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ladyhusker

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Everything posted by ladyhusker

  1. For whatever it's worth: Nebraska's administration has also shown time and time again over the years an inability to get out of its own way, as well as a pretty heightened sensitivity to NCAA rules (not even on big stuff, but things where a lot of schools might look the other way but our department gets kind of hyper-vigilant). And as has been said here, coaching is a small community and that type of stuff is never really a secret. Not saying that can't be overcome, but it's another hurdle that feeds into the poor perception of the job. Anyone we'd go after, hopefully, is also being pursued by other schools as well -- and that's something that any coach would certainly weigh in the balance when deciding between competing offers. We can make all kinds of promises about how the administration will get behind the coach and support him and give him everything he needs to succeed, and maybe that will be true under Moos going forward, but history doesn't exactly paint a glowing picture there.
  2. Is there a way to mute people here? I'd love to read people's insights or opinions (even those I don't agree with) but the personal barbs seem unnecessary and add nothing to the conversation. I'm half expecting someone to Jordan Caroline their computer screen in a minute here. There's a way to disagree while being civil. It's awkward and unappealing to read otherwise.
  3. This -- the one in Lincoln has consistently terrible service, but it's good in Ashland. I'm a cretin but I actually didn't mind Dickey's... there used to be one decently close to my house but not anymore. But that was an "oh crap I don't feel like cooking tonight" staple. Most of all, though, I miss Skeeter Barnes. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
  4. It's probably also worth comparing what they started with, though, too. CSU was a complete rebuild that was entirely in the crapper. USU wasn't all that bad, and returned a LOT this year where I want to say CSU had like 5 players return total in Miles' first year, and the MW was a pretty solid conference at least for a while he was there, although I don't recall its condition his first year. I'm out and about so not really in a spot to do a full comparison, but I don't know that it's necessarily an apples to apples thing either. (And for the record I do think Smith is an outstanding coach who has a super bright future ahead of him wherever he goes, so this isn't a slam on him at all. Just for the sake of accuracy, I don't know that I'd look at their first season and draw any conclusions from that.) Edit: you aren't comparing their first seasons only. Serves me right for trying to read this, post, and grocery shop. Still think the condition of the team at the time of takeover is a factor, but I read wrong. Sorry about that.
  5. Gotta think we wouldn't be the only high major he hears from though, if he's as good a coach as everyone says (and I think he is). And others would have the benefit of not having just fired one of his good friends. Not saying it would be an absolute dealbreaker, but.......sure makes it a lot longer shot. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
  6. For just 99 cents to read it online, you can see for yourself that, among many many other interesting insights, the article says: Because Riggins is a Nebraska alum, he didn’t charge Pelini or Cook a fee. Payment in the consulting field, Riggins said, is often more about who you work with, rather than pay. That’s common, Stark said. After his first few years in the 1990s, Stark didn’t charge NU, either. ... Cook, a volleyball coaching legend, and Frost, Moos' first hire, were both allowed to bring in consultants to help with issues they found in their team. Miles, on the hot seat this season, was not, despite feeling progress was made with a free service. Before the season, at Big Ten basketball media day in Chicago, players agreed Riggins' presence was helpful.
  7. I'm not disputing that. I said if I change those two results but leave everything else the same on the bracket generator, which uses Sagarin ratings to predict outcomes and predicts us to beat Iowa. That's him, not me. I think 8-12 gets a lot more palatable if it also comes with legitimate bubble talk -- something that Minnesota and, bizarrely, Indiana are still enjoying even with conference records that would be comparable to ours. Maybe you're still disappointed, and maybe a lot of people would be, and maybe Miles still gets fired, but we're in contention at least and I do think that's a pretty significant narrative shift.
  8. I'm forgetting how to embed tweets, but Heady's got an addendum up that the article is a result of his own curiosity, not leaked by a coach or anything, along with a link to the podcast where he and Jon Nyatawa talk more about the article. I'm listening to it now.
  9. @TimSmiles I think you're just arguing semantics at this point... pretend the word "fired" isn't in there and it says "released" or something like that instead. Does it really change anything else about it?
  10. I keep coming back to this: in a season like this one, maybe he doesn't change EVERYTHING -- but for giggles, I left everything alone in the bracket generator except flipping the results of the Rutgers and Penn State games. Or Rutgers and Ohio State. Or Rutgers and Illinois. Any of those combos jumps us from 13th to 9th, and if everything else holds steady, we're playing Minnesota and then Michigan State in Chicago with a trip to the NCAA on the line potentially by winning even just ONE game there. Could Jack Riggins have reasonably helped our mentality in two games? I think so, and that changes the trajectory and narrative of this whole season. Is Miles The Guy? I don't know, maybe not. But it's absolute crap for the AD to make abstract rules that are occasionally enforced, even to the detriment of the student-athletes you claim to be serving. As student-athletes, those players were robbed of a service they had started to receive that was doing them some good -- not just on the court, but life lessons. And as fans, I feel like we got robbed too.
  11. They did. Basically: Moos wants coaches to use internal resources because he doesn't want "just anyone" around the department. However, he grants exceptions, including to Football last year to work with an ex-Marine. In this case, he initially approved it, but says it was only on a five-week basis (where Riggins and Miles were both under the impression it was for the whole year) and despite the players themselves attesting to the benefits they were seeing from it, he still insisted they shut it down.
  12. Aaaaaaand there it is. Insane policy for absolutely no reason, especially when exceptions are allowed for football to do the exact same thing. I actually started to type up a cliff's notes version, but decided against it because it cheapens the work that went into putting this together -- and Heady did his homework for sure. Even if you only get the sports digital access version, it's like 99 cents for the first month, and very much worth it.
  13. I actually really like Heady. I'm about as much of a homer as they come, but I think he's actually very fair. I've never gotten a biased feeling from him. Sipple on the other hand...well, you guys know what I think of him.
  14. I've been trying to think of a way to say this without getting lit up here, and hopefully I can come close with this. A few premises to start: a. Last night was a debacle of epic proportions. b. No one factor is 100% to blame -- there's plenty that goes into it. c. Miles, no matter what you think about what happens on the court, is a genuinely good person. Those shouldn't be super groundbreaking, and I hope could be accepted by everyone here. So when I propose the following, please remember that I don't put 100% of the blame of last night on it -- it's simply a factor, albeit one to think about as we move forward. As Dan Dakich was going on about how the players on the bench didn't deserve to be in the game (something I happen to agree with), I kept thinking back to an interview that Nick Bahe did with Jake Muhleisen last year. (In fact this morning I went and found it to make sure I was remembering it correctly -- it's linked here, if you want to hear it for yourself.) In it, they discuss one of the potential side effects of a cycle of one-year contracts and "ultimatum" years -- the way it changes how a coach CAN coach. When it's a "win now or you're fired" situation, for better or for worse, it changes the way you handle your locker room as well as the way the locker room responds to you. They gave the hypothetical that if James Palmer was "slacking off", Miles doesn't have the ability to exert discipline when it comes to playing time, because he's forced to play the best players at all times to give him the best chance of winning so as not to be fired. (And let's remember that while he may have a buyout parachute, he is well aware that his staff does not, and as a good person, that would weigh heavily on someone and potentially affect how they operate -- if not for themselves, for the benefit of the staff they brought here.) So last night Miles finally exerted some discipline. Several here have posited that it's too little too late, and they wish he would have done something like that sooner. I'd agree -- except that I can understand why that didn't happen. Last night there was finally nothing left to lose -- that game was pretty well decided by halftime, at least with the trajectory it was on with that set of players, and without a win, aside from winning the Big Ten Tournament the NCAA is pretty well out of reach. Prior to that, it's a little more of a crap shoot -- maybe it works and you save the culture and the locker room and light a fire under the guys. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose. (Miles has alluded to this being an issue in other areas as well, most notably with his regret over allowing Jordy back -- something he admitted in that Goodman podcast he wouldn't have done normally but went against his own instinct due to the pressure both to win now, and to not lose more players who you might need to win.) It's a more prominent risk, where last night the risk was pretty well mitigated. Again -- this is not to say that a multi-year extension means we don't lose last night. But it's also maybe somewhat disingenuous, or at least unrealistic, to remain mired in the same win-this-year-or-you're-fired pressure cycle (not just once, but three years straight), and expect that to NOT change the way Miles is able to coach. If you think the one-year extension was the right call, you can't be surprised if the locker room gets away from Miles, or hold him 100% accountable to that. Without the ability to enforce any kind of discipline -- because discipline is a risk that may cost you wins, and you need wins to keep your job both for yourself and your staff -- it's tough to keep a group of 18-22 year old dudes locked in and functioning at the required level. We have the benefit of hindsight, so we know we lost those games anyway; in the moment (or the days leading up to it), is it such an easy call? If you know that James Palmer or Isaiah Roby or Thomas Allen or Glynn Watson can give you 15 points in a hurry if they turn it on, and you need those points, it changes how you play them even if they're off -- because they've shown they CAN turn it on at any given time, and so benching them becomes a lot harder to do. Maybe the culture is broken, and of course to some extent that falls on the coaches -- but it's also yet another example of how this administration set up another hurdle for the team rather than clearing it. Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this -- it IS just a game -- but I also tend to be the type to try to pull back from a situation that isn't going well, and try to analyze more about what went wrong in an effort to fix it for next time. In this instance, while there's certainly more that can be expected of the players and coaches, I do think it's reasonable to peel back another layer and ask what could make it less of an issue next time around -- and that's one area I've seen maybe alluded to slightly but not explicitly stated (where everything else has been discussed extensively), so that's where I'm chiming in and hoping to not get destroyed here for saying so.
  15. For the sake of argument, going into July of this year, we had Isaiah Roby (who had played the 5 in the "death lineup" everyone was so nuts about the year before), Isaac Copeland (non-traditional big man but still 6-9 and CAN be effective in the post but more so at the 4), Jordy Tshimanga (traditional 5) with Tanner Borchardt as a backup and Brady Heiman hopefully able to redshirt. That...kind of seems like a decent number of "big" men when you're talking about 80 minutes per game to split up in the 4 and 5 positions and you still sometimes like to play small ball. Not saying the offense hasn't stagnated at times or that next year will suddenly be amazing. But at the conclusion of a major recruiting period, it kind of seemed like we were decently set up with bigs, and THEN all hell broke loose.
  16. I'd agree with you, but it didn't seem to stop him from working with Volleyball for a few months. Factor in that other AD employees (particularly in football) also said some pretty rough things about Mike Riley, in much more public settings, and I have an awfully hard time believing it boils down to some tweets in 2017. Hoping someone with some insight says something sooner or later so we can quit speculating (she says speculatively).
  17. However -- as has been discussed here -- his social media criticism came AFTER he was axed, not before.
  18. Since we're talking hypotheticals, let's say Jack isn't the difference between a sinking ship and Top 25...but what's the cutoff to make him worthwhile, if the coach deems it so (and it literally isn't costing the department a single penny)? What if he's the difference in winning even just two games? At this point, with the bubble looking the way it does, two games is a big difference. Two games is the difference between where we are now and being tied with Minnesota for 8th in the conference. Say we steal one in Michigan (either tonight or at Michigan State) -- suddenly we're in the top half of the conference and are basically a lock for the tournament (and even if we didn't get one on the road, we're still probably talking about Dayton at a bare minimum). Are we Top 25 material? No, probably not, but we're looking at a much different picture overall. I get that we're hearing Jack's side but not Moos's. But on the other hand, I sincerely doubt it would have been an issue had football wanted the same resources. And if this was the only thing that ever stood out as being the department standing in the basketball program's way I'd probably give it the benefit of the doubt...but as we've seen over the years, NU has trouble getting out of its own way when it comes to basketball, so it's lost a little of its cache with me and I tend to want to ask more "why" questions now than I probably would otherwise.
  19. Oh good, just in time to play Nebraska after having missed his own team's Senior Night. Great.
  20. Holy Mary, that guy looks like Tyronn Lue's insomniac uncle after a three-day bender. With the pressure that would be on him if he came here? For his sake I hope he gives it a hard pass. Am I remembering correctly that when he would self-identify his alma mater, it was his high school, and not the University of Nebraska? Someone told me that once but I'll be honest, I generally pay more attention to watching paint dry than I do the NBA. I know we've since retired his jersey so maybe he's got a little more affinity for us at this point (if that even mattered in the first place?) but I want to say there wasn't really a whole lot of connection to Nebraska for him, at least in the not-super-distant past.
  21. Reading this, and understanding he's got $9 million coming his way WITHOUT taking another job...I'd be kind of surprised if Thad Matta gets back into coaching, much less back into coaching in the Big Ten, and very much less into coaching in the Big Ten in a place with actual expectations and pressure to win. https://www.cleveland.com/osu/2018/06/thad_matta_back_in_columbus_on.html An excerpt: "Probably haven't felt like this in 10 years," he said. "I found out stress is real. It's a legit disease. In retirement you sleep until you're tired of sleeping, then you go about and start your day. It's being able to sleep in the night, you wake up in a good mood. I hadn't woke up in a good mood in like 18 years. That's what coaching is. You can't be happy." Maybe that's a little dramatic, but Matta's been away from coaching for a year and he sure seemed happy on Monday. He was happy to see his younger daughter off to prom a few weeks ago and not have to worry about a recruiting visit or devising summer workout plans. He was happy this winter to watch basketball, not give a crap who won, and then sleep without those 40 minutes playing on a loop in his head. A funny thing happened to Matta once he left coaching. He became a telephone therapist for his former brethren. Through those calls, Matta realized he didn't miss it all that much. I'm clearly not the AD, but for those putting him on the wish list...maybe temper those wishes a little bit. This kind of makes it sound like I'm just as likely to be our next coach as he is.
  22. And what he still has up isn't really any better. Would love to see him prove me wrong, man up, and say "I wrote this, but it was an unnecessary dick move on my part to fan up some frenzy" but until that happens, let's just say I'm assuming there's a magnifying glass in a handy place near his toilet at home. Sorry this is so visceral...I just really have no patience for this type of power trip gained by kicking a good person for no reason. I studied journalism in college and have a ton of respect for the craft, and even recognizing the difference between a reporter and a columnist, crap like this is what gives the media a bad name.
  23. As the girl who once upon a time assumed that that annoying Purdue jackwagon kid had a package the size of a mini tube of lipstick, let me be the one to say that he probably looks like Ron Jeremy next to Sip. I can imagine no reason for him to run with that in the way he did other than to somehow get some jollies out of it for himself and feel like some sort of big important man. Cool, dude. You don't have to be a sycophant to the AD, but that's a grade-A d-bag move and I hope someone calls him out on it personally.
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