to be connected on defense. I get what we're attempting to do with the constant switching, but we clearly don't communicate well and guys don't seem to play with urgency and passion on that end. They are not locked in.  There are also certain guys who just don't do a good job of staying in front of the ball off of the dribble. We need to have people buy in on defensive end to have any chance of winning games in conference play. 
 
I've seen enough on offense to at least feel a bit positive that we can become dangerous when guys share the ball and hit shots. I agree with the sentiments about Lat. He can't handle the ball and he even has trouble catching it. He's not a rim defender and he's not an aggressive rebounder. Play Edwards and Breidenbach. Granted, Wil had a bad game against TSU, but I'm not as down on him as some seem to be. Might as well get him minutes and let him learn on the fly. I sense Edwards will mature into a nice player once he gains some confidence and experience. 

One of the guys that does this already is Breidenbach. He looks to swing the ball quickly. 

I've always called it ".5"
 
So, let's say the ball is on the right wing, below the free throw line or level with the block. Any pass that goes left is a "negative" pass. As in, it's going away from the hoop. We would yell that we want the ball in out of hands for ".5 seconds," on all negative passes and get it reversed to the other side. So we constantly talked about reversing negative passes as soon as possible. When you make it routine, it gets the ball out of the hands of selfish people quickly and to the other side of the court. 

Of course, some teams are "hand in the passing lane," or, "denial," defenses. So you have to be careful of swinging it through the top of the key without looking. So we would then work on immediate actions or ball fakes on all negative passes. The ".5" rules still applies - as you're catching it, you have .5 seconds to swing it, pass fake it, enter into the post, or drive. Either way ball has to move away from where it came from. 

Hoiberg’s offense absolutely requires ball movement to create open shots for the shooters on the floor for Nebraska.
 
When you have a PG that is a high volume dribbler, that kills ball movement, and since the rest of the players on the court aren’t touching the ball frequently, that lulls them to sleep, so they don’t move without the ball, which means that they don’t get open shots in rhythm and they aren’t attempting many back door cuts to the basket, because they don’t expect to get the ball anyway. It turns into a bunch of standing around and watching the dribbler.
 
And when they aren’t getting touches on offense, which lulls them to sleep, that carries over to a lack of intensity on defense. So it kills them on offense and defense.
 
Verge’s stats don’t tell the whole story in regards to how much his play and decision making really hurts this team. When a team rebounds as poorly as Nebraska, the ridiculous drives to the basket resulting in poor, low percentage, contested shots at the rim are effectively turnovers in the way that they hurt the team.
 
And when the primary ball handler consistently chooses to take those shots, rather than distributing the ball to all of the shooters that Hoiberg has assembled on this team, it sabotages the ability of the rest of Nebraska’s players on the court to play to their potential. Nebraska’s margin for error is so thin that they can’t afford to have all of their players failing to play to their potential. Until Hoiberg gets a distributor at PG, it doesn't matter how much he upgrades the rest of the talent on this roster.
 
And all of those things kill the crowd energy in Pinnacle Bank Arena, which negates what should be a pretty substantial home court advantage for the Huskers.

That is all.

Appreciate your thoughts, but just to add context: I'm not trying to label anyone. I wish I didn't have to. But I saw what I saw. And I haven't seen that kind of open hostility between two people since Vincent Gambini put Mona Lisa Vito on the witness stand.

They may have been "layups" but many of the first six were forced, out of control shots as well. Many of them were not good shots.

For all of the difficulty we have had in the last two years, one thing has been constant - Fred's offensive sets have gotten us good shots - we just haven't had guys who could knock them down or could finish at the rim. One of the things that bothered me most about last night is that we didn't get our 3 point shooters good looks and we didn't get many easy shots at the rim. We kept going to that high screen and roll in the middle of the floor and we hardly ever changed it up. I was very disappointed in the lack of ingenuity in our offensive sets. No moving the ball from one side to the other.  We didn't force most of the defenders to move off of their spots. They slow played the screen and roll and we allowed the other defenders to just stand there on the perimeter because we didn't have any offensive movement. Just really disappointed. 

For all of the difficulty we have had in the last two years, one thing has been constant - Fred's offensive sets have gotten us good shots - we just haven't had guys who could knock them down or could finish at the rim. One of the things that bothered me most about last night is that we didn't get our 3 point shooters good looks and we didn't get many easy shots at the rim. We kept going to that high screen and roll in the middle of the floor and we hardly ever changed it up. I was very disappointed in the lack of ingenuity in our offensive sets. No moving the ball from one side to the other.  We didn't force most of the defenders to move off of their spots. They slow played the screen and roll and we allowed the other defenders to just stand there on the perimeter because we didn't have any offensive movement. Just really disappointed. 

I think Trey needs to touch the ball a LOT more.
 
And guys have to do more than just stand in the corner. There were times when Verge would drive into a pile, and the guys in the corner just stood there. They didn't flash to the elbow or out to the wing or anything. Not saying Verge would have passed them the ball anyway, but it was really quite pathetic to watch.

For all of the difficulty we have had in the last two years, one thing has been constant - Fred's offensive sets have gotten us good shots - we just haven't had guys who could knock them down or could finish at the rim. One of the things that bothered me most about last night is that we didn't get our 3 point shooters good looks and we didn't get many easy shots at the rim. We kept going to that high screen and roll in the middle of the floor and we hardly ever changed it up. I was very disappointed in the lack of ingenuity in our offensive sets. No moving the ball from one side to the other.  We didn't force most of the defenders to move off of their spots. They slow played the screen and roll and we allowed the other defenders to just stand there on the perimeter because we didn't have any offensive movement. Just really disappointed. 

For all of the difficulty we have had in the last two years, one thing has been constant - Fred's offensive sets have gotten us good shots - we just haven't had guys who could knock them down or could finish at the rim. One of the things that bothered me most about last night is that we didn't get our 3 point shooters good looks and we didn't get many easy shots at the rim. We kept going to that high screen and roll in the middle of the floor and we hardly ever changed it up. I was very disappointed in the lack of ingenuity in our offensive sets. No moving the ball from one side to the other.  We didn't force most of the defenders to move off of their spots. They slow played the screen and roll and we allowed the other defenders to just stand there on the perimeter because we didn't have any offensive movement. Just really disappointed. 

For all of the difficulty we have had in the last two years, one thing has been constant - Fred's offensive sets have gotten us good shots - we just haven't had guys who could knock them down or could finish at the rim. One of the things that bothered me most about last night is that we didn't get our 3 point shooters good looks and we didn't get many easy shots at the rim. We kept going to that high screen and roll in the middle of the floor and we hardly ever changed it up. I was very disappointed in the lack of ingenuity in our offensive sets. No moving the ball from one side to the other.  We didn't force most of the defenders to move off of their spots. They slow played the screen and roll and we allowed the other defenders to just stand there on the perimeter because we didn't have any offensive movement. Just really disappointed. 

NU has to respect, respect,  every opponent until we prove that we can win by just walking on the floor. I expect much, much better Friday night. 

From a small sample size:

Verge is our best ball handler. Creates well with the ball and can get a reasonable shot off any time. Very quick. Out of control occasionally but not often. Hit some nice 3s. To me, big upgrade over Delano.
 
Keon is Uber athletic. But needs some time to build his basketball IQ. He’ll get there but it may take a good part of the season.
 
Trey, Lat, Eduardo and Derrick all have stepped up their games.
 
Bryce is smooth for a freshman. Athletic and makes it look effortless. In a small sample size looks like everything we hoped for. Not sure what else to say.
 
Wilhelm was a surprise. One would never know he was a freshman. Hustles, right place at the right time, good defender/rebounder and smooth 3 point shot. He may not start early in the season but I wouldn’t be surprised if he played starting minutes as the season wears on. His free throw shooting should ensure he plays the 5 late in close games.
 
Keisie was a surprise. He will be a fan favorite. Plays hard every second on the floor. Good defender with quick hands. More athletic than expected but not elite athleticism. Very crafty player. Fun to watch. Smile on his face the entire time. Will hit a shot when open but still finding his shot against long athletic players like we have now. He’ll get there.

The scrimmage was akin to an NBA All Star game. For the most part, nobody played defense and it was an opportunity for players to show off their skills. What stood out to me about Breidenbach was that, even in the midst of the free-for-all, he was actually making the correct basketball plays (e.g. reversing the ball quickly, going to set a pick when people were standing around). It appears the kid has a very high basketball IQ. He clearly has some skills and he's obviously put on some good weight. It will be interesting to see how he might be able to help this team win games. 

This stuff was always there and apparent from the start with him. You can go back to when I watched Him in Portland as a Junior in Hs. He is no nonsense, does everything the way it’s supposed to be, is the ultimate team player, is very respected by his teammates, and plays hard but looks like the dude at the YMCA. Other teams will grow to hate him as much as we love him over time like similar Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Iowa players we all despise. 

The scrimmage was akin to an NBA All Star game. For the most part, nobody played defense and it was an opportunity for players to show off their skills. What stood out to me about Breidenbach was that, even in the midst of the free-for-all, he was actually making the correct basketball plays (e.g. reversing the ball quickly, going to set a pick when people were standing around). It appears the kid has a very high basketball IQ. He clearly has some skills and he's obviously put on some good weight. It will be interesting to see how he might be able to help this team win games.