Death From Above: Nebraska

Hello. Ace was tasked with important things like making Stauskas GIFs and a special treat to be unveiled a bit later, so I'll take over preview duties.

THE ESSENTIALS

The N stands for "nope."

THE THEM

Brandon Ubel must have gotten lost on the way to Wisconsin.
Also, two years ago Nebraska played something called Peru State.

According to Kenpom, the Huskers are the worst team in the league and only a Tim Frazier-less Penn State is anywhere close. A plurality of Nebraska's attempts will come from 6'5" senior Dylan Talley, who has Burke-like usage but shoots 35% from two. No doubt he is the guy saddled with late shot clock heaves that Nebraska's slow-it-down offense obtains plenty of. When he gets a three he knocks it down at a decent 35% clip.

Backcourt partner Ray Gallegos is mostly a standard-issue distance gunner—shots are two-thirds threes, no TOs, assists, or free throws. Unfortunately for the Huskers his plentiful threes are dropping at a 32% rate. When he does get a shot from inside the arc it tends to go down.

Center Brandon Ubel is probably Nebraska's best player. he gets to the line pretty well, hits 80% from there, and hits a little better than half of his relatively frequent twos. His rebounding is only okay and he doesn't do much defensively, but if there's a spot on the floor where Nebraska has any sort of size/athleticism advantage it's in an Ubel-Morgan matchup.

5'9" freshman point guard Benny Parker is almost nonexistent on offense. A third of the time he registers in the box score, it's because he's turned it over; in 15 games he's launched a total of 52 shots. For context, he shoots less often than Spike Albrecht.

There isn't really a fifth starter. Wing David Rivers gets just over half of available minutes; he is a statistical non-entity. 6'6" wing Shavon Shields is a turnover machine as well; his game looks like rim or nothing. Andre Almedia is the most interesting bench player because he's frigging enormous—6'11" and at least 350 despite being listed at 314—and manages to get off the ground enough to have a top-100 block rate and be the team's most effective rebounder on both ends of the floor. He only gets 40% of available minutes, likely because any more would kill him. I'd look for Michigan's athletic bigs to run the floor against the guy.

Finally, junior Mike Peltz makes me wish Kenpom tracked lowest usage: in 15 games he has put up 14 shots despite being on the floor a third of the time.

THE RESUME

Nebraska's best wins are against Valpo and Tulane, fringe KP100 teams. They've lost to Kent State, Creighton, Oregon, and UTEP by double-digits and got blown out by OSU in their Big Ten opener. They did beat Wake Forest and USC—two of the worst major-conference teams in the country—and led Wisconsin at the six-minute mark before falling 47-41.

THE TEMPO-FREE

This is a major-conference version of EMU with a grim offense and okay defense:

An okay defense relative to the rest of college basketball, that is. Nine Big Ten teams are 52nd are better; only Northwestern and Penn State are worse. They are the worst offense in the league by some distance.

They can't shoot threes, don't shoot many, keep opponent threes to a relative minimum, and offensive rebounds are minimal at both ends of the floor.

Drilling down, the best news for Nebraska is that they own the country's 18th-best free throw defense. Clutch, you guys, clutch.

THE PROTIPS

Show up. The game will proceed from there.

Sag if you want to. Talley's the only guy on the team who's even mediocre at threes.

Iso Burke if you want to. This Parker kid is going to have to check Burke, which good luck, or switch on to a 6'5" player. Either way, he doesn't have a prayer of not getting lit up.

Don't wander off at halftime. Challenge: challenging.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 23

Elsewhere

UMHoops preview. Michigan needs to focus.

Why even pretend Burke has to compete for the Bob Cousy award? Moreover, if there are 20 "finalists," what do you call the guys when you cut it to ten and then five? I hate award PR.

NESBITT ASKS THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

When did it become OK to coo about Michigan basketball?

MY ANSWER IS SIX

At this rate, Caris Levert will be Andre Almedia by his senior year. Horford may return tonight. GRIII hype. He's still outside of Chad Ford's first round, blessed be Chad Ford.

Well, Mr. Baumgardner, I think Michigan will respond to adversity by not having any.

Iowa fans are all like "whoah." Opposing coaches are like "this gives me the heebie-jeebies," literally. Try not to watch most of the Iowa game again now that you have a link.

Gasaway: Michigan is good on offense. #science