Where did I say Pitino would have taken the Nebraska job?
In hindsight I think Lawrence and Allick were the most important missing pieces from last year. The athleticism we lost from those two was not replaced. I hope Fred can address that in next year's roster.
And mast. Then throw in keyce on 3s and Hoiberg off the bench they were gritty because they were all role players
It's apples to oranges. St John's has in fact had basketball success in the past. I don't think it's making excuses for Fred to point out that we've never had much success nationally in basketball whereas St. John's and Pitino both have. I'm not sure what you hope to gain by this exercise. We're pot committed to Fred for at least one if not two years. If at some point our AD decides to change horses that's fine but until that time I'm not going to call for Fred's head.
Based on recent interviews, Pitino said he would have taken the first power conference job he got offered. After everything that what happened at Louisville, he didn’t think he’d ever get another chance.
I'll take your word for it. Well then unfortunately for us, we didn't have a coaching opening and Fred was just B1G coach of the year last year. Timing is everything in life.
there is no doubt that we miss Allick's and Kesei's attitudes. Those guys played their balls off.
He took the Iona job because it was the only one offered to him. You think he was pining to coach at powerhouse Iona?
Maybe Creighton would have hired him with his baggage. He needed a rehab stint somewhere. It's not surprising that a Catholic university hired him I guess.
I don't know if you're an idiot or not, but this take is sure idiotic. Fred and Essegian both suck. I hope they can find basketball Jesus and turn their careers around, but I have huge doubts that's gonna happen.
Essegian needs to be put in a position where he can spot up to shoot without trying to force long threes running around screens. Part of Essegian’s problem was a lack of other offensive weapons that defenses had to respect. I believe Essegian can be effective going forward if we have more than one other perimeter shooter on the floor with him. I don’t remember many times where we had Essegian on the floor without Rollie being at the point. You really need at least 3 3 point threats on the floor and we rarely did.
So, you want 3 - 3 point shooters and one of them can't come off a screen and only has a limited range and must spot up with no one around him? When was the last time Nebraska had 3 reliable 3 point shooters?
I would say last year with Tominaga, Williams, Mast, Wilcher and Lawrence you had 5. All of them had over 100 attempts (Keisei had over 200) and all but Mast were well over 35% shooters, Mast was at 34%. This year it was only Williams and Essegian with over 100 attempts and better than 35%. Gary had 100 attempts but was only 31%.
Other winning B1G programs we played often had 3 guys on the floor who could drain 3. Last year we had Mast, Kesei, Brice and Hoiberg who could all shoot from deep. This year Hoiberg was leading the team in 3 pt percentage. Unfortunately we didn't or couldn't play Essegian, Brice and Sam at the same time and Gary had too many games where he couldn't hit a shot. Berke was supposed to be a threat from 3 but that largely didn't pan out.
Yeah I forgot about Wilcher. He was inconsistent but when he was hot he was money.
Essegian wasn't quick enough to guard some of the guards we saw in the B1G. It was just a matter of who he ended up matched up with. We faced some really quick and good guard tandems this year in the B1G who really all of our guards struggled to cover.
Good take. Essegian’s lack of productivity (offense and defense) really hurt us this year. If he shows up the way he was advertised we likely win 2-3 more games.
2-3 more 3s per game and we’re probably in the dance…..only to lose in the first game.
