Wake Forest Defeats Nebraska 55-53

1) Carson was an absolute hoss tonight. While he still needs to work on his defensive positioning in the post, he more than held his own down there. The two three’s he made were just gravy.

2) Chase Fischer makes me giggle like a girl. He looks like an NBA Jam character who is “On Fire.” His release is just so smooooooooooooth. His two misses tonight: the first went in-and-out, the second was dead on center but back-rimmed. Nebraska’s increased attention on him opened up the inside for us in the last 10 minutes. He also put in a solid effort defensively. We need to get him more open looks.

3) I know Bzdelik’s taken some licks from people here and elsewhere, but this win could be credited largely to him. After a jumbled start, he settled the guys down, made sure we ran out offense (however boring it may be). He did an excellent job shifting from man to zone and back whenever Nebraska started to look comfortable. On top of that, the final play he drew up was simple and beautiful. We got a bit lucky that Carson actually knocked down CJ’s man, but any time you get a wide-open layup for a game-winning shot, I count that as an excellent play.

4) Not sure what CJ’s final stats were, but he I’d be willing to wager he quietly had an excellent game scoring. On top of that, he kept us in it for stretches by acting like an upperclassman: calming down the young’uns, slowing the game down, and running the offense..

5) Off-nights for Travis and Tony. Tony in particular looked to be forcing things, and lost his guy on a couple consecutive possessions on defense (which is inexcusable in a zone, and Bzdelik let him know it).

6) Bzdelik also shortened the rotation, so not many minutes for the non-Fischer freshmen. We basically played the entire second half with a six man rotation. It worked.

7) 10 turnovers, but 9 of them were in the first half. Excellent job on ball security in the second half.

8) We outrebounded someone! The apocalypse is nigh!