We crap the bed again
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Falzon and maybe even Rap would have helped tonight. Lumpkin, Lindsey and Skelly had terrible shooting nights. You can add Ash nd did brown even play? Score?
Brown came in for two minutes early in the first half and made two turnovers. Ash took his minutes after that. Thought we fell in love with the three way too much in the final 8:00.
Thanks Collins mentioned fatigue as a factor late in the game. Maybe an extra schlorship bench player would have helped.
Totally agree that this was a type of game where Falzon would have been key. Or maybe Taphorn needed more minutes. I love Lumpkin's effort but in a toss up game like tonight you need to find some guys who can make a shot. Zero points by a starter does not cut it in Big 10 play. Michael Hurt of Minny came off the bench and stuck a huge three. Instead of Taphorn being in and sticking a 3, Skelly fired a three that missed the rim in a key situation. This is a game where the 4 star forwards in Falzon and Ivanauskas would have helped. Pardon made some great plays, but there were a couple of timing issues and balls that slipped out of his hands that in a couple of games he might hold on to. Totally understandable, but that comes back tobhaunt you in a tight one or two possession game. Also, Lindsey has to be be more assertive in taking the ball to the hole if his outside shot is not falling. Tough loss and now it is time to regroup and get some better offensive sets.
But we lost the game on defense, IMO. Minnesota was excellent in the second half shutting down Lindsey, Law, Tap and Mac while conceding the 3 to Skelly or Lumpkin. Skelly missed all his attempts. Good defense. A tough night shooting in the 2nd half.
Yes, set up more plays going to the basket and use that as a means of setting up the open 3. Most of the 3's tonight seemed to be contested, although many of Skelly's were open. He's usually decent from the top of the key but man he was way off tonight. We need him to play big on Sunday, I think he might be the key to a W, we'll see.
I'm the first person to shred a team, but "crap the bed" is harsh.
Let's put it this way: If I proposed a pre-game, over/under bet the Cats would shoot 14% in one half, would anybody have taken the under? NO WAY!!
Twenty percent gives them 3-15 (two more baskets) from 3 in the second half ... and a win.
That wasn't typical ("again') of NU's shooting so far this year. Just an unfortunate night.
Having said all that, as CC teams evolve, I hope they become better at recognizing "on" and "off nights."
Collins has repeatedly said he's never going to tell anyone to stop shooting. That "Finding Dory"/"Just Keep Swimming" philosophy is cute and all, but when you're talking about a matter of one or two games in a season, the lack of discipline can be a killer.
Let's put it this way: If I proposed a pre-game, over/under bet the Cats would shoot 14% in one half, would anybody have taken the under? NO WAY!!
Twenty percent gives them 3-15 (two more baskets) from 3 in the second half ... and a win.
That wasn't typical ("again') of NU's shooting so far this year. Just an unfortunate night.
Having said all that, as CC teams evolve, I hope they become better at recognizing "on" and "off nights."
Collins has repeatedly said he's never going to tell anyone to stop shooting. That "Finding Dory"/"Just Keep Swimming" philosophy is cute and all, but when you're talking about a matter of one or two games in a season, the lack of discipline can be a killer.
If somebody is to keep shooting when they have a wide open look, it becomes even more important which somebodies are on the floor at key moments. We did a lot of offense for defense substitutions in the final minute. Maybe we'll see a few more of them at other times in the game.
I don't think it had as much to do with "on and off" nights re: shooting as Minnesota's excellent defense that shut down our top shooters and conceded shots to Skelly and Lump (only 1 shot from 3). Yes, we would have been better off working the ball for 2-pointers, but that's also some tough sledding inside. This will sting for Collins because he was outcoached tonight against a team who had scouted us well and played great defense in the 2nd half, IMO. Hopefully, we rebound from this game well.
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Fatigue excuse is BS. We don't step up in clutch moments. This act gets old. When do we turn the corner here. We have a 9 man rotation. Yes it would be great if we had Ivanauskas and Falzon but this is not the reality of the situation. Very frustrating. I hope we get players in the future who take over the game in crunch time. I don't think there is that player on this current team. I hope I'm wrong
Agree. NU and Minny played the same number of guys double figure minutes. Minny is just flat out better than NU, and Pitino out coached Collins tonight.
Move on to Nebraska.
I have been an NU basketball fan for nearly 30 years now. I have so little faith that I will ever see this team in the NCAAs. We have seen last night's act soooo many times as NU fans. This team never wins these key games. We creep up to the light and then we shrink back in fear every single time. Oh well..... I guess there is a certain comfort in knowing exactly what to expect each time.
Really missing Falzon as another offensive threat against these longer BIG teams. Lumpkin's limited offensive presence has been noticeable since BIG play began.
We had trouble reversing the ball all night, which is pretty much what has made the offense click. The lack of a true pick and pop threat allowed Minny to hedge aggressively and take away our driving lanes. This was a game where Skelly needed to make them pay from deep but just couldn't get it going, we could have really used Falzon here.
The communication on D was very poor at a few points in time, leading to wide open Minny 3s. Against a team that relies on its defense before its offense, we shouldn't allow those kinds of easy looks that let's their shooters establish a rhythm.
The lack of depth is killing this team. Our bench has not shown up in big games, forcing Collins to shorten the rotation which leads to second half slumps. Either Collins needs to trust the guys on the bench to get it done, or we need to build better leads early in the first half.
At one point Collins rolled out a lineup of Ash, Law, Taphorn, Skelly and Benson I think, which promptly led to the start of a Minnesota run and forced a TO. I didn't understand why he was experimenting with an unproven lineup in a tight game like this, especially one that lacks a true ball handler; I also thought playing Scottie at the point for stretches was a bit odd. It's hard to shoulder too much blame on Collins though, with the lack of depth, he only has so many lineups he can go to which can make adjustments difficult to implement.
The communication on D was very poor at a few points in time, leading to wide open Minny 3s. Against a team that relies on its defense before its offense, we shouldn't allow those kinds of easy looks that let's their shooters establish a rhythm.
The lack of depth is killing this team. Our bench has not shown up in big games, forcing Collins to shorten the rotation which leads to second half slumps. Either Collins needs to trust the guys on the bench to get it done, or we need to build better leads early in the first half.
At one point Collins rolled out a lineup of Ash, Law, Taphorn, Skelly and Benson I think, which promptly led to the start of a Minnesota run and forced a TO. I didn't understand why he was experimenting with an unproven lineup in a tight game like this, especially one that lacks a true ball handler; I also thought playing Scottie at the point for stretches was a bit odd. It's hard to shoulder too much blame on Collins though, with the lack of depth, he only has so many lineups he can go to which can make adjustments difficult to implement.
The minutes were spread out much better with pardon back. Macintosh played 31 minutes and still looked fresh. Law was definately fatigued though and lost his legs and shot.
I thought collins did well balancing the minutes. I didnt see any fatigue at all other than Law was tired. He would be more productive if we could rest him a few more minutes.
We basically just missed shots when we needed. Thats basketball and we will be fine. We looked like a borderline tourney team playing against the potential big ten champ. Yes, minny is that good in a league of otherwise parity.
Just last week everyone was saying that Macintosh lost his shot and should be benched, but he looked solid last night.
As far as depth, it hurts us that two are out for the year, and there isnt any reason for collins to trust benson with more minutes. Unlike Pardon, Benson isnt really ready to play his freshman year. Brown saw ghost last night but he does belong and collins does have to trust him with more minutes.
I saw a tired team late in the game. Falzon would have made a difference. Still need more depth. Getting closer, but...
Collins said BMac was coming out in the second half because he was cramping up. Said his calf was cramping. So definitely not "fresh".
True and the TV guys said same. They showed him being worked on by trainer? doctor ? Also drinking Gatorade.
For my own sanity, I'm just going to expect we'll lose these games. I had a different mindset last night. Oops.
I think you guys are losing what few marbles you have.
Does anybody really think this is a top 25 team? Did anybody think this was a top 25 team before the season? Can I see a show of hands?
Well, boys, they've lost to three top 25 teams (yes, Minnesota is not ... wait until next week's poll) by a total of 10 points.
The Cats are what they are. They're a pretty good team - top 30-45 - but they have weaknesses. They are also a program that is new to winning and obviously have some challenges.
Of course they need to actually win some of these games at some point. But did anybody think this program was going to do a 180 this year?
Does anybody really think this is a top 25 team? Did anybody think this was a top 25 team before the season? Can I see a show of hands?
Well, boys, they've lost to three top 25 teams (yes, Minnesota is not ... wait until next week's poll) by a total of 10 points.
The Cats are what they are. They're a pretty good team - top 30-45 - but they have weaknesses. They are also a program that is new to winning and obviously have some challenges.
Of course they need to actually win some of these games at some point. But did anybody think this program was going to do a 180 this year?
Expectations need to be tempered. I thought all NCAA hype was way overblown (like previous Cubs World Series hype was before this past year). It's not fair to put that kind of pressure on a team still lacking a depth of playmakers. I'm going to try to enjoy the rest of the season without focusing on the end result. The team is entertaining to watch.
Well said. 10-8 is still the goal, and it's still possible. We are 1-2, these next two winnable road games (and really every conference game) will be huge to regain momentum. Now we need to go 9-6 to have a good shot.
The PSU game was a relatively comfortable win. The MSU game was a loss that we got outplayed in. This one was the first of many close games, we ended up on the wrong side of it unfortunately. We are either going to have to start getting lucky, or get good at winning those in order to reach the promised land.
I also don't think we crapped the bed last night. Minny looked like a pretty good team to me- they shot fairly well from outside, moved the ball well, had a bunch of bigs and some who could score, and played solid team defense.
1) Offensive slumps- We need to fix the stagnant periods on offense, they happen too often. We start doing the "circle" thing where we don't really push hard for the first 15-20 seconds of the shot clock, and then just settle for the high screen/roll or double screen for BMac, which works sometimes but is too inconsistent, particularly as we run into B1G teams that are more familiar with us and will overplay him as he comes around the screen.
2) Fatigue- We've accepted fatigue as an excuse against Dayton, MSU, etc... there was no foul trouble that forced a short rotation here, we had Dererk back, and we'd been off since last Friday. Fatigue is not an acceptable excuse for this one IMO, we need to figure something out.
3) Coaching criticism- I like Gavin, but he was all out of sorts last night. He was shooting terribly, also made multiple bad passes and missed a couple opportunities to hit cutters or guys down low. And I didn't think his defense was particularly great either. Dererk was the only big who really played well on D in my opinion. Given that Tap sunk a couple shots in 1H, I would have liked to see Nate get more minutes in the second half in light of Gavin's obvious struggles. They just started leaving him open, and he never made them pay. If I had to make one tactical criticism for CC on this one, that would be it.
4) Coaching compliment- On the other hand, one bit of praise for CC - I liked how when Minny was red-hot early and our man D was not working, he just started switching lineups and defenses to get them out of their rhythm. None of the changes was a permanent fix (the first time he put Ash in and gave them a bit of 3/4 court pressure, the second time he went zone for a couple possessions, and then he went with pressure once more later in the game), but they shook them out of their rhythm so that once they adjusted we were able to switch back to our base man to man and be a bit more effective.
Let's bounce back, no cause to give up hope yet but we've made the hill a good bit steeper.
Actually, after whipping Minny twice last season, NU did a 180 last night......
Not like Law shot the ball well either (tho did make 2 threes); went 4 of 12, the same as Lindsey.
The 'Cats are not going to win too many games when 2 of their Big 3 are not shooting well.
But give credit to Minny's athleticism and length; Neb isn't as athletic or long as Minny and Lindsey and Law ended up shooting the ball better.
Yes, but Minnesota is VERY much improved with maturity, and some great young freshman and transfers. They've gone from the bottom of the league to a tourney caliber team in one year, IMO. Several announcers have called them the most improved team in the country.
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