Anyone (and you know who you are), for the rest of this season and beyond who even remotely suggests Collins be fired should have their posting privileges AND their NU degree revoked. This is a very scrappy, competitive, young and potentially VERY good team, who are clearly playing for the team and the coach. Wisconsin is at least a #8 team, no question.
Collins
- Thread starter stpaulcat
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I’m not solidly in the fire Collins camp, but playing in a lot of close games hasn’t really been Collins problem, it’s been the late offensive collapses and consistently losing them.
Not that that was the case tonight at all.
I for one am looking forward to leaving that high post 2 man game in the dust. our offense stagnates, we often miss the dump pass to the big man open and diving, and it the outside shot is taken, we have nobody positioned to reasonably rebound.
Feels like we are misusing Nance, so next year i don’t think we lose much and gain a lot in experience, and hopefully some maturity. My biggest hope is that somebody steps us with a badass attitude and the gameplay to back it up. Translated - drive to the hole, make the 2 pt bunnies/layups, and make your free throws.
Feels like we are misusing Nance, so next year i don’t think we lose much and gain a lot in experience, and hopefully some maturity. My biggest hope is that somebody steps us with a badass attitude and the gameplay to back it up. Translated - drive to the hole, make the 2 pt bunnies/layups, and make your free throws.
Impressed with the win at MSU and the effort. He hasn’t lost the team. Credit to him. It’s the PSU and MD losses that are more of an indictment. We’ll see how the rest of the season goes.
No recruits- three years in a row with 10 plus game losing streaks and his team is checks record / winless at home in big ten. play. His ridiculous contract will save his job
One thing to correct: they’re scrappy and competitive, but they’re not young.
To use the cliche: They play the games for a reason. And so far, the games are establishing a pretty clear path - even when grading on the NU curve.
I hope the remainder of the season somehow allows the team to make the internal discussion debatable.
I hope the remainder of the season somehow allows the team to make the internal discussion debatable.
I mean, right now NU is 2-5 and plays 4 more games against currently ranked opponents this season (2 against Illinois, 2 against Purdue). Those will be tough.
On paper, and based on everything we’ve seen this season, NU should definitely be in the hunt to win those other 9 games (Nebraska twice, Minnesota twice, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Penn State, Rutgers). Nebraska and Minnesota combined are 1-13 in conference.
I don’t know. It’s a long season, and while the Penn State and Maryland losses in particular were big blows to our tournament chances, I still think NU can make something of this season if the guys don’t give up and play the way they have been.
Young team? This is Nance's 4th year at NU; it's the 3rd year for Buie, Beran and Young; Chase Audige's 3rd year playing college basketball and Williams's 5th. Last night was a moral victory of sorts in that they played hard and competed. But in year nine, the credit earned from moral victories should be minimal. Getting your team to play hard and compete is a core responsibility of a coach. He's simply doing his job. Now, Collins went above and beyond and got creative with his roster for MSU and deserves a ton of credit for that victory. But expectations are waaaaay too low if we are patting him on the back because he hasn't lost the team and we are only 7 games into the BIG season.
It looks to me as though they are one great player away from being really good. They seem to tend to lose it on offense, when it counts. Refs and foul shooting aren't helping.
They are one "better offensive scheme" away from being above average.
We are looking at our fifth straight year at 10th or worse in the conference (10, 14, 13, 12 and currently 11th). While we have been incredibly competitive and are only a few possessions away from being in the top 4 of the conference, the reality is our record is 2-5. I went into this season feeling like we had to at least be a bubble team for Collins to keep his job and so far we are not close to that. At some point you actually have to win. Even worse, this is not a young team so we'll at a minimum be losing Nance next year.
Collins is the basketball version of Frost at Nebraska. His teams play hard and play everyone down to the wire but repeatedly find ways to lose. And at some point you need to see results. It sounds like Nebraska is giving Frost this year to win.
Collins is the basketball version of Frost at Nebraska. His teams play hard and play everyone down to the wire but repeatedly find ways to lose. And at some point you need to see results. It sounds like Nebraska is giving Frost this year to win.
That seems like a reasonable comparison.
My counter is that we should be 4-3 in the conference.
Not "hoping" we should be, actually saying that we are better than both Maryland and PSU and should never have lost to them.
Talent wins 90% of the time. There isn’t enough top end talent to win against teams that have a Lidell, Ivey, Davis, Kofi. What CCC has to find a way to do is beat teams when their best player is Ayala or Lundy. Those were two big failures and could very well be the difference between tourney or not. That is disappointing, but those games are over and you have to move on and pick off one or two you shouldn’t win now.
This team always seems to have one or two guys disappear offensively. It’s not always the same guy. You can’t have 2 starters score 2 points no matter how good their D is. Having said that, CCC made an obvious attempt coming out of the half to get Berry involved and even Roper. I thought this was the right move coming out. I certainly didn’t see any egregious Coaching issues in that game, but maybe others did.
PPD, since we argue too often, just wondering if you think Roper is going to replace Berry in the starting lineup.
Roper seems to have pretty good instincts on the court and played well yesterday, getting 25+ minutes, while Berry played poorly again (0 for 4, not much in the box score). Since his huge game against Ohio State, Berry has really struggled, shooting 2 of 15 in 3 games. I think he's 0 for 11 from 3.
Wondering if others would make that switch.
I do not expect Roper to replace Berry in the short term for the starting lineup. I would expect us to try and run specific plays early to get Berry untracked. He can shoot, there is no doubt on that and NU needs offense from him. Berry has got better defensively, but in my opinion Roper is much better. I think the change would occur if Berry ran through an extended stretch like yesterday and Roper continued his improvement. At the end of the day iMO minutes will be close depending on how Berry comes out of the shoot.
I might. Certainly Roper has the better all-around game, and Berry has been struggling since the OSU game. On the other hand (and there's always another hand), Berry has shown himself to be a very productive scorer when he's hot. Early in the game, before the opponent has determined whether Berry is having a hot night, they have to pay a lot of attention to him. That might help others get off to a good start. And if Berry is hot, then Coach Collins will know it right away. Starting does not necessarily mean you play the most minutes, but Berry might just be the better guy to open with.
Sorry PPD, but for me, that was one of the bigger disappointments in the game. The Cats came out of the half in a game where possessions should be treated like gold. Instead, they go to Berry, he misses his two opportunities, then commits a dumb foul.
If anyone wonders why he doesn't see more time, that's the perfect example.
Between that and the lucky shot at the end of the first, that's a big swing.
My thought was try to get him untracked. He just isn’t the type of player that creates a lot of his own opportunities. It didn’t work out. Berry is a little like Kopp in that regard. He does have the ability but he is streaky. The NU offense consisted of 4 guys for most of the game. They also seemed to make an effort to involve Roper offensively to start the half. That was a little more successful.
I agree. Nance is a good but not “great” player. I actually think Roper has the highest ceiling of this group
Nance is a really good player. He does a lot of things really well. He’s just not a go-to scorer who can consistently score or draw fouls at the end of games. Young seems to be the only player that can draw fouls. It’s a skill. It would be great if at least one of the guards/forwards could figure it out. We rarely draw fouls on fast breaks, which often seems to lead to wide open shots for the other team. Simmons and Roper have athleticism and decent shots. With experience and more confidence (and more strength in Simmons case), they should be able to get craftier in finding their shots and drawing contact.
We have not been out-schemed at the end of games. Opposing players have made some really difficult shots one on one, particularly in the Penn State and Maryland games. I hope it balances out.
It means that our standard high-screen-with-our-best-rebounder doesn't make a lot of sense when you have two big guys who can score and rebound.
We don't have to do the same thing all the time! We need to work out something where Young and Nance can go high and low, do some interior passing and open up the 3-point shooting.
Some Nicholson with Nance time would shake things up too.
Play to the strengths of the team.
I thought they spent a few minutes early trying to force some production out of Berry and it was awkward and poorly done.
I agree he scores best in the rhythm of the offense and they should have swung a few more passes around to him in a corner in the flow rather than trying to make it happen early.
I agree he scores best in the rhythm of the offense and they should have swung a few more passes around to him in a corner in the flow rather than trying to make it happen early.
If I am Nance, I am gone after this season - either draft or portal. He has to know he is not a five - not here, not in the league. He gets banged around against the 1st team fives in the league instead of being better set up to showcase his skills against fours.
I am disappointed, but not surprised, to find find young not starting and putting up impressive results.
I am ready to part company with both revenue head coaches, if only for their ridiculous stubbornness. I think that stubbornness will cost NU its best player for next year with no real stud coming in.
I am disappointed, but not surprised, to find find young not starting and putting up impressive results.
I am ready to part company with both revenue head coaches, if only for their ridiculous stubbornness. I think that stubbornness will cost NU its best player for next year with no real stud coming in.
You are ready to part company with most everyone and everything in order that your idealized vision be realized. News--it ain't gonna be. Add a little more nitrogen to your diving mix and enjoy.
That Kopp comparison - sadly - is really apt. I hadn't thought of that, but you're right.
Kopp is not making much of a difference at Indiana. He had one good game at Syracuse, but otherwise, not so much. Averaging 7 a game, playing 25 minutes. Will be interesting to see what he does vs. Purdue tonight in the Hoosiers biggest game of the season. Nance would be a much bigger loss, but he has been here four years. Will be interesting to see what he chooses to do.
I didn't watch the game but Kopp started and had 0 points against Purdue. Not exactly lighting it up.
Clearly he decided he would rather play for a winning team and contribute minimally vs attempt to continue to pound the rock with his veteran teammates and break through this year.
Agreed, we should only keep track of moral victories, not actual ones.
I don't consider the Wisconsin game a moral victory, just one heck of a game. Each game is a continuation of the previous, so we don't know where this will lead.
The biggest argument against Collins right now is that it's hard to see how the program improves in the next couple years, based on what's leaving and what's young/incoming. If this is the pinnacle under Collins going forward, NU is in trouble.
Did you miss the MSU win that was essentially played with next year’s team?
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