Notes and Quotes - Samford

Notes:

*-Nebraska falls to 18-4 in non-conference games since Pinnacle Bank Arena opened in 2013 and falls to 9-2 all-time against the Southern Conference.
*-Andrew White III recorded his second double-double of the year with 17 points and a career-high 11 rebounds. His previous best was 10 rebounds against Creighton on Dec. 9
*-Shavon Shields posted his fourth 20-point effort of the year and 18th of his career with 25 points. Shields also jumped from 14th to 12th on NU’s career scoring list as he now has 1,320 career points. 
 *-Nebraska shot a season-low .500 from the foul line on Sunday, going 10-of-20 from the charity stripe. NU’s previous season low was .593 (16-of-23) against Tennessee on Nov. 28.

Nebraska Head Coach Tim Miles

 Opening Statement

“First of all, I congratulate Samford. I thought they did a lot of things right. I thought they played well. They used their press to shorten our half-court offense, which, I thought, kept us out of rhythm and (Samford Coach) Scott (Padgett) had them in their system and it worked well for them. I don’t know – I have to check – our charges, we had six charges, I think. Whether that be great defensive play by them or bang-bang plays, so it could go either way, or if that’s selfish play by us and we wanted it easy, so we just saw the drive, took it, and then the second-line defense ends up – and a good team has a good second-line defense – stands up and takes a charge, then that’s on us. That’s just selfish basketball, and I just don’t know if I had them in the mode to ‘self-correct’ enough. I thought the warmth of competition would get us there. We talked about things. We addressed errors. To have 17 errors, and really, the press was minimal, maybe a five-second count. Even Glynn (Watson Jr.’s) pass down the sidelines wasn’t really even close, it was just a bad decision. Nobody stepped up to help Andrew (White III) and Shavon (Shields). I mean, we go 4-20 with 12 turnovers from the rest of the guys, and that won’t cut it against anybody.”

On the lack of production beyond Shavon Shields and Andrew White III

“It looked like we were a little tentative, at a minimum. But without an inside force, that hurts us, when you can’t just throw it in five-on-five and let him make a play or kick it out, and now you really depend on penetration, and outside of really Shavon, I don’t think anybody was in there making plays.”

On what the team does tomorrow

“We’re going to practice and watch tape and get ready for Prairie View A&M.”

On whether tomorrow will include anything out of the ordinary

“I haven’t decided. Depends on when I watch tape. Or if I sleep.”

Closing statement

“It’s a bad day for the Huskers, but I told the guys I watched our women’s volleyball team win the national championship last night in Omaha, and you could watch, every time they didn’t have a block that was together, they were talking about it. Every time they had a block, their libero was right under the play to dig it out. All the little things, their positioning was perfect, everything was right. As soon as something wasn’t right, it never happened again. That’s how you win. You’re just an every-day, every-play guy, every-day, every-play girl and that’s what winning looks like. It’s not beautiful. Sometimes it’s (tennis legend John) McEnroe just serve-and-volleying all day or (tennis legend) Jimmy Connors just standing on the baseline just wailing away with his backhand all night. Just doing it over and over until somebody makes a mistake, but until you eliminate losing, you’re not going to be a winner. Not being able to self-correct errors, that cost us. Making the same turnovers over and over and over. Our transition turnovers are ridiculous.”

Nebraska Forward Shavon Shields

On what will need to be corrected

“Mindsets. Everybody being locked in and ready to go. I think that is what it boils down to. The coaches gave us everything we needed in order to win, and we just didn’t go out and execute anything.”

On if he saw this outcome coming

“I can’t tell the future. I think we had a good two days of practice before leading up to the game. No.”

On some other players being timid against their defense

“We just have to figure it out and like I said we have to be ready to play. We went through it in practice the previous two days. We knew it was coming. We knew what to expect from them. We just didn’t go out and execute and we didn’t make plays.”

On what the main reason was to why they didn’t execute

“Like I said at the start, people’s mindsets. I felt like especially when they were staying with us in the first half, once shots weren’t following I think people started getting down on themselves and hesitating, things like that. You can’t have that happen. When you do things like that you end up losing games.”

On what he will tell his teammates going in to practice tomorrow for the next game on Tuesday.

“We have to have everybody locked in and ready to go. I think everything will be addressed. We’ll watch the game tomorrow probably before practice and then see what we didn’t do right and then just go out there and make it happen. We have to make changes quick because Big Ten season is right around the corner and there is no easy games in that league.”

 

Samford Head Coach Scott Padgett

Opening Statement

“It’s crazy how this game works. We played at home against South Alabama, we shot really well at the free throw line, and we got there a lot. We shoot 51% the other night and lose the game in double overtime because of it. We also shot 6-for-24 from the three-point line in that game. We come out here and have very similar shots. When a couple of those shots start going, that belief, it goes up. That defensive intensity goes up and that battle on the backboard and that want to of going after every loose ball. It takes it to another level. I think when you’re the school we are, which is the low mid-major coming into a place like this, you need some of those plays to help get you over the top. I thought we had enough plays to keep us in it in the first half to where you still had that belief. Coming out, I think it was the first seven possessions scoring and executing to start the half was the big key. I really love their heart and their desire. This was a special game.”

On halftime speech

“The big thing was, hey, it’s a four-point game. We hadn’t been in a four-point game with a high major yet. We hadn’t. We’re right where we need to be. We’re going to go out, get a bucket and we’re going to play defense and rebound. A big thing we had talked about is they got some second shots, specifically off of free throws in the first half. Part of my halftime speech was demonstrating a free throw block out…Real inspirational. Just being there with twenty minutes on the clock and just being there and coming out and getting that bucket was huge. The number one key in this game, we thought, was not turning over the ball because they average about twenty-one points a game off of turnovers. We’re not good enough to give people points especially at this level and expect to win. We only had nine turnovers in the game and I think that was a huge factor. Even though we didn’t shoot the lights out every shot, we had a good to great shot almost every time down the court. Not turning over the ball was huge.”

On deciding to press

“The big thing that we wanted to do is, watching them on film we thought they were jets. Our big thing was we wanted to keep them out of transition and slow it up as much as possible. We press different ways depending on the team. We wanted to keep their pace down and limit turnovers.”