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redout22

redout22

New member
First lets get this straight, I'm not asking for Miles or any of the assistants heads. I'm not even asking for a change in the line-up or change in the rotation but something has to be done! We have too good of a team to lose to Rhode Island, Incarnate Ward, Hawaii, Creighton, at least at home, and too good to barely squeak by FSU, Cinci, and LMU.

I am not seeing the hustle, chemistry, or the focus that we lived on last year. During this tournament in Hawaii, We are losing 80% of 50/50 balls and we are just standing around when either us or our opponents shoot the ball which means we are getting heavily outrebounded. We make idiotic decisions, turn the ball over more than ever, and can't even run a set play correctly.

Somehow, someway we need to find a way to revert to our old form that got us into the NCAA tournament but HOW?

Thoughts?

 
We need some good recruits.

But, as for us currently, these guys cant throw it in the ocean. We are going to have to be a jump shooting team as we really dont seem to have anyone who can slash and no big guys. If you are going to be a jump shooting team you better make some shots.

We dont have anyone who can be a primary ball handler as seen by getting killed by the press. And our rebounding is laughable. If we are going to be any good we need to rebound,start making shots, and really really really limit our turnovers.

Also i would like to see alot less ball screens and more away from the ball screens to get guys open closer to the basket. That way the shots will be higher %, and if we get it in to guys deeper they can kick out to guys outside more open after defense collapses some. But really, if we cant start shooting better nothing will really matter. We need to find some scorers.

So in short, a lot of things need to change for us to even be competitive.

 
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C N Red said:
Also i would like to see alot less ball screens and more away from the ball screens to get guys open closer to the basket. That way the shots will be higher %, and if we get it in to guys deeper they can kick out to guys outside more open after defense collapses some. But really, if we cant start shooting better nothing will really matter. We need to find some scorers.
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This has to be a lot of it. I haven't watched a lot of games this year but we have absolutely no movement to our "offense". It's either WP3 shooting over people or someone creating their own shot. We're basically 300+ in the country in assists for the third straight year.

 
I don't think there's a reason for panic, even if this season ends poorly and with us missing the tournament and ending in the cellar of the B1G. However, there are things that can change to have a successful season. A lot of those reasons have been listed above and I'm certainly no basketball coach and won't tell Coach Miles how to do his job.

Things I know, though, we're lacking a true point and a true post presence. Now, on the latter, we've got two of our guys on the mend. Leslee and Moses should be back soon and will help not only on defense with rebounding but also on offense by creating space and letting Walt play the 4 like he should be. On the former, Tarin Smith is doing a better job of improving and being able to fill that role but he's still learning out there. Tai hasn't lived up to the hype we built for him but is still good enough to be on the floor at the 2. Benny sliding back into the 6th man role with Tarin getting better would be great.

Things I think I know, this team isn't loose. Quite the opposite, they look too tight. Too afraid to make mistakes. The expectations from last season are weighing on their minds. Athletics are about rising to expectations and overcoming adversity. If there's anyone out there that can teach a group of young men to do that, I think that'd be Tim Miles.

TL;DR: We should build a new arena because obviously that was the only thing we had going for us last season and that's why we suck again.

 
I think we need to let Tarin start at PG. Kid is a real threat when he is in the game and this will allow us to bring Benny off the bench to provide that spark we are missing. And Shavon needs to touch the ball more. Simple as that. I think things will get squared away once we get one of our big guys back. You can say pitchford is a big guy but he's basically a 6'10 shooting guard that can't create his own shot.

Not time to panic yet but things need to change in a hurry or we are in for a long season.

 
WAY too hesitant. We break the press and instead of attacking, we pass it back out and allow the D to reset. When receiving a pass, instead of driving or shooting, we have fallen in the habit of faking, or taking a head bob and passing it back around. (Especially Shields).

I cannot understand the hesitancy. We seldom attack, even on potential breaks.

I wonder if two things might be in play. (1) We miss coach Smith more than we thought?; and (2) the hiring of Molinari....who is a defensive guy....is focusing so much attention (and practice time?) on D that we have neglected the offense somewhat?

I'm not being critical of Miles..........Just dumbfounded how really tight and really BAD we are playing. Last night had Incarnate Word written all over it......every little thing that could go wrong did; loose balls, no blocking out, stepping on the end line; throwing it away; etc. The ONLY thing that saved us was just how bad the opponent was. I am literally stunned at the difference in attitude and body language compared to last year.

 
I think the OPs first problem is thinking we have "too good" of a team for some of these things to have happen. If you were to change your thoughts about our team, your disappointment would lessen. We aren't as good as people think. We have some parts. We are missing some parts. Lower you expectations for this team and have a happy holidays.

 
RedRedJarvisRedwhine said:
I think the OPs first problem is thinking we have "too good" of a team for some of these things to have happen. If you were to change your thoughts about our team, your disappointment would lessen. We aren't as good as people think. We have some parts. We are missing some parts. Lower you expectations for this team and have a happy holidays.
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This too. Just because we had a tourney team last year does not automatically make us a good team. The potential is certainly there but the expectations are probably too high. Miles said himself after the Baylor game that he thought we were a year off from being in the NCAAs so there's still room for this team to grow.
I like what Minnesota_husker said in the GT about Petteway and it's true for this team in general. When we get hot, we're hot but if things are going bad we're ice cold in a hurry. Some forward momentum would go a long way for these guys.

 
huskeraddict said:
I don't think there's a reason for panic, even if this season ends poorly and with us missing the tournament and ending in the cellar of the B1G. However, there are things that can change to have a successful season. A lot of those reasons have been listed above and I'm certainly no basketball coach and won't tell Coach Miles how to do his job.

Things I know, though, we're lacking a true point and a true post presence. Now, on the latter, we've got two of our guys on the mend. Leslee and Moses should be back soon and will help not only on defense with rebounding but also on offense by creating space and letting Walt play the 4 like he should be. On the former, Tarin Smith is doing a better job of improving and being able to fill that role but he's still learning out there. Tai hasn't lived up to the hype we built for him but is still good enough to be on the floor at the 2. Benny sliding back into the 6th man role with Tarin getting better would be great.

Things I think I know, this team isn't loose. Quite the opposite, they look too tight. Too afraid to make mistakes. The expectations from last season are weighing on their minds. Athletics are about rising to expectations and overcoming adversity. If there's anyone out there that can teach a group of young men to do that, I think that'd be Tim Miles.

TL;DR: We should build a new arena because obviously that was the only thing we had going for us last season and that's why we suck again.
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As long as we can call it First National Bank Arena and put the Pinnacle Bank logo on the court!

 
I think the consensus around the nation was that this team overachieved last year. I mean, we were picked to finish last in the Big Ten and wound up in 4th. A finish like that inevitably raises expectations while simultaneously ignoring the fact that we got hot last season. Momentum and confidence are very powerful in terms of playing good basketball. We don't have either right now. Shields looks too afraid to make a mistake and in doing that is probably making more mistakes than he would if he just went out and played his game. Miles said it himself, "as a basketball player you can't major in history."

Benny, Tai, and Tarin can all play at PG, but neither of them resembles a "true PG." All 3 are excellent defenders, but neither of them can effectively run this offense--I think this issue is compounded by having no big man, and thus no identity on offense. It's hard to run an offense when you don't know "who" you are. Perhaps all three will become better PGs once Leslee and Moses return from injury.

There's also no doubt that we're missing a true 5, which will be relieved shortly when Moses and Smith return for Big Ten play. Hammond isn't ready to go at this point, evidenced by his lack of PT the past few games. We all knew that losing Leslee at the start of the year was going to hurt; Pitchford is not a 4 or a 5, but he's more efficient as a 4 than a 5. Having no true 5 is forcing a lot of our guys to play more than one position. Pettaway is playing like a 2 and a 3; Shields is playing like a 3 and a 4. That's really tough to do, and when those 2 need to be our major scorers, it poses problems for our offense.

Personally, I think it's a lot harder to lock in on defense than it is on offense. Defense is certainly not the issue right now, and has been the reason why we won against Cincinnati and LMU. So yes, there's room for concern, but perhaps let's see how this offense works once we are back up to full strength.

 
I'll admit that I am somewhat surprised at how much we are struggling. I took notice of coaches and players talking in the off-season about how we really weren't a good team last year, we just got hot. But with almost the entire team back I really expected a better start than this. Yes, we lost Smith, but Moses looked to be giving us decent play in the post... he's out now but we were struggling even with him in.

Point play is a concern for sure. I had hope for Webster after his off-season, but he doesn't seem to have grown at all.. still struggling with the same things. Benny has stepped up a bit in being able to knock down a 3 from time to time, but he's just doesn't have true PG ability. Smith is looking promising. He's just not quite there yet but he is certainly developing. He's made some moves in the lane that impressed me, he just hasn't been able to finish them off. And is it just me or does his shooting form look... weird?

Pitchford struggling from beyond the arc is certainly not helping matters. He is a mismatch out there in being able to shoot over people for 3, He dropped a lot of contested 3's last year and now he's struggling to hit open ones.

Our offense last year though really went through Petteway. He took games over by himself. Last night in OT when he hit those back-to-back 3's I think was the first time this season he's shown that ability to take things over. Oh, he's tried to do it several times this year, but shots weren't dropping and then he would get down on himself. And as Petteway slumped, so did everyone else. This has always been his #1 issue. He gets way too discouraged when he struggles which leads to more struggles for him, as well as the rest of the team.

Teams have figured out that if they can frustrate us we will lose composure. Take a way driving lanes for Shields and Petteway, don't let them drive to their right hand, throw in a good dose of full court pressure. How many times has Shields turned the ball over or gotten an offensive foul trying to drive through 4 guys in the paint? I think it was Incarnate Word where they went after Petteway and kept him from driving to his right and he gets frustrated and gets a crucial offensive foul trying to go to his right anyway.

The key to beating us is mental, and that's a hard thing to coach. I think Miles is doing the only thing you really can do... let them play through it and figure it out. That hasn't really worked for Webster though and I think Miles might be giving up on him, or at least giving him a break to try and clear his head. He got 7 minutes last night.

This is still a very young team, with a some patchwork guys at key positions, and a lot of development that has to happen. At this point I'm not expecting an NCAA repeat appearance, borderline NIT looks about what we should be expecting. What I AM looking for this year is development. I want to see Smith come into his own, if by some miracle Webster can get his sh#t together that would be amazing, and Hammond making some contributions would be nice.

Look at what we *may* have next year.. let's assume Petteway returns: Petteway(G), Parker(G), White(G), Webster(G), [SIZE=14.4444446563721px]Smith(G), [/SIZE][SIZE=14.4444446563721px]Watson(G), [/SIZE]Fuller(F), [SIZE=14.4444446563721px]Shields(F), Pitchford(F),[/SIZE] Hammond(F), Morrow(F)

There is quite a lot more talent and depth in that roster than we have this year. Petteway is a big *maybe*, if he has a good run through conference he may very well be gone. If we struggle this much next year I will start to be concerned.

 
wiuhusker said:
I think we need to let Tarin start at PG. Kid is a real threat when he is in the game and this will allow us to bring Benny off the bench to provide that spark we are missing. And Shavon needs to touch the ball more. Simple as that. I think things will get squared away once we get one of our big guys back. You can say pitchford is a big guy but he's basically a 6'10 shooting guard that can't create his own shot.

Not time to panic yet but things need to change in a hurry or we are in for a long season.
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This would help.

 
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