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Nebraska Basketball: Can the Cornhuskers overcome their biggest weakness?

By Jacob Zinkula

LINCOLN, NE - DECEMBER 8: Glynn Watson Jr. #5 of the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Isaac Copeland Jr. #14 and James Palmer Jr. #0 and Dachon Burke celebrate the win against the Creighton Bluejays at Pinnacle Bank Arena on December 8, 2018 in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images)
LINCOLN, NE - DECEMBER 8: Glynn Watson Jr. #5 of the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Isaac Copeland Jr. #14 and James Palmer Jr. #0 and Dachon Burke celebrate the win against the Creighton Bluejays at Pinnacle Bank Arena on December 8, 2018 in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Photo by Steven Branscombe/Getty Images) /
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Nebraska Basketball may have the program’s best overall rosters since joining the Big Ten. But could one particular weakness hold the Cornhuskers back?

At 11-4, Nebraska has been one of the most interesting teams for me all season. It has a really strong statistical profile and consequently has fared well in the computer rankings (16th in KenPom).

(All statistics used in this article were found via KenPom and are up to date through the games completed on Jan 8.)

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Nebraska has only one noticeable statistical weakness. It seems to have contributed to their four losses to Texas Tech, Minnesota, Maryland, and Iowa and could hinder the team all season:

Nebraska is 294th in defensive rebounding. This isn’t that shocking, as the Cornhuskers play a lot of “small” lineups with 6-9 Isaac Copeland and 6-8 Isaiah Roby at the 4 and 5 positions.

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The team’s only “big” option is 6-11 freshman Brady Heiman. Although he could provide a rebounding boost, I don’t anticipate Coach Tim Miles extending Heiman’s minutes much beyond the 10.7 minutes he’s averaging. The Copeland-Roby lineups are really strong offensively, and I don’t think giving Heiman more minutes would improve rebounding enough to compensate for the offensive drop-off. /

It’s worth mentioning that Coach Miles has experimented with Roby-Copeland-Heiman lineups. But nevertheless, it seems like Nebraska’s best lineups are just going to struggle a bit to prevent offensive rebounds. Will they be able to overcome this?

Nebraska has faced eight teams in the top 100 of KenPom. Four of these teams have overall offensive rebounding rates of >=30% (~100th or better). The Cornhuskers are 0-4 against these teams.

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Nebraska’s two best offensive rebounding opponents (Minnesota and Maryland) grabbed 48.4% and 40% of offensive rebounds against the Cornhuskers. For reference only two teams in the nation (UNLV and Portland St.) have an overall Off. Rebounding Rate > 40%.

Both Minnesota and Maryland were road games, and the Maryland game in particular was a narrow defeat. But Nebraska is making things really hard on themselves by giving up this many offensive boards. Even so-so offensive rebounding teams (see Creighton, Oklahoma St) grabbed offensive rebounds at a Top 25 rate against Nebraska.

Defensive rebounding obviously isn’t the only reason Nebraska has lost some games, and the #16 KenPom ranking suggests Nebraska is still a very good team. But everything else equal, it seems reasonable to conclude that Nebraska will fare better against worse offensive rebounding opponents. So I thought it would be interesting to see how Nebraska’s upcoming Big 10 opponents (excluding Minnesota and Maryland) fare at offensive rebounding.

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Interesingly, Minnesota and Maryland are statistically the best offensive rebounding teams in the Big 10. Although there are other good offensive rebounding teams, this could fare well for Nebraska going forward.

Next. Top 25 Power Rankings. dark

Their two toughest road games from a defensive rebounding perspective are in the past.

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