MBB Postgame Notes and Quotes: Nevada

Postgame Notes
*-Dalano Banton’s 18 points marked the second straight game he broke a career high in points, as he had 14 against McNeese State on Wednesday.  He also had five assists and has an 11-to-3 assist-to-turnover ratio in NU’s first two games.
*-Teddy Allen finished with a career high five steals, the second straight game he has eclipsed his career high. Allen has eight steals this season after recording just 13 in 35 games at West Virginia in 2017-18.
*-Nebraska finished with nine turnovers, the second straight game committing 10 or fewer turnovers.
*-Nebraska’s 41 3-point attempts was a single-game record, breaking the mark of 37 set against Kansas on Feb. 24, 2002.

Nebraska Coach Fred Hoiberg
On the team’s response after the first half:
“I didn’t love our body language at the end of that first half. Kobe (Webster) hit the big one to cut it to a two-possession game and that was the first thing I got on them about at half time was the body language. There was a free-throw situation where all five were off on their own. They bought into it. They came out and we did play our best stretch those first 10 minutes of the second half. Unfortunately, we dug ourselves that hole and just couldn’t get out of it. We missed good looks. We missed free throws. We missed layups and dunks that we were going to make, but that can’t effect us the other end. I think we were just too handsy. We had our hands on them and put them on the free throw line way too much and a big part of that was early when we got ourselves in foul trouble put them in the bonus very quickly into the second half.”
 
On the team’s energy:
“That’s a huge part of it. You have to find a way to win ugly games. You have to find a way to win the grind out ones like tonight was. Had we pulled this one off, it would have been huge. The fact that we shot 29% and were still right there in it. Our energy at the beginning of the game defensively was absolutely off the charts just getting deflections getting runoffs. We just didn’t convert and again that costs us. We could have very easily instead of being up 10 we could have been up 16 or 20 had we made those early layups and free throws. But the energy was there. I thought we came out with incredible intensity especially defensively. Unfortunatly we just couldn’t make a shot.”
 
On the 3-point attempts:
“If they are good ones. We took a lot of forced jab without movement. When we move, we get shots. It has been evident throughout our preseason and practices and the last game we had great looks. I thought we had some really good ones, but unfortunately those didn’t go in and then I felt we forced them. I thought we had too many forced shots where we didn’t trust the offense.”
 
On the offensive plan:
“Well we look for good shots. Their game plan was to completely shut down the paint and they did a great job with that. We don’t have a big post presence. We just don’t have that right now especially with Derrick not in the game. He’s our best post up guy on the inside. Give Nevada credit. Their game plan was to keep us of the paint, and they did that. It forced us to take some, but our movement creates and generates good looks and our movement did not create those looks. Tonight it was too much playing stagnant and shooting without the movement that we generally have. When we got that lead and had that 14-2 run it was all about pace. We had great pace. We had great movement and that ended up with a great possession. When we don’t have that when we are stagnant it generally ends up in a forced shot and again that is something we will learn from and be better at because we are going to have the exact same thing happen to us here in two days.”
 
 
Sophomore Guard Dalano Banton
On the offense being out of sync at times
“We definitely noticed being on the floor even when we got into the timeouts that the ball was not moving as much as it should. Every time we went into the timeout coming out, we tried to correct it. We had spurts where we would get the movement back where we want it to be where we would go on a little tempo run. With this team, if we just keep moving the ball and playing for each other then we’re going to be great. We just got to go back into practice and figure out what we got to do to maintain that throughout 40 minutes a game, throughout the adversity, the fire, the heat of the next game. It’s still early in the season and not to hang our heads after this one.” 
 
 
On what the team can take away from today’s loss 
“We never just look at a loss as a loss. Every loss is a learning experience. We are going to go back and watch film and figure out the things that we did good and the things that we did bad, and we are going to go back tomorrow and piece it all together and get ready for our game on Saturday. We are definitely going to take a lot of things from it.  I think we shot like 9 for 41 from the field or from the three-point line or something, so I’m pretty sure that we have guys capable of making shots, we had a lot of guys today that were knocking down shots, everyone really. When we make shots and if we hit three or four more of those, not to say we win the game, but it’s a different game. The game is going to go a lot of different ways, so we got to do what we know how to do and that’s just move the ball, play for each other and play together and we’ll live with the outcome if we leave it out on the floor.” 
 
 
 

NU Athletic Communications