Dean Smith

Biggs did that too. It was pretty much the end of the comeback attempt and effectively the game. Then again, if he had made it, we might be talking about what a ballsy play it was... I wouldn't. A good shot is not determined by whether it goes in or not. One thing that puzzled fans when I coached high school was when they would hear me get on a player for a shot they made. Most people think a made shot must be a good thing. A made bad shot just encourages them to take more bade shots. A bad shot is a bad shot. If you noticed Miles had a player going to the scorer's table before Petteway's shot hit the rim.

There has got to be more to the Rivers thing than meets the eye.

We are always being reminded that we are one big player away. You can't make people something they are not but it appears to me that some of Walter Pitchford's issues in the post is mind set. He is 6'10 and has a 40 some inch vertical. He is not the strongest kid in the world (which can be improved) but in the limited game action I have seen I don't spot a lot of effort on the defensive end. He gets sealed behind the offensive post and just seems satisfied to hang out back there. Offense posts get lower than him and back him down too close to the hoop. I don't know where Miles wants him to guard the post but it seems to me that it would make more sense for him to use his quickness to get in a full front. That's where I'm not seeing much work or desire from him to improve his defensive position. If he got to the front his length would discourage post entries and once he demonstrated that 40 inch vertical the other teams would realize how perfect their lob passes would need to be to get them over the top and not too far for the help side to get involved. I have not seen any desire from him to get to work in the offensive post and get position. I've seen one or two posts from him all year and he is athletic enough he should be giving us something down there if he was willing to work for position or show the slightest interest in the low block for that matter. He is built for the jump hook/double drop favorite and counter move series. Post play on both sides of the court require an attitude, hard work and the really good ones have a little bit of a mean streak. Maybe he's too nice to be a really good post player but I think there is a lot of room to improve his work effort. (Which is why I am really puzzled by the David Rivers situation. There has got to be more to it than we know.)

I dont think Shields struggles to create but is a little soft on his finishes. He needs to attack the rim, dunk or shoot FT's. someone also previously mentioned the lack of a pull up game. His life would be a lot easier if he could add that demention. Also, motion offense does not just rely on players to create for themselves. Right now I think the team sets sloppy picks & does a poor job of setting them up & pick receiving. Spacing was off today. Too many people in the lane taking away back door cuts and so we allowed them to push us too far out on the floor, I cutted instead of V cuts and lots of indecisive half cuts which leaves the passer guessing. Motion requires everyone to be on the same page, working together which is why the complete lack of assists early in the year scared me.

You don't have to score to press. That Dean Smith guy had a series of 3/4 & 1/2 court traps that you could do without a made bucket being necessary. You can trap first pass, or trap first dribble from the front or the backside, you can trap out of first ball reversal. Point is, you don't have to score to press.

It's possible to press to slow things down as well.

Weren't you the one to mention his form?

Great story, seems like a fun kid but his shot looks like a soccer throw in.

Are you suggesting/recommending that Miles get Kye and Sergej some reps now so that, in the event the scenario Dimes describes (Smith and Pitch fouling out) occurs, we'll have a guy more ready to help? Is that the question? My point was that there is no point to asking about Surge because the answer will always be "he's not in the rotation." However, if you have a scenario where we're playing a team with some height and we're rolling out Rivers as our starting center due to foul trouble, THEN asking Miles in a press conference "why didn't you play SV" makes sense. We play Arkansas St and the Citadel over the course of the next two weeks. Are you telling me that Miles can't put in Surge as a lark with 4 minutes to go in the first half of one game with the instructions of "shoot and I'm pulling you"? In his short time in the floor, shooting seemed to be a strength. Relatively speaking that is.

Definitely two camps on this one. Pluses and minuses on both sides but I like forcing them to have to sting multiple items together to have a chance to tie as opposed to just giving them a chance to do one thing - hit a three - and then you have a tie ballgame.

All right let me clarify. I should have recognized in the over-dramatic, hyperbolic world we live in, where the meaning of "literally" has now become "figuratively," people would misconstrue the meaning of crossroads. Crossroads is simply a point in which traveling in two directions is possible. I have never judged the success of my teams and the success of the teams I root for based on the win/loss record. I base success on how close a team comes to reaching its overall potential. You can play well and reach your potential and still have a losing record if that is where your potential lies. This team is young, inexperienced and playing in what projects as the toughest conference in the nation. They are going to have trouble winning games no matter how well they play, but there is still a level of performance that they can still reach. Some teams do over-perform and some under-perform. Trying to stay with the drama people have attempted to turn my position into: There now seems to be a struggle for the soul of this team. It is possible to turn a team around once it has gone off course but it is hugely difficult. If they do not get these issues of rotations, roles, and attitude fixed this will be an under-performing team. If Coach Miles can get his team to "buy in" as he stated in his interview posted somewhere on this site today, then they have the opportunity to reach their potential or even over-achieve. This is the crossroads they are at. That does not mean that we should pack in the season or begin discussing how well of a job Miles is doing. Every season has a crossroads and some years you can have several. Sometimes it is impossible to identify when you arrived at that crossroads until the season is over and you can look back in retrospect. This season that is not the case. It seemed obvious to me (which is why I started this thread) that there was problems with the attitude, effort, cohesion and everything else that some just call team spirit. In reading Coach Miles quote it appears he has come to the same conclusion, I assume long before I did. Whether the Huskers win tomorrow or not will not answer the question as to whether we have these problems sorted. I mentioned I had questions after game 3 & 4 but no one seemed to care because we won those games. Winning did not change the fact that this problems existed and I'm sure Coach Miles was aware of them at that time. The losses just brought these issues out into the bright light. These are issues that can stunt the growth of a season or completely decimate a team if things do break down into an us against them within the team. I don't think our coach will allow that to happen. We are now at the crossroads. We can go one way and even though I'm sure we will win some more games, be an underachieving team. Or we can use the experience and pull together to start to make strides to reaching our potential. That would be the two directions we have available at this crossroads. You know, that place where it is possible to start going in one of two different directions. One direction being underachieving and the other being potential reaching. Should I have maybe used the phrase "fork in the road." If this is what you meant, than your post was rather pointless as a young team like this can go any number of directions every single day. Calling us over-dramatic when you picked one arbitrary game to deem a "crossroads" is a bit absurd. That being said, I now better understand what you are trying to say. I still disagree. You can disagree, but it still doesn't sound like you understand what I said. It was not after one game. I realize my questions were across multiple threads and I'm sure that lead to many people's confusion. I expressed concern after game two and again after game three. We of course won those so the vast majority saw no problem. We were (hopefully no more are) scoring almost entirely off of individual initiative. As the articles since the team meeting after UAB said at that point they were all concerned about the lack of assists. Assists usually mean easy baskets and as the first two tournament games showed, we will not be able to create and finish those shots against better teams. We have to create multiple easy baskets to be able to compete in B1G. I don't claim to have supernatural insight because I was a basketball coach, but I have lived this particular senerio. This was more than a day were a team can go multiple directions. I was not talking about a program crossroads or that we needed to bring Miles coaching into question. But it was a crossroads for this season. These are the type of things that spread dissent and distrust through players and creates a situation that makes team-building impossible. Players form into camps or simply individuals and pulls a team apart. I would like to say I was above saying, "I told you so." But I'm not. After reading about Miles intentions going into the meeting and what happened starting with Smith and then all the players reactions it completely echos my original concern. They realized how serious the situation was and that it needed addressed immediately for the sake of the season. And I would like to think I was above feeling the need to respond to you, but it does seem that I have not progresses past that pettiness. So even if you think my thread was pointless, based on the reactions of Coach Miles and the rest of the team they completely agreed with me. There is little doubt in my mind that Miles had these concerns before the first game. It appears that the players are reaponding in a positive manner, but as I previously said we are not out of the woods yet. I look forward to seeing how they react as a team the next time they are under real pressure.

Faulkner, on the other hand, would have seen the prose of Icedragon and rent his clothes at the thought of so many words wasted through want of use, as though they might atrophy while waiting in the dictionary of the mind, waiting unsummoned, in a purgatory of endless verbiage, forgotten and neglected while brevity doffs his victor's cap and scans the field of battle for the scattered remnants of verbosity, which have taken their leave to nurse their wounds and live to fight another day. I thought about dropping out of college when I was forced to read The Bear.

THAT is a BRILLIANT way to criticize refs without getting in trouble yourself!!!It wasn't ME getting upset with the officials, but my PLAYERS probably were struggling because they were upset with the officiating. And then he should go on and say, y'know, when you're playing, it might seem like all the bad calls go against you. Like that charge on Deverell Biggs that they hadn't called all night long. I used to shout to my players, "Calm down. I don't care how bad of a call you think that was there's nothing you can do about so focus on the things you can control." I got some looks from officials but there was really nothing they could do. T me up for telling my player not to complain to the official?

Hoosiers!

We won't know for awhile and we might not know for sure until the season is over. When players start to point fingers or pull apart it needs to be addressed immediately or the season can be lost (meaning the team falls way short of its potential). It kinda sounds like Smith may be the one that pulls the team together or at least won't stand for certain players to take actions that that work against team cohesiveness without being called out. Once everyone has acknowledged the elephant in the room, steps can be taking to fix the problem. So we need to see how this all plays out to see if the tournament was a success or not.

This has nothing to do with recording shot attempts but I did learn that there is some obscure rule that says if someone is fouled simultaneously by two different opponents while shooting a three point shot you get four FT's. Just thought that was interesting. I wonder how many officials actually know that rule?

Winning is nice and even though we scored fewer points i would rate the offense much higher in efficiency tonight. I counted five bad shots with Petteway taking two of them. After his first he went straight to the bench. No way to tell from my house if this was a scheduled rotation or a message being sent from Miles. I also thought this was by far Petteway's best all-around game. Tai looked so much more comfortable running the show and Pitchford actually made a post move. Having said that, this doesn't mean everything is all sunshine in Huskerland. Young teams like this need a tight rein. Things can get away from you very quickly, but it looked to me after yesterday's practice and what they put together on the floor today as a team shows Miles has them taking a couple of steps (call 'em big steps if it makes you feel better) down the right direction at this fork in the road. (I'm putting the personal kibosh on my use of the term crossroads. It seems to get people worked up.) Many nights this year we will be playing teams that put more talent on the floor than we have this year. Posture and body language seemed way better tonight but I'm anxious to see how they respond the next time they get down 7 or so with a couple minutes left. Will they continue to work together or resort to forced shots. I go back to I think my first post this season. We shouldn't get too high or too low on this team. Predict a roller coaster ride - but should be fun as a fan. (roller coasters are not so much fun from the coach's perspective.) We are starting to see where this team can get to. Until its over, I'll be curious to see how close to "there" we get.

Defense is a total team effort. It is difficult to work hard for that guy next to you if you are still mad at him for that shot he just took.

All right let me clarify. I should have recognized in the over-dramatic, hyperbolic world we live in, where the meaning of "literally" has now become "figuratively," people would misconstrue the meaning of crossroads. Crossroads is simply a point in which traveling in two directions is possible. I have never judged the success of my teams and the success of the teams I root for based on the win/loss record. I base success on how close a team comes to reaching its overall potential. You can play well and reach your potential and still have a losing record if that is where your potential lies. This team is young, inexperienced and playing in what projects as the toughest conference in the nation. They are going to have trouble winning games no matter how well they play, but there is still a level of performance that they can still reach. Some teams do over-perform and some under-perform. Trying to stay with the drama people have attempted to turn my position into: There now seems to be a struggle for the soul of this team. It is possible to turn a team around once it has gone off course but it is hugely difficult. If they do not get these issues of rotations, roles, and attitude fixed this will be an under-performing team. If Coach Miles can get his team to "buy in" as he stated in his interview posted somewhere on this site today, then they have the opportunity to reach their potential or even over-achieve. This is the crossroads they are at. That does not mean that we should pack in the season or begin discussing how well of a job Miles is doing. Every season has a crossroads and some years you can have several. Sometimes it is impossible to identify when you arrived at that crossroads until the season is over and you can look back in retrospect. This season that is not the case. It seemed obvious to me (which is why I started this thread) that there was problems with the attitude, effort, cohesion and everything else that some just call team spirit. In reading Coach Miles quote it appears he has come to the same conclusion, I assume long before I did. Whether the Huskers win tomorrow or not will not answer the question as to whether we have these problems sorted. I mentioned I had questions after game 3 & 4 but no one seemed to care because we won those games. Winning did not change the fact that this problems existed and I'm sure Coach Miles was aware of them at that time. The losses just brought these issues out into the bright light. These are issues that can stunt the growth of a season or completely decimate a team if things do break down into an us against them within the team. I don't think our coach will allow that to happen. We are now at the crossroads. We can go one way and even though I'm sure we will win some more games, be an underachieving team. Or we can use the experience and pull together to start to make strides to reaching our potential. That would be the two directions we have available at this crossroads. You know, that place where it is possible to start going in one of two different directions. One direction being underachieving and the other being potential reaching. Should I have maybe used the phrase "fork in the road." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twqa9AppfeE

Remember when you called my comment the dumbest you have read on this board? Seems like we have a lot of dumb people on this board because people are starting to agree with me. I have yet to be impressed with one game of petteways. Yeah I do and I still think it was dumb. We are not better without him. It is even more absurd now than it was when I said it in early stages of game Thursday. He was very productive after that. I do not think we are better without him, but for four of the first five games his style of play has hurt the overall offensive effectiveness regardless of how many points he personally has put up. As a teammate you roll your eyes on those shots if they go in but you get mad and frustrated when they don't and you watch the other team pull away. I am not saying that Petteway=Melo. I'm saying the effect he definitely had on the Huskers this tournament is the effect Melo has had on the Knicks over his career there. If he has the attitude to learn and get better we can avoid this going forward. When I said crossroads it seems everyone is focusing on the "what if" we continue down this current trajectory. A crossroads means you can go either way. It is just as possible that the coaches, players and team as a whole learn from the experience and get better. That is, I think why we signed up for this tournament in the first place. To push ourselves against better competition and see where we are. I think it drastically pointed out issues that need addressed. We have a group of players that have a strong set of individual skills. If we can fit into a system as a team that takes those individual strengths and combines them into a cohesive unit we're set. Most really good teams are better than the sum of their parts, (even when they have really great parts).

This was the point of my thread. I don't feel nor did I intend my post to be negative. I didn't mention Coach Miles name at all and there was nothing in it that at this point had anything to do with him except that I was interested in seeing how he adjusts to the issues. I don't foresee that terrible things are now going to happen to the team this year. I've also had teams that pull together and use situations to pull together. I had these reservations during the second two wins, losing exacerbates problems. The two losses are not the problem they just highlight the problem. I hope not but it is quite possible that we will have 2 or more losses in a row going through the B1G season. That will not necessarily mean we have a problem at that time. Not every shot that goes in is a good shot. Sometimes those just encourage more bad shots. Not every win is a good win, but to the casual fan the W can mask the problems. The coach can only guide this situation. It is the players who will decide if they are in this together or for themselves. You don't need to be a "bad" person or even a "selfish" person to play selfishly. You can score lots of points and be hurting your team. One of the biggest keys to team success is not only having well defined player roles but that each player accepts and embraces that role. We have in my opinion some role ambiguity right now. I think Petteway needs to defer to Shields when it come to being the primary focus on the offensive end but I'll let Miles make that decision. I don't see them everyday in practice like he has for the last two years. Because of that and the confidence i have in him I will support whatever he feels will be the best role for each of his players. But regardless of whether Petteway becomes the primary offensive focus, I don't believe he can continue to play the way he has and have Nebraska possess a fluid, consistently workable offense. I still feel we are at a crossroads. I think and hope that they will, but if the players accept their roles and agree with them this team can go far. If one or two players do not agree with the role they are given or refuse to play that role you will soon see the team break into two or more camps and that is a certain recipe for disaster.

It hasn't stopped being that everywhere. Even UAB had some nice team possessions. People like Roy Williams & coach K run sets that allow players to take advantage of their individual skill set within a team concept. You see that at a lot of places where their are successful programs. You need to do that to be successful unless you 7 of the 5 star players & then that concept would still make it easier for the 5 stars to score.

For awhile I thought whoever knows the most basketball was the best coach. I learned the hard way that's not true. Way more to the job than that. I don't think this is an X & O problem. Its an attitude and effort problem and I will admit dealing with those were not my strength. I'm curious to see what if any adjustments, defensive, offensive or attitude takes place for our last game in the tournament. I admit the thread title was a little dramatic. I don't believe the sky is falling but these issues can quickly turn into a cancer if not dealt with. Winning cures most problems but since we lost the last two games I guarantee that there were some Huskers in the locker room that were at least thinking, "That guy is shooting too much."

And you might be right. I don't think it is a crossroads for the program but it could be a crossroads for this season. Again, I might be projecting because I experienced a promising season slip away because of one player who could score but at the expense of his team. Just like the board seems to be doing right now, his actions split the team in half and we became very mediocre. I think it is something that needs fixed and sooner the better. I trust Miles to deal with it. The crossroads doesn't mean the Huskers fall off a cliff, but it can be the difference from a very good season to a very mediocre one.