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Bball discussion - my overview.....

NUFootballTim

Scout Team
15 Year Member
i'm feeling good about NU bball. and if i'm feeling good about it, you are too, cause no body has been debbie downer about 'Braskaball more then me the past few years. not something i'm proud of.

so while the going is good, here is some food for thought for those currently new to this fun little Nebraskawagon we're all riding. Nu is playing great. Guys have confidence, shots are falling, and life is good. Defensive energy is awesome, the team is playing unselfishly, at any point NU has 3 different guys who could boss you around for 20+ pts a game. NU is hot and thats the good news...

Miles is still not an x/o guy. He is a big picture coach. Get the ball to X, and get the frick out of his way. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that, per se, when taken in doses. Say what you will, but if James Palmer doesn't do what he does last night, NU loses. There is a risk to having a philosophy built around this type of scheme. its highly "player" dependent. Now, granted if Miles can keep getting guys like Roby and Palmer, and he very well may be able to, then problem solved. BUT, i was sorely reminded of my angst with Miles last night when watching that last set NU ran.

TO was called. Miles draws up a play. We are up by 1 pt with i think 43 seconds to go? I'm ready to see "THE PLAY". What we got was Watson dribbling around, confused, and shooting up a bad 3pt brick as the shot clock expired. LUCKILY, it bounced right to Roby, he made 2 clutch freethrows and the problem was solved. BUT jeepers creepers, if the Turtles get that rebound, play for the last shot and score...ugghhh....that would have been a tough loss. Miles needs to get to the point where he can run something that gives his team the best chance when that time comes.

Heck, we can even argue about what the thought process was behind that "play". it depends on your perspective, but some would say, why in the world are you killing clock right there, just to put up a bad garbage 3? you've got 40+ seconds and the ball. You aren't good at running sets (gosh i wish NU was) so do what you're good at. Inbounds the ball, get it to Palmer, get everyone else out of the way, and go to the hole asap. get something driving at the basket, but do it quick and get a 2 for 1. If NU puts up a good shot within 7 seconds or so, then they would still have another 13+ seconds at the end of the game to hit a game winner or seal the deal, if need be.

Either way, what NU ended up doing at the end of the game there was puzzling to me. and thats what STILL makes me nervous about Miles. He's got the team winning and all the credit for that but some of the strategy decisions just leave me scratching my head......

still happy we won, of course. GBR!!!!!!!!!
 
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i'm feeling good about NU bball. and if i'm feeling good about it, you are too, cause no body has been debbie downer about 'Braskaball more then me the past few years. not something i'm proud of.

so while the going is good, here is some food for thought for those currently new to this fun little Nebraskawagon we're all riding. Nu is playing great. Guys have confidence, shots are falling, and life is good. Defensive energy is awesome, the team is playing unselfishly, at any point NU has 3 different guys who could boss you around for 20+ pts a game. NU is hot and thats the good news...

Miles is still not an x/o guy. He is a big picture coach. Get the ball to X, and get the frick out of his way. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with that, per se, when taken in doses. Say what you will, but if James Palmer doesn't do what he does last night, NU loses. There is a risk to having a philosophy built around this type of scheme. its highly "player" dependent. Now, granted if Miles can keep getting guys like Roby and Palmer, and he very well may be able to, then problem solved. BUT, i was sorely reminded of my angst with Miles last night when watching that last set NU ran.

TO was called. Miles draws up a play. We are up by 1 pt with i think 43 seconds to go? I'm ready to see "THE PLAY". What we got was Watson dribbling around, confused, and shooting up a bad 3pt brick as the shot clock expired. LUCKILY, it bounced right to Roby, he made 2 clutch freethrows and the problem was solved. BUT jeepers creepers, if the Turtles get that rebound, play for the last shot and score...ugghhh....that would have been a tough loss. Miles needs to get to the point where he can run something that gives his team the best chance when that time comes.

Heck, we can even argue about what the thought process was behind that "play". it depends on your perspective, but some would say, why in the world are you killing clock right there, just to put up a bad garbage 3? you've got 40+ seconds and the ball. You aren't good at running sets (gosh i wish NU was) so do what you're good at. Inbounds the ball, get it to Palmer, get everyone else out of the way, and go to the hole asap. get something driving at the basket, but do it quick and get a 2 for 1. If NU puts up a good shot within 7 seconds or so, then they would still have another 13+ seconds at the end of the game to hit a game winner or seal the deal, if need be.

Either way, what NU ended up doing at the end of the game there was puzzling to me. and thats what STILL makes me nervous about Miles. He's got the team winning and all the credit for that but some of the strategy decisions just leave me scratching my head......

still happy we won, of course. GBR!!!!!!!!!

I was wondering about that play, too. The only time I had that "Is Nebraska going to let this one slip away" feeling was when Watson was dribbling it around waiting for whatever to happen that didn't happen. I have not had that feeling in a long time. However, that feeling left as soon as Roby held on to the rebound basically fell in his hands.

It certainly seems like the out of bounds plays that the team runs under its own basket appear to be handled much better; in fact, the last few games, the commentators have even said that Nebraska does a good job with those. One of Roby's alley-oop dunks came off of an out of bounds play against Minnesota. Last night, Palmer was set up on an out of bounds play so that he could get to the rim with his right hand in the second half.

I still like it when this team pushes the ball and keeps that offensive energy going.
 
That play looked as if he put the ball in Watson's hands with options. That's not a bad coaching choice for most Nebraska teams, most years. This year, Miles has other arguably better options.

Isn't that friggin' awesome?!!
 
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First let me state, I'm a huge fan, but know basically nothing about strategy. In fact sometimes I post in this forum, just so the Creighton OP isn't at the top of the page. :Taunt:
Completely agree about Watson. Not sure what has changed, but his % has to be way down, especially on the shots where he tries to create the separation on his own. Seems to do a little better driving or like most, when he receives a pass and takes an open shot.
Also, was listening to Nick Bahe today and he was giving credit to one of the assistants who is more of the OC this year.
 
That play looked as if he put the ball in Watson's hands with options. That's not a bad coaching choice most Nebraska teams, most years. This year, there are better options.

Isn't that friggin' awesome?!!
Good point. This was the Pettaway play in years past. Maybe Shields after that.
 
I saw many plays drawn up out of timeouts that worked very well.

Granted, if the defense takes whatever play that we had away, we tend to look lost like with what we saw last night at the end. It seems we rarely have a plan b which is not a good thing.

ya probably my bigger issue with it was, if you're gonna put Wats in the position to make a play, they made it even harder by also asking him to dribble out 15+ seconds of clock. thats even harder, in that particular situation. If you don't have a dynamo set to run there, like NU didn't, then inbounds the ball, get it to palmer, get everyone else out of the way, no need for ball screens and other mumbo jumbo and risk a double team, and let him go to the rack asap. if you don't score, play defense like the dickens, and know that you'll have at least 14+ seconds on the clock to score the game winner if need be. NU dribbled the shot clock out, essentially guaranteeing that the Turtles would get the last/final possession, and put up a garbage 3. thankfully we got the lucky bounce....finally.
 
I liked the play they had run earlier with two screens and a drive to free Copeland up in the lane... I was expecting some variation of that. Instead they had to REBOUND to win... let me say that again... they REBOUNDED their way to a victory. That's a turn-around for you.

I just wish they were good enough to go on the road and win a game, but we all know this is where the run ends. A 20 wins in a season is pretty good, just wish we could have gotten more.
 



I liked the play they had run earlier with two screens and a drive to free Copeland up in the lane... I was expecting some variation of that. Instead they had to REBOUND to win... let me say that again... they REBOUNDED their way to a victory. That's a turn-around for you.

I just wish they were good enough to go on the road and win a game, but we all know this is where the run ends. A 20 wins in a season is pretty good, just wish we could have gotten more.
still have 3 conf games left & NU will be favored in all of them. Their road resume, while not the stuff of legend, is serviceable. Wins over NW,Rutgers and back to back over Wiscky and MN.

ya an inbounds to wats, dribble right, with a double down screen for copeland to get him open at the freethrow line....that may have served up quite nicely. its easy to second guess so i try to remind myself of that, i just don't like the dribble around to waste time as the primary motivator in a situation like that. I'd much rather take a quick aggressive drive to the hoop asap, and leave yourself 13+ seconds for another chance if you need it.

you said it well, they got an OFFENSIVE REBOUND to win the game.....i guess Pigs do fly.
 
How about the decision to take Palmer out with about 4 Min left in the game when he was on the HOT part of his hot streak. No foul trouble either. That really had me going What the Heck....
 
After the game Miles did admit to what a boneheaded move that was with resting Palmer then. You do see it all the time it seems though, a guy makes 3 or 4 shots in a row and is "feeling" it and a coach pulls them for a blow. I don't get it either. I know the player in that situation doesn't want out and can find all the energy they need when they're hot like that.
 
How about the decision to take Palmer out with about 4 Min left in the game when he was on the HOT part of his hot streak. No foul trouble either. That really had me going What the Heck....
Yeah, and then the 4 minute timeout didn't happen until about 3 minutes, which is rare especially the way the game was being called up until that point. It was an odd decision and the game flow made it into a bad one. Lucky UNL is a team of fighters and was playing at home. Miles blamed Kenya Hunter for the decision to pull Palmer, but I'm not sure how serious he was about that. He also said that Michael Lewis is the only one of the coaches who had ever been "hot" in a game before and they might listen to him in the future. Think that was tongue in cheek. :)

So proud of this team, just disappointed that they won't win any more games this season as they lack the talent and grit needed.
 





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