That had to be the most disjointed offensive performance I've seen from an NU team in a long time. Lots of aimless dribbling, and deep contested 3's. What happened to running an actual offense? I am very disappointed in tonight's result, really expected this team would put together a solid game after that come from behind victory on Sunday. Got what they deserved though, Iowa played much, much better, and NU's outside shooting was atrocious. NU's defense wasn't up to par either so they earned this loss on both ends.
No flow to the offense, whatsoever
- Thread starter MCC_Cat
- Start date
This times infinity. How in the world do we not run everything thru pardon? Collins should takenguts our if they shoot before pardon touches the ball. Taylor is an absolute bust.
Glad we have Collins locked in thru 2025
Totally agree. I love Vic, but we should not be using him as a lead guard and giving him the ball at half court to open possessions. Turner is better in that role, but not much. We need to consider playing Greer more and let him work through standard freshman issues.
Greer is not a panacea and I wish people would stop framing it this way. A lineup of Turner, Taylor, Law, Gaines and Pardon would do just fine if they committed to cutting hard and making crisp passes. They just get lulled into dribbling around for a long time — perhaps fatigue from executing the press break?
I think Vic hurt himself with a couple other players tonight by holding the ball too long. Been watching it creep up last couple games and it happened big time tonight. He makes the shots and all is well. But others had hotter hands and he didn't move it around. And he missed shots. Unfortunate.
Believe me, I am not saying Greer is a panacea. He is raw and has a ton of freshman mistakes that he would need to work through. I just think we need someone who will distribute the ball, and Greer has flashed that at times. The current primary lineup just dribbles around and takes jump shots.
Vic struggled today. That is going to happen. The disappointing thing was no one else even attempted to pick up the slack in the last 10 minutes. Kept deferring to Vic. Gaines is tough as nails, but he can’t carry an offense. What he can do is draw some fouls and get some attention away from Vic if he drives. Turner is pretty good going to the hole and needs to do so more as well. We made it too easy on their D and too easy on the Ref’s.
He's in his fifth year at NU so they're gonna defer. It's his job to involve them. Overdribbling and elevating for a high difficulty shot because you're pressing doesn't get them involved.
I'm Law's biggest fan, just concerned right now at how this is trending.
Well CCC needs to tell him to keep everyone involved then. The last two game have had Vic trying to do too much and we were lucky to beat the Fighting Undies because of it. You know, we love you Vic, but if they double you, find the open man. His teammates should have enough of his respect to demand the ball if they are wide open too. There are no Freshman on the floor. These are guys that have been in the program for a few years.
But the thing is, we've seen this from the very onset.
Remember Demps aimlessly dribbling around before letting loose a contested 3 (at least Demps made a # of them at key moments)?
We even saw that all too often w/ BMac, an actual PG (his letting the clock run down too much drove me nuts).
This is a big reason why the O under CC has been really poor when it has come to efficiency and things need to change (right now, I'd take just being average in that respect).
What did you think of how NU played defense and rebounded before Collins arrived?
I don't get the Greer love at all. The offense came to a halt when he was out there. He is not athletic or big and he doesn't shoot the 3 well at all and he usually gets beaten pretty badly on the defensive end. I'm not sure why people think he should play more.
I understand he is not the easy answer to all our problems. But he has flashed the ability to distribute the ball and make some nice interior feeds for easy baskets.
That was really ugly.
NU’s practice effort is focused disproportionately on defense. The offense has never had a flow. As @willycat pointed, it’s the opposite priority we saw for the previous decade.
Sometimes the threes and the floaters and the bailout jumpers and the free throws fall (on the occasion the fouls are drawn), and other times you realize that there isn’t really much plan.
All that said, screw it, I want Vic to play for the scoring title.
NU’s practice effort is focused disproportionately on defense. The offense has never had a flow. As @willycat pointed, it’s the opposite priority we saw for the previous decade.
Sometimes the threes and the floaters and the bailout jumpers and the free throws fall (on the occasion the fouls are drawn), and other times you realize that there isn’t really much plan.
All that said, screw it, I want Vic to play for the scoring title.
I don't get this no flow thing. The offense is very standardized when they aren't running a specific play. The A plan is basically weave until it disrupts the defense enough for a shooter to get open, get the ball to them, they shoot. The B plan is the pick and roll open folded into part of the weave to disrupt the defense.
Just like Iowa's A plan was dribble back and forth in front of #55 until he could box out Pardon/Benson and open up an uncontested shot or layup and then position himself for an offensive rebound.
On a side note, we'd have a lot more success with layups if the guys were better at not telegraphing their intent to pass to the cutter along the baseline. AJ and Gaines are both decent at getting a step on their defending and being wide open as they pass under the hoop.
Just like Iowa's A plan was dribble back and forth in front of #55 until he could box out Pardon/Benson and open up an uncontested shot or layup and then position himself for an offensive rebound.
On a side note, we'd have a lot more success with layups if the guys were better at not telegraphing their intent to pass to the cutter along the baseline. AJ and Gaines are both decent at getting a step on their defending and being wide open as they pass under the hoop.