Navin R. Johnson

Can't believe this one did not pop up in my head.

The buy in on defense. Our system helps with the lack of quickness. We force teams to do certain things. Williams settling in as the shooter many thought he was and Mast and Gary hitting 3's.

Two players I noticed from our non-conf schedule back in December that I thought might be good transfer prospects were Max Jones (Jr) of Cal State Fullerton and Jared Frey (So) from Stoney Brook. I posted on them after those games. Well it turns out they played about their best games of the season against us. Jones had 30 pts and Frey looked like solid all around player with a good looking shot. Here are their stats for the year: Jones: 15.3 pts, 3 reb, 2 asst, 38% FG, 33% from 3, 79% FT (volume shooter, not great 3pt shot) Frey: 6.5 pts, 2.4 reb, 2 asst, 39% FG, 37% from 3, 78% FT (came off the bench later in year) Long story short, I don't have a very good eye for spotting future talent.

I can say that the mop-up time I received on the court my Senior year really prepared me for the pick up game competition that I would face in college. If I tried to go a year early to college I might have been overwhelmed by the average to below average talent on the pick up game circuit back then.

This year: 21 points, 9 reb, 2 assists, 2.3 blocks, 51 % FG, 40% from 3, 73% FT. I did not realize he is that good of a 3 point shooter.

Wake Forrest with a bad loss at Notre Dame. Sallis had an awful game. He was 2 of 11 from the field with a season low 7 points and a costly late turnover. BYU with a huge win at Kansas.

Kentucky wins at Mississippi State. First time I really watched Kentucky. Freshman Reed Sheppard can play.

I understand the thought of developing his game in a college practice atmosphere but this is not like football where an athlete gets a jump on things by enrolling in the spring. He gets four years to play college basketball. I would prefer he is a year older doing it.

Back to Ohio which is not the name of this song but many think it is.

We kind of sacrificed Brice a little to get Lawrence going.

I think I would rather see him play his Senior year, redshirt the next year to develop and then play out his career at NU. Since the pendulum is swinging back to having experienced players (like we have now) instead of Frosh, the older the better. Especially with the NIL money coming in. The problem with redshirting is that it can also lead to a transfer for the athlete.

Correct. I was going off season stats on Maxpreps for his stat line. I should have been more specific.

Exactly. It's not just playing time for the walk ons but also the younger kids you want to give playing time to but feel you can't risk it. If it doesn't change teams might as well poor it on at the end and try to score every possession and not dribble the game out with seconds left. It has always been considered good sportsmanship to hold the ball at the end but not anymore. I really hate that metric. I would max it out at 10 points at call it good. If every coach knew that was the break point you could play to score up until that point. Nobody really throws up a white flag if the game is still in single digits.

Well, that would be zero if he redshirted and a ton if he played with LSW.

LSW finished with a 15-8 record including a 82-50 season ending loss to Millard North in the district final. Stat line: 18 pts, 7 reb, 27% from 3, 50% from the field and 78% from the line. Heard he might redshirt next year, which I don't understand when you could play another year of high school ball.

Read in the OWH today that there is talk of Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth using their year (which I didn't know they had) to come back to Creighton for another season.

So, 9th is the worst we could be.

Yup. Probably the most famous and successful team that had deal with chemistry issues. You should read this classic if you haven't already.

That would make sense if he is practicing but there are times this year when we could use him on the glass or to guard an opposing big.

Yeah, if Blaise is practicing you would think he would be playing in the games at some time.

This is the part that confuses me. I can see Creighton fans because they are based in Omaha but all the Kansas, Duke, Indiana, North Carolina fans out there from Nebraska that scoff at Nebraska basketball. It has been about 5 years ago now but I remember when Kansas beat Nebraska on a last second 3 from the corner and I watched a kid go crazy celebrating the KU win and I thought to myself what it would be like for Kansas to catch a 40 yard TD pass to beat NU on the last play of a football game and how that would go over with other NU fans around.

That's the group I'm talking about. It's like a stereotype for some people.

I will relay the message.

The people I'm talking about are Husker fans, at least in football and volleyball, and are not Creighton fans. I'm not grouping all Nebraskans in this category and you are right, we do sell out PBA when we are playing well. My experience comes from outside of Omaha or Lincoln. I will stand by my statement that many in our state see NU basketball as a failure and a joke and probably will until we are consistently a threat to be a final 4 team.

There is a stigma associated with Nebraska basketball that just never goes away in the minds of many Nebraskans. Granted, we have not been a great basketball program over the years, but we are not as bad as many think. I still hear people say how bad Nebraska is or make a joke about Nebraska basketball and everyone joins in and laughs like it is something you are suppose to do in Nebraska. Some of these people are even kind of fans but have no idea how the team is really playing or the schedule we are up against and so on. All of this filters down to the kids and they develop the same feelings toward NU hoops. It is a vicious cycle that never seems to end. Hopefully we can keep the program going in the right direction and things slowly start to change.