Well, the Franz playing PG experiment was short lived. Eli did not have his best game at either end, giving up the dribble drive too easily and sloppy floor game. Williams was pretty bad, too, looking for his points and taking bad shots. Beyond that, we had a nice team effort, lead by Dickinson once again. Cleaned up the dribble drives at the rim and dominated the rebounding.
Nebraska focused a lot of attention on Hunter on post ups, gambling that he would make mistakes or we would miss perimeter shots that doubling and tripling him and sagging in would produce. In the first half, we obliged with 4-17 on wide open threes. But Hunter was steady with the ball. And, even with our poor shooting and an insane first half by Allen, we still lead 36-34 at the half. Allen did much of his damage with Eli on him. Once we switched to Brown and then Franz on him, he was limited to a desperation banked in three and not much else. He made some tough shots throughout - it wasn't all bad defense; Eli was too small to stop him.
The key to the second half was Livers shaking off his first half slump and draining a few threes. He played a great half of basketball, including a beautiful assist to Franz. And Franz had his best game of the season. Some of the running shots that he makes seem difficult, but he makes it look easy. I'll be thinking that he doesn't quite have the angle, but he gets the ball in the hoop somehow. He also hit a couple of threes, a needed boost to his confidence. Franz was super on defense. He clamped down Allen, deflected passes, and cleaned up most of the rebounds that Hunter didn't get. I like that he doesn't freeze in place when a shot goes up but continues to crash the glass.
A key to this game was to cut them off in transition. So we gave no effort on the offensive glass as we hustled back on D. Their best hope was to turn our misses and turnovers into points. They could not. They had their best second half stretch starting when Franz was playing point and continuing on for a few minutes. I believe that we had 5 or 6 empty possessions that allowed them to close it to 5. Smith made a couple of big shots and a sweet assist to stem the tide. After that the game was 8 to a dozen or so. Never that comfortable, but never too worried. As the color guy said, Smith was in control and gave us what we need from him. He has what we call "burst" with running backs. Squirts through, draws the D and makes the pass, either inside or to a shooter.
Johns didn't get much run, just enough to give Hunter a rest. He didn't anything great nor bad. Brown didn't get huge minutes, but he made the most of them. His defense was much needed. One of two on threes, offensive rebound put back. No bad turnovers or mistakes. With Franz playing well, his minutes will shrink a bit, but there will be games where he plays a lot due to foul trouble or someone just not performing. He's incredibly valuable coming off the bench.
Juwan is making strides as a coach and putting his imprint on the team and the program. I think that we will improve and gel as the season progresses. I was worried that the long layoff would hurt us, but we were prepared and, other than a slow start, did not look out of sync. Even though Nebraska is not good, it was a nice road W.
Nebraska focused a lot of attention on Hunter on post ups, gambling that he would make mistakes or we would miss perimeter shots that doubling and tripling him and sagging in would produce. In the first half, we obliged with 4-17 on wide open threes. But Hunter was steady with the ball. And, even with our poor shooting and an insane first half by Allen, we still lead 36-34 at the half. Allen did much of his damage with Eli on him. Once we switched to Brown and then Franz on him, he was limited to a desperation banked in three and not much else. He made some tough shots throughout - it wasn't all bad defense; Eli was too small to stop him.
The key to the second half was Livers shaking off his first half slump and draining a few threes. He played a great half of basketball, including a beautiful assist to Franz. And Franz had his best game of the season. Some of the running shots that he makes seem difficult, but he makes it look easy. I'll be thinking that he doesn't quite have the angle, but he gets the ball in the hoop somehow. He also hit a couple of threes, a needed boost to his confidence. Franz was super on defense. He clamped down Allen, deflected passes, and cleaned up most of the rebounds that Hunter didn't get. I like that he doesn't freeze in place when a shot goes up but continues to crash the glass.
A key to this game was to cut them off in transition. So we gave no effort on the offensive glass as we hustled back on D. Their best hope was to turn our misses and turnovers into points. They could not. They had their best second half stretch starting when Franz was playing point and continuing on for a few minutes. I believe that we had 5 or 6 empty possessions that allowed them to close it to 5. Smith made a couple of big shots and a sweet assist to stem the tide. After that the game was 8 to a dozen or so. Never that comfortable, but never too worried. As the color guy said, Smith was in control and gave us what we need from him. He has what we call "burst" with running backs. Squirts through, draws the D and makes the pass, either inside or to a shooter.
Johns didn't get much run, just enough to give Hunter a rest. He didn't anything great nor bad. Brown didn't get huge minutes, but he made the most of them. His defense was much needed. One of two on threes, offensive rebound put back. No bad turnovers or mistakes. With Franz playing well, his minutes will shrink a bit, but there will be games where he plays a lot due to foul trouble or someone just not performing. He's incredibly valuable coming off the bench.
Juwan is making strides as a coach and putting his imprint on the team and the program. I think that we will improve and gel as the season progresses. I was worried that the long layoff would hurt us, but we were prepared and, other than a slow start, did not look out of sync. Even though Nebraska is not good, it was a nice road W.
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