B1G Game 10: Gophers Host Nebraska (1-30-20)

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Ignatius L Hoops

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Slumping Away From Bloomington​

Nebraska (5-4) opened the B1G season with an apparent statement win over Iowa. It remains the Hawkeyes only blemish in conference play. Then things went a little sideways for the Huskers with an overtime loss at Michigan State. In the season’s third game, Nebraska looked back on track defeating Minnesota (2-7) in Lincoln 72-68.

Before the first match-up every Gopher fan anticipated the same problem: Kate Cain. And, indeed, Cain finished with a game high 19 points and 15 rebounds in 34 minutes. Her opposite, Taiye Bello, finished with 16 points and five rebounds before fouling out in 30 minutes of play. Close; but not close enough. Advantage Huskers.

With the Huskers visiting Williams Arena on Thursday night there’s some good news. Kate Cain is in a slump. Her last five games:

TeamPtsRebAMin
Rutgers07325
Maryland08333
Michigan86030
Purdue42023
Wisconsin119133


However, hard driving, contact seeking, 6’1” Sophomore forward Leigha Brown has picked up some of the slack. Coming off the bench, her aggressiveness gets her to the line in conference play far more than any other Husker. Brown is 38-50 (.760) from the stripe. Stats from her last five games:


TeamPtsRebAMin
Rutgers92222
Maryland192024
Michigan103226
Purdue102329
Wisconsin204126


Naturally, we must not forget stat sheet filler Sam Haiby and the occasional instant offense provider Hannah Whitish. They were 8 of 13 from three in the victory over Minnesota and both hit late threes helping to douse a Gopher rally. (Nebraska was 10-19 from behind the arc while the Gophers were only 5-18). Minnesota had a terrible shooting day hitting only 23-73 (.315) from the field. Pitts, 12 points, and Hubbard 10 were the only Gophers joining Taiye Bello in double figures.

Road Woes

However, Nebraska have proven to be poor road warriors. The Huskers lost their first three road games to Michigan State, Rutgers and Maryland before pulling out a 72-71 win at Wisconsin last Sunday. The struggling Huskers trailed the Badgers 59-49 with 9:00 minutes left before roaring back to take a 67-65 advantage with 2:38 remaining. Wisconsin’s Imani Lewis nailed a three with 1:29 left giving the Badgers a one point lead. But Ashtyn Veerbeek responded with a three :26 seconds later and Haiby closed out a Husker victory with a couple of free throws. Brown led Nebraska with 20 points while Cain, Haiby and Veerbeek each scored 11.

Harder than it Appears

Before the trip to Wisconsin, Nebraska surprisingly lost to Purdue in Lincoln. Sharon Versyp obviously decided to address Nebraska’s height by starting the 6’4” Fatou Diague in place of the 6’1” Ae’Rianna Harris. After a foul and a turnover, Diague was quickly replace by 6’4” Rickie Woltman. After a foul by Woltman, Harris was quickly subbed in at around the 6:00 minute mark of the first quarter. Then Ae’Rianna Harris took over the game. Harris led all scorers with 25 points going 10-12 from the field and grabbing 9 rebounds in 33 minutes. Coaching is a wonderful thing and Purdue won 76-68. Diague played 12 minutes and Woltman 3. Who says you need to go big against Nebraska?

Of course, that’s not the whole story. With 5:18 remaining in the second quarter a Harris layup gave Purdue a 39-18 lead. It looked like a rout. But Nebraska, aided by a couple of three pointers, cut the margin to 39-29 at the half. The Huskers rally continued in the third quarter closing within four 54-50 entering the fourth. At the 4:30 mark of the fourth Nebraska took a 63-59 lead on a Nicea Eliely three pointer. Staying focused, Purdue led by Harris, Oden (14 points) and McLaughlin (19) took back control. Nebraska was led by Eliely 15 points, Veerbeek 13, Haiby 10 and Brown 10.

The First Half of the B1G Season Ended in Bloomington; the Second Half Begins in Minneapolis

In the Indiana post-game interview, Whalen was non-committal regarding her starting lineup for Nebraska. No matter who starts, I’m assuming Taiye Bello will see the ball early and often in the first quarter. It’s become our signature offense-such as it is. Can she conjure an Ae’Rianna Harris like performance? With the season dragging to a close, someone needs to step up and deliver an opening salvo, it may as well be Taiye. End the SLUMP!


B1G Wins: Iowa 78-69, Minnesota 72-68, Wisconsin 65-50, Michigan 74-71 and @ Wisconsin 72-71

B1G Losses: @ Michigan State 70-78 (OT), @ Rutgers 65-69, @ Maryland 69-87 and Purdue 68-76.


Probable Starters (B1G Stats):

HGTPOSYRPLAYERMINAVGREB
5’9”GSoSam Haiby27.212.04.8
6’1”GSrNicea Eliely29.110.63.1
5’9”GSrHannah Whitish30.810.32.9
6’5”CJrKate Cain29.68.28.9
6’2”FSoAshtyn Veerbeek23.47.73.3


Bench (B1G Stats):

HGTPOSYRPLAYERMINAVGREB
6’1”FSoLeigha Brown26.412.33.3
6’2”FFrIsabelle Bourne17.46.35.0
5’11”GFrTrinity Braday8.01.71.1
5’5”GSrKristian Hudson3.31.00.0
6’3”FSoKyla Merson7.31.01.3
 

> In the Indiana post-game interview, Whalen was non-committal regarding her starting lineup for Nebraska.

I’ll volunteer to be assistant coach for a day, and submit my own proposed starting lineup for consideration by Whalen:

Jasmine Brunson (PG = 1)
Jasmine Powell (PG = 1)
Sara Scalia (SG = 2)
Taiye Bello (PF = 4)
Kehinde Bello (PF = 4)

Thus, the suggestion is to run a 1-1-2-4-4 lineup against a 1-2-3-4-5 Nebraska lineup. We have no healthy true center, apparently, so we’re stuck with running a 4-4 against their 4-5 of Veerbeek and Cain.

Last time out, Cain was stuffing us left and right, so the whole team (and especially Taiye) will need to use good shoot/not-shoot judgement when going against Cain, and perhaps adjust shots to earlier floater or fade-away or hook.

One post will simply not suffice against Nebraska. Taiye can’t defend all of 6’5” Cain plus 6’2” Veerbeek plus 6’1” Eliely at once, and the guards are just too short to defend them. We’ll need to run a double-post system between 50% to 75% of the time, depending on how it goes. Leaving us with 25% to maybe as much as 50% of the time in small ball. Hopefully we can spend enough time in small ball to be a little more agile and have extra three-point opportunities. But we need to start out by preventing them from just racking up points due to their height.

Tomancova shot badly at Indiana. She gets to sit, and sub for the Bellos.

Kehinde gets the start. At Indiana, she got two blocks in 5 minutes, and otherwise did no harm. The way this team is playing lately, doing no harm is enough to get a start, since “doing harm” is what’s killing us.

Not sure about Sconiers status - haven’t seen her lately, so guessing she might be injured, but hope not.

Kehinde must defend Cain when in a woman-to-woman D. And block her out on shots to let Taiye go to work on the boards, unmolested by Cain. Also, Kehinde must absorb the bulk of the fouls while defending Cain. No offense Kehinde, but we might survive you fouling out, but Taiye fouling out puts us in dire straights.

Hubbard gets to sit and watch initially and thus be more informed about what’s goin on when she comes in. She shot .125 at Indiana, so she earned the rest. Hopefully she won’t have bad body language while sitting.

We definitely need to start double point guards. This will help us start the game in attack mode. Let’s leverage the one feature we had in the Indiana game that scared the ever-lovin crap out of Teri Moren.

In fact, start the game with both Bellos spotted at left/right short corner three positions (they swoop in from there both for rebounds and when a play is called for them), and Scalia on the wing. The half-court wide open. Let’s have some two-on-two point guard play! You think our guards can take their guards? We’ll see. If nothing else, it will give the Nebraska guards a real WTF moment, and probably waste a Nebraska timeout.

In any event, the essentials are: point guards (whether two, or one in at any given time, since Masha and Diva will obviously have to sub in for the extra point guard much of the time) attacking the paint; double posts much of the time (we have to hold our breath and just go with it, cuz small ball all game will just not cut it); and posts playing either wide or in a high/low in order to try to keep Cain far enough away from our point guards working the paint that they don’t get blocked all the time.

It’s pretty radical relative to our usual boring (and easily defendable) offense. But radical is probably what we need right now.
 
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CutDownTheNet said:
> In the Indiana post-game interview, Whalen was non-committal regarding her starting lineup for Nebraska.

I’ll volunteer to be assistant coach for a day, and submit my own proposed starting lineup for consideration by Whalen:

Jasmine Brunson (PG = 1)
Jasmine Powell (PG = 1)
Sara Scalia (SG = 2)
Taiye Bello (PF = 4)
Kehinde Bello (PF = 4)

Thus, the suggestion is to run a 1-1-2-4-4 lineup against a 1-2-3-4-5 Nebraska lineup. We have no healthy true center, apparently, so we’re stuck with running a 4-4 against their 4-5 of Veerbeek and Cain.

Last time out, Cain was stuffing us left and right, so the whole team (and especially Taiye) will need to use good shoot/not-shoot judgement when going against Cain, and perhaps adjust shots to earlier floater or fade-away or hook.

One post will simply not suffice against Nebraska. Taiye can’t defend all of 6’5” Cain plus 6’2” Veerbeek plus 6’1” Eliely at once, and the guards are just too short to defend them. We’ll need to run a double-post system between 50% to 75% of the time, depending on how it goes. Leaving us with 25% to maybe as much as 50% of the time in small ball. Hopefully we can spend enough time in small ball to be a little more agile and have extra three-point opportunities. But we need to start out by preventing them from just racking up points due to their height.

Tomancova shot badly at Indiana. She gets to sit, and sub for the Bellos.

Kehinde gets the start. At Indiana, she got two blocks in 5 minutes, and otherwise did no harm. The way this team is playing lately, doing no harm is enough to get a start, since “doing harm” is what’s killing us.

Not sure about Sconiers status - haven’t seen her lately, so guessing she might be injured, but hope not.

Kehinde must defend Cain when in a woman-to-woman D. And block her out on shots to let Taiye go to work on the boards, unmolested by Cain. Also, Kehinde must absorb the bulk of the fouls while defending Cain. No offense Kehinde, but we might survive you fouling out, but Taiye fouling out puts us in dire straights.

Hubbard gets to sit and watch initially and thus be more informed about what’s goin on when she comes in. She shot .125 at Indiana, so she earned the rest. Hopefully she won’t have bad body language while sitting.

We definitely need to start double point guards. This will help us start the game in attack mode. Let’s leverage the one feature we had in the Indiana game that scared the ever-lovin crap out of Teri Moren.

In fact, start the game with both Bellos spotted at left/right short corner three positions (they swoop in from there both for rebounds and when a play is called for them), and Scalia on the wing. The half-court wide open. Let’s have some two-on-two point guard play! You think our guards can take their guards? We’ll see. If nothing else, it will give the Nebraska guards a real WTF moment, and probably waste a Nebraska timeout.

In any event, the essentials are: point guards (whether two, or one in at any given time, since Masha and Diva will obviously have to sub in for the extra point guard much of the time) attacking the paint; double posts much of the time (we have to hold our breath and just go with it, cuz small ball all game will just not cut it); and posts playing either wide or in a high/low in order to try to keep Cain far enough away from our point guards working the paint that they don’t get blocked all the time.

It’s pretty radical relative to our usual boring (and easily defendable) offense. But radical is probably what we need right now.
Click to expand...
I totally agree. Diva hasn't been herself lately.
 

Don't forget that the Gopher volleyball team will be honored for their Final Four run at the Nebraska game!
 

fanfromthevalley said:
Don't forget that the Gopher volleyball team will be honored for their Final Four run at the Nebraska game!
Click to expand...
With the volleyball team feeling real good about being honored at halftime, perhaps we could persuade some of the taller players to play two sports (e.g., basketball and volleyball).

Maybe some graduating seniors have a light class load and are bored. Although only 6’0”, both Lexi Hart and TayMo sky like they’re 6’6”. And their tuition is already paid for. Care to play a couple months of basketball, Taylor and Alexis?

Or maybe some other VB players just want to keep in shape during the off season. We could use a true center, like a 6’5” one would be ideal. How bout it, Regan Pittman and Shea Rubright?
 


CutDownTheNet said:
Maybe some graduating seniors have a light class load and are bored. Although only 6’0”, both Lexi Hart and TayMo sky like they’re 6’6”. And their tuition is already paid for. Care to play a couple months of basketball, Taylor and Alexis?
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Hart is playing professionally in Finland.
 

Free Day

Gophers, show your id for a free T-shirt.

Huskers, show your id for free undefended points.
 
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Amy Williams needs to figure out how to get the officials to ignore that Cain is out there at all. Refs refuse to call her for numerous fouls yet shockingly give taiye 2.

also loved that when gophers took 8-6 lead it instantly led to 3 straight fouls on Gophers.. so much for any home court calls...ever
 

At least we are keeping pace. 57-56 with 6 minutes to go in the 4th. They appear to be working hard. Be nice if more of their shots would drop.
 




Can't wait to see how the Gophers lose this game!

EDIT: GOPHERS WIN! IT'S A MIRACLE! SCHEDULE THE PARADE!
 

Nice to get revenge on Nebraska. Great games by Powell & Brunson!
 

Is the monkey off their back momentarily? MN wins for first time at home in B1G play.
 



Loved the defensive effort in the second half. Yes, Powell and Brunson were terrific. Looks to me like Powell was more of a "take charge" player tonight. Nice to see from a freshman point. She also played good D and got some rebounds.
 

tripledouble said:
Loved the defensive effort in the second half. Yes, Powell and Brunson were terrific. Looks to me like Powell was more of a "take charge" player tonight. Nice to see from a freshman point. She also played good D and got some rebounds.
Click to expand...
Yes, I think I posted last game that it felt no one was leading on the court. Powell step up and took on that role. Impressive for a freshman. Way to go Gophers, now get on a roll.
 

Fantastic 2nd half, Powell and Brunson made some big time plays down the stretch. Go beat Rutgers and Wisconsin now.
 

This win is exactly what the doctor ordered! They've got two more homestands and an away game against Wisconsin. Wins in these games go a long way for confidence building. Win two more and they are well on their way.

Freshmen Scalia and Powell are going to be great. I sure hope that the other Freshmen Sconiers, Cumming, Ross, and RS Freshman Tomancova get some playing time this season going into next year. They are going to be a very young team. They've got Sissoko who sat out this season and three awesome looking incoming Freshmen next year. Hubbard will be the lone Senior.
 


Hubbard has yet another game making her the prime choice to get benched in favor of a post player.
 

A BIG thanks to Masha Adashchyk for her defense on Brown. She bodied up and made it a struggle for Brown. Pretty much kept Scalia on the bench even though we could've used Sara's shooting.

Amy Williams seemed somewhat frozen on what to do when the Gophers made their big run to get back in the game and their small run to take the lead.

One Note: Tomancova was not out for warmups; but did sit on the bench in the first half. I didn't see Barbora in the second half. I't appeared her right calf was wrapped.
 


Ignatius L Hoops said:
A BIG thanks to Masha Adashchyk for her defense on Brown. She bodied up and made it a struggle for Brown. Pretty much kept Scalia on the bench even though we could've used Sara's shooting.

Amy Williams seemed somewhat frozen on what to do when the Gophers made their big run to get back in the game and their small run to take the lead.

One Note: Tomancova was not out for warmups; but did sit on the bench in the first half. I didn't see Barbora in the second half. I't appeared her right calf was wrapped.
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Adashchyk was great on defense especially late in the game but I also thought this was one of Powell’s defensive games. Hoping Diva shoots her way out of a slump, be nice to get her hot again.
 

Ignatius L Hoops said:
A BIG thanks to Masha Adashchyk for her defense on Brown. She bodied up and made it a struggle for Brown. Pretty much kept Scalia on the bench even though we could've used Sara's shooting.

Amy Williams seemed somewhat frozen on what to do when the Gophers made their big run to get back in the game and their small run to take the lead.

One Note: Tomancova was not out for warmups; but did sit on the bench in the first half. I didn't see Barbora in the second half. I't appeared her right calf was wrapped.
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I wasn't watching the Gopher bench while Scalia sat out. During the closing time outs, she hung back and didn't engage with teammates as we closed out NE. Hope this doesn't turn into another issue.
 

Katogopher said:
Adashchyk was great on defense especially late in the game but I also thought this was one of Powell’s defensive games. Hoping Diva shoots her way out of a slump, be nice to get her hot again.
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Hubbard plays hard on defense. But can't seem to hit the threes and gets killed when she tries to go inside (or draws an offensive). Hopefully, she will find her game.
 

Loved the effort from Masha. She plays hard. Hubbard does better in transition. She's not giving them much now. The effort is there, but she's not hitting shots. Brunson is a solid player.
 

Whytetale said:
I wasn't watching the Gopher bench while Scalia sat out. During the closing time outs, she hung back and didn't engage with teammates as we closed out NE. Hope this doesn't turn into another issue.
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That's true, she seemed a little unsure of what to do. It's had to be several years since she was on the bench during crunch time.

Whalen pulled a few players after some bad plays. Powell got subbed out in the first half after she no looked the ball to a Husker on fast break. And Adashchyk was pulled for a little while after she took a couple of silly shots in the second half. But they both came back strong.
 

MInutes Played and +/-

37:31 Powell +14
37:11 Brunson +3
33:47 Hubbard +4
33:22 T Bello +14
27:09 Scalia -1
19:07 Adashchyk +9
11:53 K Bello -7

Leigha Brown scored 13 points (5-9 from the field and 3-3 from the line) in the first half and 2 points (1-7 from the field and no foul shots)
 

> At least we are keeping pace. 57-56 with 6 minutes to go in the 4th. They appear to be working hard.

> Powell is having a great game. MN up 65-61 with 46 seconds to go.

That 8 to 5 run was crucial in creating the win.

> Nice to get revenge on Nebraska. Great games by Powell & Brunson!

> ... Yes, Powell and Brunson were terrific.

> ... Powell and Brunson made some big time plays down the stretch.

35 points (Powell 19 + Brunson 16) from the Jasmines. 7 rebounds for Powell. She sure skies for 5’6”! 6 assists and only 2 turnovers for Brunson. Together, the two PGs plus Hubbard go 13 assists and 6 turnovers. For the whole team, 14 assists and 12 turnovers. Compare that to ...

Gophers in Indiana game: 5 assists and 12 turnovers
Nebraska in this game: 12 assists and 22 turnovers.

> Loved the defensive effort in the second half.

Also 14 steals by the Gophers = 5 by Brunson, 4 by Powell, and 1 each by everyone else who played. After weak Gopher defense in the first half, in the second half Minnesota brought the D (especially in the closing minutes) and got back to its signature defense+steals game. It made all the difference.

Besides assists and a steal, Hubbard with a pair of rebounds, and a solid 3-4 from the free-throw line. But another 1-8 on field goals, so yes, Diva needs to get in some shooting reps to shoot herself out of a slump.

Taiye “double-double” Bello was, well, herself. 13 points and 10 rebounds = her 10th double-double In 20 games this season. She gave Cain some payback for the last game by holding her to 4 points and 6 rebounds. Good thing, too, since Nebraska is generally taller than us and has its rebounds (41 of em) spread fairly evenly among 8 players (plus Team); whereas Minnesota had rebounds (35 of em - yeah, we somehow won without winning the rebound battle) spread lopsidedly among 6 players (plus Team) with Taiye 10, Powell 7, and Kehinde 6 boards in only 12 minutes of play (one every 2 minutes of playing time). The latter is on-pace for a 20-rebound game by Kehinde if she had played a full 40-minute game (well, minus a couple rebounds that she would have battled her sister for, if they had played Double Twin posts the entire game).

Looking at it from one angle (namely, taking the great play in this game by Powell, Brunson, Taiye, Scalia, Masha and Diva as a given), Kehinde is the unsung hero, since all other factors held equal, Kehinde’s 6 rebounds are the difference-maker that wins the game.

Also, we somehow won while losing the blocking battle 10 (Cain 6, Bourne 3, Veerbeek 1) to 1 (Taiye). These blocks were mostly against Gophers not named Taiye (I guess she had her fill at the Nebraska away game, and largely said “no thank you” this time around).

> Kent Youngblood: Huskers had 20 fast-Break points in the first half. Zero in the second. That pretty much tells the story of this game.

Whatever Whalen said at half-time, she needs to can that in a bottle and bring it out before every half from now on.

Here’s the story in numbers. First half, Huskers outscore Gophers 39-30 (delta = -9 for Gophers). Second half, Gophers outscore Huskers 37-22 (delta = +15 for Gophers). Bump in Gopher scoring delta from 1st half to 2nd half was 15 - (-9) = +24 points. 20 of that 24 was shutting down their fast break game in the 2nd half, as per Kent. Enough for a one point win on paper, but it would have been down to us making our free-throws.

> An actual play set that resulted in Powell’s killer three.

A little bit of “we can do this” extra hard work gave us another 4 points for a more comfortable margin, and the win. 3 of those padding points came from that dagger play shown in the video.

We need to practice a small arsenal of dagger plays for the future.

Is it my imagination, or are Powell and Masha shooting threes now about twice as good as they were at the start of the season? Brunson a much improved trey shooter versus last year, as well.

> Tomancova was not out for warmups ... It appeared her right calf was wrapped.

However, Justice Ross was suited up and out for warmups. Not sure if that’s the first time in warmups for her, but in any event, nice to have a little more bench depth available in the form of a small forward. Welcome, Justice. Hope you can help us bring some justice and revenge to other Big Ten teams.
 
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Justice Ross has participated in pre-game warm-ups for several weeks; but I doubt we'll see her in a game. Sconiers also participates in warm-ups but it doesn't look like she's going to play either.
 

journalstar.com

'That’s just not going to get it done': Turnovers costly for Nebraska women in loss against Minnesota

An uncharacteristic amount of turnovers plagued the Huskers in a head-scratching loss against the Golden Gophers.
journalstar.com journalstar.com

Amy Williams reacts to a game where the Huskers had 22 turnovers to Minnesota's 12 and 8 steals to Minnesota's 14.

Amy Williams:

Husker coach Amy Williams said all the turnovers took away Nebraska’s chances to win.

“It’s certainly not what we pride ourselves in with Husker basketball,” said Williams on the Husker Sports Network. “With 12 assists and 22 turnovers, that’s just not going to get it done. Credit to Minnesota’s defense. I thought they had a good defensive game plan, but we really did not handle pressure. We started trying to go one-on-one and make things happen ourselves and it led to a lot of uncharacteristic turnovers.”
Click to expand...

“Minnesota got really physical with us,” Williams said. “They denied and took passes away and got up and pressured us hard, and we just didn’t handle that very well at all.”
Click to expand...
 

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