millerhusker

One thing I'd like to see us stop doing is fouling three point shooters.

Wondering this as well. Last year we had a week off before the St. John’s and K-State games and we came out and laid an egg in both of those.

Seems like everyone is either going to throw in the towel or start celebrating early after these next 4 games. These games might tell us a lot about how this season will go. They also might not. We could go 3-1 and not make the tourney in March. We could go 1-3 and still make the tourney. After 12 games last year Creighton was 6-6 and reeling. Fast forward a few months and they ended up 1 second shy of the final four. In 2014 we were garbage until late January, but ended up dancing in March. This year will be a fun ride regardless of the next 2 weeks.

FWIW Lunardi’s latest Bracketology still had six Big Ten teams in and two more in the first 5 out.

Our big lull in this game came when Boogie-CJ-Brice were on the court together as 1-2-3. We scored 4 points in 6 minutes during that stretch in the second half. This also happened against Rider. Fortunately they didn't give up 10 points in a minute to Fullerton like they did to Rider. It just doesn't make sense to have these three on the court together if you don't have to. All three really lack an ability to move laterally. Brice is pretty explosive vertically and has good straight line speed, but is slow laterally. CJ and Boogie have none of the above. So they all struggle to stay in front of smaller, quicker guards and wings. They all have their strengths offensively, but they are the three players on the team who at times will dribble into a crowd and cough it up or get their shot blocked. I'm in agreement with Hoiberg that a guard getting their shot blocked by a big is as good as a turnover. Against Creighton, we cannot afford to 1. give up a big run, or 2. waste possessions with avoidable turnovers or dribbling into Kalkbrenner. We need to go at Kalkbrenner physically with Mast and Allick, like we did last year with Walker and like Iowa did a couple weeks ago with Krikke. He has a pretty good feel for avoiding contact and blocking smaller player's shots. But if you take the fight to him with stronger, more physical players he's pretty soft. We haven't faced a real frontcourt yet this year. It'll be interesting to see how we handle it.

I'll be pretty pissed at Creighton if they lose to Oklahoma State tomorrow night

If Creighton gets as many second chances as Duquesne and Fullerton did, we won't win that game.

The first NET ranking of the season will come out in early December on ncaa.com. Then I just check there for daily updates. I don’t look at RPI anymore since the committee doesn’t use it (right?). For getting an idea of just how good teams are, I like Torvik’s.

People will inevitably keep comparing this year to the 2017-18 season in this regard. But it’s just two pretty different situations. That team didn’t earn a tourney bid. We weren’t on the edge of our seat on selection sunday. Through six games that season, torvik had us at #106. Through six games this year, we’re sitting at #32 and we haven’t played creighton or k-state yet. That team lost 4 non-con games and had 4 single digit wins against low-major non-con teams. That’s a poor resume going into conference play. We took care of business in conference and beat the teams we should’ve beat, but that was a hell of a long ways to climb from the early season metrics. Only ended up with one statement win all year, against Michigan, and finished the regular season #42. So in a down year for the B1G, we still climbed 64 spots from late November to early March. That projected record of 21-10 (11-9) would put Nebraska in the tournament this year.

Colorado State has one of the best players in the country in Stevens. It’s pretty cool that he decided to stay at Colorado State this year because he could’ve left and had his pick of blue bloods to go play for.

Didn’t matter how it happened, we just had to win this one. The box score will look like our point guards didn’t do much, but I thought those two guys played excellent. They took care of the ball and made good decisions against a scrappy, quick, physical team that pressures you for 40 minutes. It seemed like we couldn’t secure a dang defensive rebound.

Tough task. Their top 3 guys have made a combined 37 three pointers already. But they also shoot the mid-range, or "far 2s", very efficiently. And they're all near 90% free throw shooters. I think we'll do what we do. Run them off the three point line, have Mast/Allick waiting in the lane to deter, and play the analytics game and hope they don't make damn near every mid-range shot like Michigan State did in Lincoln last year. The one thing that can't happen in this one is JL getting in early foul trouble. Our solid defense starts with him. His on ball pressure will be important tomorrow night. Need to make their offense uncomfortable.

Got a steal with this one. He will be our Tamin Lipsey. Probably won't start as a freshman like Lipsey did, but he could if he had to. I'm very confident in his abilities translating to the next level.

Add Ulis and I already love what next year's rotation could be.

That one was fun to listen to on the radio. The toughest test yet will be on Wednesday against Duquesne.

Coleman shouldn't have it

My prediction after 4 games remains the same. 20-11

Could be wrong, but I don't think that's what anyone is talking about. I don't want Brice to show more emotion. The even keeled nature of Griesel and Walker were ideal imo, especially for a player's coach who isn't real strict about reigning personalities in on the court. Brice could definitely be more "violent" with his movement, though. Again last night he watched a ball bounce and waited for it to come to him rather than just grabbing it with authority. He sometimes moves without purpose when the ball isn't in his hands. This is nitpicking, but there's nothing wrong with pointing it out. I sure hope the coaches are on film, because these are fixable things. Brice is very talented and smooth on the court. He just needs to be more "solid" and disciplined at all times. Overall he's a big net positive for us.

You cannot have Coleman, CJ and Brice on the court as your 1-2-3. That's three laterally slow players who just got torched for 10 points in less than 2 minutes.

Yeah Gary took more of Brice's minutes than anyone else's in that half.

We have some shooters and we have some non-shooters and we don't need our non-shooters shooting more than our shooters...

Here's to hoping he gets disgruntled with his lack of playing time on an underachieving team with a washed up coach. I believe Simeon will be an NBA point guard in a few years.

I like when people have a different opinion than everyone else, especially when it is thoughtful. That said, I respectfully couldn't disagree more with you. Keisei's gravity can be a very useful tool to help others get going early, even if Keisei doesn't come out hot. A player who moves without the ball like Keisei strikes more fear into opposing coaches than any 7 footer does. It's a nightmare to try to get college kids to chase a guy like that around all game and stay disciplined.

I can't figure Williams out either. I don't think he's lazy. But he sure looks like it at times on both ends of the court. Sometimes he'll wait for a loose ball to bounce to him instead of going to get it. Other times he'll be fighting and scrapping for a rebound. He's just not locked in all the time. Maybe that's why he was voluntold to come off the bench at Charlotte. Not being locked in is why Eli now has an uphill battle to get a significant minutes. Too many missed blockouts and assignments on defense. Sam didn't play within himself at times in this game. Fred has been talking about instilling confidence in Sam and trying to get him to hunt some shots. However, I think he played with the right amount of confidence last year. Lawrence played a good game, I thought. Won't show up in the box score. The pace of play is so much better with him on the court. So much better. He's willing to make the simple play and the ball doesn't stick with him. He'll continue to figure things out in his new role. I don't like when he's off the court for an extended amount of time like these past two games. The offense really gets stagnant. His 22mpg will bump up significantly as the year goes on. He had the highest +/- on the team last night (+18). Boogie had the only negative +/- on the team (-4). Outside of the missed open looks I thought Keisei looked sharp and in good shape. He'll be just fine. Mast is legit and the only one who's consistently strong with the ball right now. Everyone else fumbles it too much. We need to finish in the lane. Even if there's a little contact. No excuses there. I'm wondering about Gary in the first group with Allick coming off the bench. Right now there are 4 players on the team who are adept at moving without the ball - Lawrence, CJ, Keisei and Gary. It'd be nice to have two of them playing off the ball in that starting lineup. Gary gives you a bit more defensive versatility and offensive spacing also. The competition will continue to get better. Hopefully we will too.

10-25 2FG is more worrisome to me right now. We played so well at the end of last year because we put the ball in the hoop inside the arc.