hhcdave

This is even more embarrassing than Creighton. 24 point favorites and we'll be lucky to win by 8.

I'd call BTN2Go immediately. A buddy of mine bought the subscription and said he's had to call TWICE this year to get the games added - they forgot to add the links. Do it now because it takes about 30 minutes.

Nebraska 80 The Citadel 50

One other thing: I have to say that Nathan Hawkins really passes the eye test. I expect big things out of him by the time he's an upperclassmen.

OFFENSE: A- Nebraska earns an "A+" for its first half effort, as NU scored a season high 50 points on 53% shooting from the field (50% from downtown). In the second, Nebraska was sluggish and took a lot of rushed/bad shots, as well as turning the ball over way too much (more on that later). The Huskers finished the second frame with just 29 points on 43% shooting, though in credit to them, they also shot 50% from three (3-6). Remarkably consistent! I'd give NU a "B-" for its second half. Nebraska saw four players in double figures (Shavon Shields (15), Ray Gallegos (13) Walter Pitchford (12) and Terran Petteway (11)) and as we'll detail later, a lot of that was because of how well they shared the basketball. DEFENSE: C+ I thought Nebraska did a poor job in the post for the majority of this game and that was enough for Kirk Van Slyke to make them pay, as the Red Wolves big man finished with a game high 27 points on 11-15 shooting. That really, really concerns me, as Arkansas State had virtually nobody else in the paint to make you worry and obviously, Nebraska is going to see teams with two and three versions of Van Slyke come Big 10 play. However, this is nothing unexpected, so the Huskers must continue to do all other areas of the game at a high level in order to combat its lack of talent and depth in the frontcourt. Outside of the defense on Van Slyke, Nebraska played okay, and held Arkansas State way under its scoring average, yes. However, dig deeper and look who they've played, and the points averaged become a lot less impressive, so I was not overly thrilled with how NU defended, especially in the second half (when the Red Wolves shot 50% and scored 40 points). REBOUNDING: B Nebraska finished three rebounds ahead of Arkansas State (39 to 36) but did allow the Red Wolves to go +1 on the offensive glass (11-10). Our Player of the Game is Walter Pitchford, who finished with a double double in scoring the above mentioned 12 points while snatching 10 boards. Still, sick of seeing Nebraska teams allow rebounds off of short and soft misses on free throws, which happened down the stretch. I.E., I can understand some long misses, but short and soft misses should NEVER not be rebounded by the inside positioned team. BALL HANDLING: B+ 19 assists on 29 baskets? Terrific! 16 turnovers, however, including an additional stupid technical foul by Deverell Biggs (which may as well be a 17th)? Not good. The Huskers also seemed to not understand how to finish the game and a lot of that was because of turnovers, trying to force things that weren't there and rushing into things. So on one hand, great job distributing the basketball but on another, poor job taking care of it. *** NOTE *** Very nice assist to turnover ratios by Tai Webster (5:2) and Ray Gallegos (4:0). COACHING: A- Nebraska came out on fire and looked as if it wanted to send a message to the rest of the country after being embarrassed last Sunday. The Huskers did a much better job moving the ball around and finding the open shooter, and they completely dominated this game for 30 of the 40 minutes, also covering the spread in the process (even with a poor final 8:00). That tells me they took care of business and came out focused and motivated. Nothing but praise for Coach Miles today. OVERALL GRADE: B A good win against an average opponent, with very few things to be disappointed about. Hope the guys take care of business in the classroom this week and get ready for their final cakewalk of the year next Saturday 'cuz after that, "it's on like donkey kong!" PLAYER OF THE GAME: WALTER PITCHFORD 2013-2014 PLAYER OF THE GAME RESULTS: TERRAN PETTEWAY - 4 TAI WEBSTER - 2 WALTER PITCHFORD - 2 LESLEE SMITH - 1 SHAVON SHIELDS - 1 This post has been promoted to an article

Seems like a very good take for those "Gamblers" out there.

Nebraska 72 Arkansas State 60

Kent is a great man and as knowledgeable about NU hoops as anyone. I had a chance to spend some time with him during Doc Sadler's first year at the Orange Bowl Classic in Miami and his passion for Husker Hoops is off the charts. Unfortunately a couple posters here wrote some bad things about him back then that I didn't see for quite awhile and I think there were some hard feelings. But I hope if he's reading this that that's water on the bridge and he realizes I'm his biggest fan and even moreso, so is HHC. Thank you Kent for all you do. Dave

I have to chime in that I LOVE the road blacks, though our play tonight definitely shamed them. They deserve better

That's the only negative I've consistently been on Miles for all season. His lack of using timeouts to teach, stop momentum and regroup. Granted, he did use a timeout when we got down 8-0.

OFFENSE: C- As hard as it is to believe, there were some positives offensively tonight. For starters, Nebraska shot more free throws than Creighton (26 to 22) and NU's 59% from the field in the second half was better than Creighton's 55% in the first. Outside of that though, there wasn't a lot of good to say, especially in the first ten minutes of the game, when NU's offense was "bad for the ages." The Huskers came out scared, rattled and like they'd never seen aggressive defense in their lives. Creighton did a great job taking away the driving lines, sure, but NU took WAY TOO MANY jump shots and three pointers early on. In fact, in the first half, Nebraska shot just 8% from downtown (1-12) and 30% from the field, which helped them get down 22-3. No, you can't even make that up. I'll give NU some credit in that they played much better in the last 25 minutes, but when you dig a hole of epic proportions, it really doesn't matter. DEFENSE: D Nebraska allowed CU to shoot 49% for the game and pour in 82 points. Again, from the 5:00 minute mark of the first half and on, once NU switched to the zone, it did a nice job of keeping Creighton in check. But how can you really feel good about that? One thing is for sure, Nebraska needs to play more zone. That defense has been largely successful (sans one game in the Charleston Classic) and it will help keep NU out of foul trouble. The Huskers (and the rest of America) are glad to see Doug McDermott's days coming to an end as a collegiate player, as the big man lit the nets on fire to the tune of 33 points on 12-23 shooting (5-10 downtown). REBOUNDING: C 34 to 30, Creighton. For as bad as this game was, rebounding really played no factor, and that's not a bad total. Nice night for two Huskers on the boards, as Petteway and Deverell Biggs hauled down six boards apiece. It's for this reason, along with 21 points, that Petteway is our Player of the Game (over Shavon Shields - though it was GREAT to see Shields "show up" and get back on track). I also loved hearing how Petteway handled himself in the locker room following the game, as he apologize to teammates, was in tears and genuinely sorry that he was co-issued a flagrant two foul (along with Grant "Thug Life" Gibbs). Class act by Terran when, in this writer's opinion, he had little to apologize for. Gibbs should know better, after all, as he was a college freshman when Petteway was still getting school lunch at Galveston, Texas Middle School. BALL HANDLING: D 9 turnovers to 13 assists. In theory, that's nice. If you watched the game, however, Nebraska's inability to get into its offense in the first 15:00 was one of the main shortcomings of this contest. NU consistently lacked attack, passion, fire, etc. in its offense. That comes back to how they performed with the ball in their hands (that's what she........). COACHING: D This game was unacceptable. Period. You can't get down 30 to a team in the first twelve minutes of a game, anytime, anywhere. Nebraska looked scared, flat and overwhelmed early on, and at least some of that have to come back to the head coach. Should NU have taken a shoot around in Omaha? Should they have planned their trip different with a hotel? Should they have played more straight up and less attention to McDermott, who you knew was going to get his 30 either way? Should NU have zoned earlier? Should former starter (just two weeks ago) David Rivers have gotten in the game over Nathan Hawkins? Lots of questions. I appreciate how NU battled back and to Miles' credit, he was coaching BIG TIME in the second half, running up and down the sideline, calling timeouts and obviously seeing his team meet the challenges he issued at the half. So for that, he deserves credit and props. But I can't do much more than that, as really, Miles and his team created lemonade out of the rotten lemons they created mostly on their own. OVERALL GRADE: D If Nebraska had been down 8 points at the half and lost by 15, we would all feel okay with this loss. But the fact that Nebraska thoroughly EMBARASSED ITSELF (and its fans) in the first half is enough to make this one far from "acceptable." Hopefully this will be a big part of the growing process, and we'll see a much different NU team in Cincinnati in a couple of weeks. Also, hopefully NU realizes that if it comes out loose, with intensity and plays its game, it can play with borderline Top 25 teams like Creighton. I do have to give Creighton lots of credit, too, as much as it pains me. They have a very good basketball team and they'll be a solid 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Still, the days of the Bluejays as a state "basketball power" appear to be coming to an end, based on CU losing the majority of its key players (and All-Americans) and based on the fact that its head man hasn't shown any ability to cut it in major conferences, which CU now finds itself a part of. PLAYER OF THE GAME: TERRAN PETTEWAY BONUS AWARD - DOUCHE OF THE GAME AWARD: GRANT GIBBS 2013-2014 PLAYER OF THE GAME TOTALS: TERRAN PETTEWAY - 4 TAI WEBSTER - 2 LESLEE SMITH - 1 SHAVON SHIELDS - 1 WALTER PITCHFORD - 1 This post has been promoted to an article

Pardon my French... but Gibbs has been a giant douche nozzle for many years. Literally. Since he's 42 and getting a 9th year. Him and Craft of OSU both. I'm sure both were jawing and jawing all day long, so both were equal to blame in getting each other worked up. But no doubt on that play Gibbs was the instigator. Wasn't particularly close, since he jumped on Petteway and stayed on top for 2.5-3.0 seconds. As Petteway got on top and pushed him back, ref pulled them apart. So Petteway wasn't on top/in control until the last 1.0 second. Petteway wins the battle that Gibbs started. Douche.

Nice start to the second half. Some of it is that there is zero atmosphere or pressure now and that Creighton's effort is probably not quite what it was (human nature). But still, nice to see us close the gap a bit.

I'm guessing that at this point, David Rivers either: A. Has an injury they're hiding (not sure why they'd do that). B. Is being disciplined for some reason (doubtful, as he seems like a great kid). C. Is being encouraged to transfer somewhere else for his final season of NCAA eligibility. I'll go with "C"

In my head, I knew we were probably going to lose this game, but I thought for sure it'd be in the 7-12 point range. So I'm okay losing - but second year or eighth year, this is NOT acceptable. Miles doesn't get a pass to get us embarrassed so much that it puts the program back a bit with the locals, which this game WILL do. We can deny it, but a lot of the real casual bandwagon fans are going to move right back to the "same old Nebraska" attitude after this garbage performance. This is hurting more than we probably realize.

Quit posting crap from the Creighton site. What do you think they're going to say? We suck, we deserve it. This is the worst Creighton/NU game I've ever seen. What they're writing is predictable. Can I make a request that you stop posting it? If I want to read it and get further steamed, I'll go read it myself.

I am seriously embarrassed. Creighton will slow down in the second but this will end up around 100-50.

That's a great take for Nebraska, especially if you buy it up to +13.

Whatever happened to him after leaving? We know he was going back to Puerto Rico, but any idea what he did? Did he go back to school? Is he still playing ball? What is he doing? Does anyone within the program hear from him? I'm betting there are at least one or two people reading this who have an update - would love if someone could create an account and let us know any news on him. I've googled and even tried to get to euro basket sites but the malware/spyware is killing my computer and I'm not sure that he's playing anywhere. Very, very interesting, and probably bordering "sad" if he isn't still playing ball anywhere. Though if he's happy, that's all that matters. Dave

Creighton 73 Nebraska 64

It will be awfully fun to make Creighton our bitch for the next ten years. I believe this is a 40 minute game. The smart money is on Creighton to win by 5-8 points, but I believe we have a 40% chance at winning this year. Hope they're reading this and will quote me over on the Creighton MB. Always enjoy reading my stuff over there the last eight years.

One thing I forgot to add but should have: Key moment of the game? Gallegos hitting back to back three's and taking a tight, three point game and helping to take it to nine at the half. Most important stretch of the night.

OVERALL GRADE: B+ OFFENSE: B- DEFENSE: A REBOUNDING: A- BALL HANDLING: A- COACHING: A PLAYER OF THE GAME: WALTER PITCHFORDOFFENSE: B- I didn't think Nebraska played as poorly as their shooting percentage (39%) would show, especially in the first ten minutes of the first half. In fact, early on I was impressed with how many good looks the Huskers got, from wide open three's by Walter Pitchford and Ray Gallegos, to Shavon Shields and Leslee Smith going to the rim. The Huskers just weren't knocking down the shots in the opening ten minutes and then, NU seemed to get into a lull of bad offense for the final 10:00 of the half (with too many turnovers) before stepping it up and finishing strong in the second half (38 points on 48% shooting). I think this was the first game where Nebraska looked unselfish, almost to a fault on a couple of occasions (most notably by Deverell Biggs). The Huskers took MAYBE two bad shots the entire night, which is very encouraging considering just two weeks ago, that number would be twelve bad shots. NU was also a VERY GOOD 77% from the free throw line (17-22). It really does look as if NU is becoming a more cohesive offensive unit and I thought they showed a lot of positive in this game, if you're astute enough to look beyond the numbers. DEFENSE: A I don't care if Miami is very down this year, and I don't care if they're on the end of a ten day road trip. Heck, I don't even care if they normally make a few more shots. That's because what Nebraska did on defense tonight was AWESOME, as the Big Red held the Hurricanes to just THIRTEEN POINTS!!! in the first half and for the game, 49 points on just 32% shooting. I saw Shields and Pitchford playing the best defense of the year, and I liked that Nebraska made a conscious effort in the second half to turn Miami over by taking some chances. Even though that didn't really work, it also didn't allow any baskets, either. For a team that was awful on defense for the majority of the Charleston Classic, this was a very nice effort. REBOUNDING: A- For a second straight game, Nebraska was even on the boards (34-34) and Smith had another outstanding effort (10 rebounds in 23 minutes). That's almost good enough to give him the nod as "Player of the Game" but I want to give it to Pitchford, who finished with thirteen points and five which (as is a common theme throughout this report card) is a nice improvement. BALL HANDLING: A- 11 turnovers (very good), 12 assists (pretty good). Take out a couple of careless Tai Webster turnovers (as Coach Miles noted on the postgame) and all of a sudden you're under ten. The one negative I saw tonight was that NU looked very gun shy against the press that Miami threw out in the final 5:00 of the game. There was a horrible turnover by Biggs (and almost a second earlier, where he threw his elbows) and a couple by Webster. You can be CERTAIN that NU will be seeing A LOT of full court looks from Creighton on Sunday, so this better be practiced and then practiced again. Pitchford also looked uncomfortable and unprepared when Miami turned up the intensity and heat on him in the early stages of the second half. As mentioned above, NU did a MUCH BETTER JOB of distributing the ball, almost to a point where it was TOO unselfish. Spacing was bad against the matchup zone on certain possessions but the best news was, NU seemed to understand what they were up against and executed the game plan more times than not. COACHING: A Get the rotation trimmed to eight (really seven and a half) guys? Check. Get through to team on how to play together and in an unselfish manner? Check. Improve vastly on defense? Check. Get a double digit win against an ACC opponent? Check. Show confidence in your freshman point guard, leaving him out there against the "Hack A Tai" defense? Check. I loved everything Coach Miles did tonight - I have zero complaints. OVERALL GRADE: B+ Sloppy? Yes. Highly entertaining? Not really. Impressive win? Yes. Nebraska played terrific defensively, improved offensively and took care of business at home against a team it should beat. They were lucky that Miami showed a little press, albeit Mickey Mouse, because we'll be seeing that a lot this Sunday and any practice against it in a game is a bonus, PLUS now the team will really understand they need to take it seriously after being shown up on a few possessions. Nebraska is only one win off the pace that even the most optimistic fan would want, and they have a true "gravy game" Sunday. Win, and you're on track for "best case scenario." Lose, and you're still only two games off the pace with a chance to still defeat Cincinnati to get right back on it. This team is showing obvious signs of growing and improvement, and while tonight's game isn't one I ever care to watch again, it was a good effort and something to take many positives from. PLAYER OF THE GAME: WALTER PITCHFORD 2013-2014 PLAYER OF THE GAME TOTALS: TERRAN PETTEWAY - 3 TAI WEBSTER - 2 LESLEE SMITH - 1 SHAVON SHIELDS - 1 WALTER PITCHFORD - 1 Click here to view the article