millerhusker

Worst game of berke’s husker career

Brice gave up 3 straight threes in consecutive possessions. Close out man.

It's hard not to like him. He affects the game in so many ways. Doesn't showboat, just hoops.

I’m not sure consistency is possible. The defense is set up to make teams beat you with long twos and threes. If good shooting teams are sharing the ball and knocking down shots (like Purdue and Iowa), this defense won’t provide much resistance. Creighton made their threes last year and beat us by 30. This year they missed them, and we won. Poor shooting teams (like UCLA and Indiana) will struggle if they don’t shoot well above their average. This defense does do a good job of shutting down normally productive traditional post players. There are probably more of those in the Big Ten than in other leagues. I think the coaches know they won’t have conference champion talent here, so they’re banking on a system that most years can be successful against at least half the league. It’s just that the teams that CAN score on it, will score a whole lot if they’re on. The offense is much more of a concern. We get Illinois and Michigan at home, but we’re going to have to score points to beat those teams. Should we go with a lineup that more closely mimics last year’s (top 30 offense last year) to prioritize offense? Brice, Connor, Juwan, Berke, Morgan?

Wasn't planning on a Husker win today. But even if Purdue shoots the lights out, you don't have to get absolutely embarrassed like that. I watched Penn State handle Purdue (they were ahead by 28 in the 2nd half of that game, then Purdue climbed back and lost by 11). Good teams, or just mentally tough teams, value every possession and fight like hell regardless of the score. That all starts and ends with Brice and Juwan. They are supposed to be the leaders. Within the first few minutes they were both hanging their heads, just like in the Michigan State game. Brice passed up an open shot in the first possession and that lack of aggression was the theme of the game. His casual demeanor might be good in that opposing defenders can't speed him up. But your movements need to be more violent, crisp and clean against tough Big Ten defenses. He gets the ball stripped too often. Every possession matters. Juwan again had 1 rebound. Zero defensive rebounds. Go back and rewatch any part of that game and you'll see Juwan not only not playing good on-ball defense, but also not helping and not rotating to close out and contest shots. Sam and Connor needed to play more than 22 minutes in a game like this. They provide energy that is desperately needed. They're the only two that box out every time a shot goes up. They're the only two that are constantly moving on both ends of the court. And right now they're both a threat to knock down an open shot (Sam is up to 40%3FG). The argument for Connor not playing more has been that he's a liability on defense and he's one dimensional offensively. He's playing pretty good defense right now and grabbed another 5 boards today. He's a good passer and in the last three games he's done a better job of creating for others than anyone outside of Brice. Had another 3 assists today. He was also 3 for 3 inside the arc in this game. Think we should run more for Berke on offense, like we did against St. Mary's. He's playing pretty efficient offensively, just very low volume. We still run 2 or 3 sets a game to try to get the ball to Meah on the block with his back to the basket. Why? It's ALWAYS a wasted possession. Every possession matters. Reminds me of when Miles would try to force feed Tshimanga the first possession of every game. Don't think we ever scored off those sets. I still like this team and think we could have a good season, but our two 6th year seniors need to step up and be the leaders this team needs. Edit - full disclosure: it's a bourbon Sunday for me, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Their perimeter looks start with our poor on ball defense at the beginning of the possession. Gary and Williams aren’t staying in front of the guys they’re guarding. Purdue is getting into the lane at will, then spraying it out. Hoiberg and Essegian are playing much better perimeter defense than anyone else right now.

I don't disagree with you but going to play devil's advocate a bit. Tai Webster's sophomore year. I don't think I've ever seen a rotation guard more in over his head. The game moved way too fast for him at that point. I actually remember feeling bad for him. Tai wasn't bad or selfish. He did play with fire and toughness imo. He just needed reps, experience and, maybe most of all, confidence.

Why was Juwan 5 for 21 from the field against a soft frontcourt?

It sounds like if we didn't have a few careless turnovers and two bad charge calls we'd be blowing them out already

Listening on the radio. Kent and Jake making it sound like we should be embarrassed of ourselves on both ends of the court.

https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/page/bracketology/ncaa-bracketology-2025-march-madness-men-field-predictions 8 seed

That site is awesome. In '91 we finished the season #10 according to their metrics. Oh, what could've been.

Fred takes the if it ain't broke, don't fix it approach to his starting lineups. I wish we would adjust it for a game like this. Iowa is probably gonna come out with their hair on fire and we're going to have to match their scoring. Our defensive physicality inside the arc may not affect them as much, as they'd prefer to shoot threes. The refs likely won't allow us to play physical anyway in Carver Hawkeye - Juwan got in early foul trouble last year. Iowa got off to a 17-2 start and made 15 threes in that game. 7 of their rotation players shoot 40%+. I don't think we can afford to get off to a slow start offensively at their place.

ESPN power index has us #22, the second highest 6 seed. Right behind Wisconsin.

We're right where we were at this time last year: 12-2 (2-1). Not sure how to check this on KemPom but at this point last year we were Torvik #51 with a 29.4% to make the tourney. Currently we're #29 with a 79.2% chance.