millerhusker

St. Mary’s: Drive, kick, catch, shoot. Us: Everything but that. There is just no flow or semblance of an offense with Meah in the game.

Berke has to stay out of foul trouble today. Gonna need him on the court. Murauskas is getting all the attention right now, and rightfully so. But they're a two-headed monster in the frontcourt. Mitchell Saxen hasn't got going yet this year, but he will at some point. Hopefully not today. He's a very good center. Saw him on some preseason lists for top centers in college basketball. Had 19 and 15 against Gonzaga in their conference tournament.

I'm nervous. Which is good. Means we're playing for something. Hopefully I'm still nervous on gamedays in March like last year. St. Mary's is a better team than Nebraska right now. We just have to be 1 point better than them today.

Pretty cool for those three to choose to redshirt. It's rare these days, even for freshman who won't be in the rotation. Nick could've competed for spot and situational minutes this year. They'll be three good culture guys for the next 3-4 years.

In game coaching is going to matter a lot this year. Last year, our 23 wins were by an average of 17 ppg. 19 of those 23 wins were by double digits, many by 15+. That's pretty incredible. I'm guessing we'll have a lot more single digit, down to the wire games this year.

He did play in the second half. He tried to make a high-low pass from the top of the key, threw it right into his own defenders hands, then got pulled shortly after. Could be wrong, but I didn't see him in street clothes. I saw him celebrating the Henry bucket and pretty sure he was still in his game stuff. He didn't play much because he was playing poorly on both ends of the court last night and things were flowing better offensively with others in the game.

None of our players had more than 1 turnover and our walk-ons got to score. I'm satisfied. Also, Berke Buyuktuncel is different. Hopefully his usage rate continues to increase. He has the future potential to be better than Mast at the Mast role.

Berke has made some incredible passes that unfortunately didn't end up being assists

After we beat Creighton in 2018, I heard Chris Heady argue adamantly on a podcast that Miles was better vs. Creighton than Doc ever was because Doc never beat Creighton. Doc was 3-3 against Creighton. Having a job covering Nebraska basketball for the biggest newspaper in the state does not require you to know much about Nebraska or basketball.

I'm not sure people are panicking. I'm a big believer that you should not ignore in a win what you wouldn't in a loss.

Another power conference road win for North Florida. They won 105-93. They play at Georgia on Tuesday.

I hear ya, but we kinda dealt with that sort of stuff from Keisei also. But overall he was a clear net positive and we needed him in the game to be what we were last year. Essegian is a better rebounder than Keisei and defensively it's probably a wash between the two. Without Keisei, CJ, JL and Mast this team desperately needs some shooting. Connor made nearly as many threes his true freshman year as Keisei did in his final year of college. I think this is just one of those situations where you have to take the bad with the good, and roll with it.

The second half of the Minnesota game was maddening. The very next morning I went and picked up a new puppy, then everything took a turn for the better…

Our bigs. Meah - I was worried from the very first possession of the first game, when he missed that dunk. Got fouled (mayble), but should've made the dunk. But that alone didn't bother me. After the missed dunk, he lazily/nonchalantly walked around the paint for a bit, smiling and laughing, before he made his way to the free throw line. Then clanked two free throws. That whole scene was a microcosm of years 1-3 of Fred here at Nebraska. Last night, he did the "too small" gesture after dunking on someone a foot shorter than him. We were losing to Bethune Cookman at that time. Read the room, guy. He also had Brice laughing on the court last night. If there's one player you want to be locked in at all times, it's Brice. He's prone to losing focus, and is much better when he doesn't. I want Brice pissed off when we're not playing well. All these things are signs and symptoms that remind so much of Fred's first three teams and it worries the heck out of me. Culture matters, and Fred's timeline here is proof of that. Morgan - isn't a very good defensive rebounder, which I suppose is to be expected. He wasn't a very good rebounder at NDSU either. Doesn't have the vision or passing ability to play the Mast role. The staff thought he could stretch the defense when they brought him on, but he has only made 17 threes in his entire college career. And we haven't ran anything to get him a perimeter set shot, like we did with Mast. Just more of a traditional post player. Can definitely still have a role in the rotation, but there's a reason he isn't starting or getting starter's minutes. Berke - Does have the natural vision and passing ability to play the Mast role. The handful of times he's been in that spot, he's looked pretty damn good. Kind of surprisingly, he looks like our most sound interior defender, as well. Meah has long arms and will block some shots, but he gave up at least 4 layups last night. Berke has a wide base, long arms and defends without fouling in the post. He looks much more comfortable as the 5 on both ends of the court. He looks bigger than Mast to me. Certainly longer and more athletic. I hope we don't continue to insist on playing him at the 4 for 22 of his 27 mpg. Our "finisher lineup" is Rollie, Connor/Sam, Brice, Juwan, Berke. Yet I'm pretty sure we didn't see that group play together at all in the first 37 minutes. If that's your best group, how does that make sense? I suppose Fred didn't expect a barn burner with Bethune-Cookman. It's pretty clear to me that our best five is that group, with Connor in the 2 spot. Connor only playing 14 minutes in that game is inexcusable. I don't care that he went 0-fer from three. Still had 8 points in those 14 minutes and he's the ONLY player on our team that constantly makes the defense work with his off-ball movement, similar to Keisei. He's also our best shooter - can be hard for a shooter to get into a rhythm coming off the bench playing spot minutes (see Connor's freshman vs. sophomore seasons). I know Fred doesn't want to go small with Gary at the 4 in conference play, but I think we're going to have to. We can still be a good team. Can still go up to Sioux Falls and beat St. Mary's. But we have a lot of work to do.

Connor belongs in this group that finishes games, instead of Sam, imo. Connor is always moving, is always a threat to score, and is an elite free throw shooter.

Prisoner of the moment, for sure. But that's gotta be the worst half of Husker basketball I've seen.

Meah is not protecting the rim. And we'll never have Fred's offensive flow when he's in the game. I don't get it.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/401711742/north-florida-south-carolina

Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere yet, but he visited Lincoln last weekend. From Italy, a Luca connection. A relative unknown until recently he kind of exploded at the U17 Basketball World Cup in July. On3 now has him ranked #23 in the class. That'll be borderline 5-star status. He doesn't have a profile on any other recruiting service yet. At the World Cup, he averaged 14.6 pts (58.6%FG), 8.6 reb, 4.6 ast. In the championship game against USA, he had 18 pts, 8 reb, 8 ast. About 6'9" 220 lbs. Wingspan is just shy of 7'. Plays below the rim. Doesn't shoot threes, but very skilled ball handler and passer for his size. Scrappy rebounder and efficient in the lane. Reminds of Derrick Walker. I'm an A'mare Bynum fan, but I'd actually choose this guy over A'mare. Let's reel him in. "Quick processor" stood out to me when watching his highlights. Seems to be able to see and feel the game faster than others on the court. From Jamie Shaw - “Unique would be a good way to describe Maikcol Perez’s game,” Shaw wrote in August. “The lengthy 6-foot-8 forward is a very quick processor with the ball in his hands. Throughout the U17 World Cup, Italy ran offense through Perez while lining him up on various areas of the court… “Perez finished with nine assists against Australia and followed that up with an eight-assist showing in the championship game against the USA. The intrigue comes with his uniqueness.”

Nice win for Ohio State last night. They shot the lights out - 14/28 from the arc. That won't be normal for them. Texas is also overrated, as usual. Any team with Arthur Kaluma as a focal point is going to underwhelm. William Kyle might not be in the rotation this year for UCLA. Played 3 minutes in the first half, then 7 or 8 minutes in the second half (mostly in mop-up duty). Same as their exhibition game. Bummer for him. Would've loved to have him in Lincoln. Maybe next year...

Hoiberg saying we can't be tinkering and messing around too much this year was music to my ears. You can mess around with lineups throughout the non-con schedule at Kansas, but not so much if you're coaching a team that could potentially be on the bubble imo. You need to figure it out quickly. I've always thought coaches with bubble-ish teams can cost their team a tourney bid with early season personnel decisions, we just tend to forget about those head-scratchers by the time resume evaluation comes around in March. Every game truly matters for us. We can't afford even 1 mid-major non-con loss. And definitely need to have things honed in by the Saint Mary's game. Most important game of the year imo, as (aside from Creighton) it's our best chance at a non-con resume building win.

Glad we got it to 20 there at the end. Rollie is just a really solid college basketball player. I liked Berke tonight. Didn't ever try to do too much. Handled the ball really well - his 1 turnover wasn't a travel. Couple assists, couple steals, 6 rebounds, finished at the rim. Offensive flow is not where it was at this time last year. I'd be surprised if Meah stays in the starting lineup. His skillset just doesn't fit in our offense as the handoff guy. Two quick turnovers in that spot. Teams will just start fouling him when he gets the ball in the low post. Can still have an off the bench Keita-type role. Brice hit a few shots in a row early, but we were force feeding him at the expense of good offensive pace and flow in the first 12ish minutes. Berke didn't touch the ball in the halfcourt until 9 minutes left in the first half. Juwan only had 1 or 2 halfcourt touches at that point. That's unacceptable. This led to turnovers and poor shot selection. Need to just plug Essegian into the Keisei spot and play him 26-28 mpg. Why not? Similar enough offensive capabilities. He and Gavin gave a nice energy and scoring boost when it was much needed in the first half. Juwan didn't play great tonight on either end. Hopefully this game will be an anomaly for him. We're always better with him on the court. Figured UTRGV would take a ton and make some threes, and get some offensive rebounds. The defense really wasn't too bad on paper.

Essegian and Griffiths will be real important to any success this team has. All the pieces are there, but definitely need a couple relatively consistent catch and shoot guys.

I give it three weeks before the Ballo hype fades away. Ware > Ballo. Especially in that system next to Reneau in the frontcourt.

Offensively, I think Morgan replacing Mast is a much bigger reach than Berke replacing Allick. That's more a compliment to Berke than it is a knock on Morgan. Wouldn't be surprised if he was our 3rd-ish leading scorer (and maybe lead us in rebounding). He might have an NBA future.