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It's because of the fans

Huskerpapa

By Huskerpapa
in The Haymarket Hardwood

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Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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Posted
58 minutes ago, Huskerpapa said:

Well, this is certainly a different take.  Good old Matt was doing his job, but those fans...

 

https://huskercorner.com/2022/11/20/nebraska-basketball-matt-abdelmassih-disaster/

 

Damn those Husker fans for showing up by the thousands to watch a terrible product on the floor.

 

I haven't mentioned this before but I'm going to take the opportunity now and say some things of which I am RELIABLY informed:

 

Matt is a terrible dude. He undermined the coaches. All of them. Even Hoiberg. All of those great recruits he's so proud of for bringing in? He basically sheltered them from consequences for crappy behavior. If your last name was McGowens and you didn't want to show up for conditioning, Matt would fix it for you. If you were one of Matt's guys and the coaches got on you in practice, Matt would take you aside and tell you you didn't have to do what they said. Matt was the cause of rifts among the assistants. Matt tried to get good people fired.

 

Matt is an awful dude and the night-and-day difference you see in effort and team play this year is directly attributable to him not being here anymore.

HuskerFever

HuskerFever

Posted
Posted

Worst winning percentage in Nebraska basketball history. "No way it's the recruits."

 

Top 15 in attendance every year for the last decade. "It's the fault of the fans."

 

"It's hard recruiting people to convince them to be farmers. And corn. And no electricity." Hate to say it, but Creighton seems to be doing just fine. Same with Iowa, Kansas, etc.

 

Blame others when things get tough. That's when true character starts to show. Be bitter. Go enjoy your Thanksgiving, Matt. Maybe you should go find something to be thankful for.

aphilso1

aphilso1

Posted
Posted (edited)

I can understand regional difficulties for baseball recruiting, as the ability to practice outdoors all winter and not have to play home games in 32 degree weather is significant.  I can understand the difficulty to a lesser extent for other sports, such as recruiting sand volleyball players to locations without beaches, or skiers to places without large mountains.  But basketball?  C'mon.  Basketball courts are the same everywhere in the country.  It's not like the agrarian economy of the Midwest prevents basketball courts from being built. 

 

If I'm a good basketball player, I'm not coming to Nebraska and that has nothing to do with the cornfields in Waverly.  It has everything to do with seeing Nebraska recruit highly touted players throughout the Hoiberg Era and produce absolutely nothing with said players.  My thought would be "If Fred can't win with Dalano and BMac, then he can't win with me either."  Success begets success, and failure begets failure.  That's why places like Lawrence KS (basketball) and Tuscaloosa AL (football) have elite programs, not that the towns themselves are any different that Lincoln NE.

Edited by aphilso1
Huskerpapa

Huskerpapa

Posted
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Posted (edited)
34 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

Has anyone actually listened to this yet?

Yes...and he certainly has some positive takes as well.  But...

Edited by Huskerpapa
hhcmatt

hhcmatt

Posted
Posted
20 minutes ago, aphilso1 said:

I can understand regional difficulties for baseball recruiting, as the ability to practice outdoors all winter and not have to play home games in 32 degree weather is significant.  I can understand the difficulty to a lesser extent for other sports, such as recruiting sand volleyball players to locations without beaches, or skiers to places without large mountains.  But basketball?  C'mon.  Basketball courts are the same everywhere in the country.  It's not like the agrarian economy of the Midwest prevents basketball courts from being built. 

 

If I'm a good basketball player, I'm not coming to Nebraska and that has nothing to do with the cornfields in Waverly.  It has everything to do with seeing Nebraska recruit highly touted players throughout the Hoiberg Era and produce absolutely nothing with said players.  My thought would be "If Fred can't win with Dalano and BMac, then he can't win with me either."  Success begets success, and failure begets failure.  That's why places like Lawrence KS (basketball) and Tuscaloosa AL (football) have elite programs, not that the towns themselves are any different that Lincoln NE.

 

The guy recruited to Iowa St. He's clearly full of shit at all times.

hhcmatt

hhcmatt

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, hhcmatt said:

Has anyone actually listened to this yet? I'm sure it probably sounds as bad as it's painted but I don't particularly find the Husker Corner guy to be that great of a read

 

 

I listened to it.  He dipped his toes into it when they talked about how great of a job he did recruiting and how bad he felt about not winning but then just started doubling down into blaming Nebraska fans for essentially being suckers for spending their money on a losing product in Nebraska. They don't get into him leaving the team and then not being retained.  He is willing to meet up with you if you were mean to him on twitter.

 

Otherwise he just talks in circles.  He brings up how success is mostly about the guys you bring in about 15 minutes after talking about how great a job he did bringing in guys, stuff like this. 

 

In summary

We're All Trying To Find The Guy Who Did This | Know Your Meme

Chuck Taylor

Chuck Taylor

Posted
Posted

The article is clickbait.

I listened to the interview. Matt A puffs up himself, talks about all of his success recruiting, obviously trying to make himself look good for his agent business. However, I didn’t really find anything he said to be that offensive, other than he didn’t take any responsibility for the worst period in Husker basketball history.

 

On the other hand, the hosts were terrible, sucked up constantly, kept turning conversations turned into football. Drives me crazy when you want to talk basketball, and it turns into a football conversation.

Some Matt A comments:

—Compares Husker fans to Knicks fans who keep going to games, so tough changes are never made.

— “It’s a special place. Nebraska deserves a winner.”

— “When it comes to what a winner looks like, Nebraska can check all the boxes.”

— His point was that it’s easy to recruit somebody to Nebraska to become a farmer, not a basketball player. Does anyone really disagree with that?

— Generally described problems with players whose personal expectations are inflated by the people around them.

— Says he has no idea of Nebraska’s expectations for basketball because the history is so weak. “What is off? I don’t think one person can answer that. Everything is set up to be (a middle of the pack Big Ten program.” Hosts never follow up.

— “The media can be vicious, and it’s not in Nebraska.” Hosts prove that to be true with sucking up, softball questions and no following up.

— Talks about “Nebraska nice,” says most fan are good, a few were vicious on twitter. That’s who he didn’t like, not just the fans in general.

— “It’s a tortured fan base that deserves so much more than it has.”

— “The leadership that they have is elite (specifically Trev and Green, didn’t mention Hoiberg), and I think they’ll get it right. You have really good people who care about that place.”

— Started talking about how much 5 stars are worth, says it takes $4-5 million to put together an elite level basketball program. Host starts talking about Archie Manning and  firing Scott Frost. Conversation devolves into more football.

 

My big takeaway was that Matt A thinks the fans don’t demand enough of basketball so they get the product they deserve. “My response would be, they cared enough to have run you off.” And I agree with him. What top-level program would have kept Fred after the 3 worst seasons in history?

 

The big criticism I’d have is that he never explained, “OK, so what exactly is the problem?” Hosts never followed up by asking that.

BigTate

BigTate

Posted
Posted (edited)
52 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

McDermott disagrees.

I agree. I am sick of losing to Creighton. We are usually out of the game by halftime. I thought maybe Hoiberg could change that. It is not looking like that is going to happen. I am still pissed about the time when the guy from Creighton, I believe his name was Grant Gibbs, jumped on Pettaway and gave him an elbow while he was on the ground and then winked at McDermott. No foul of course. 

Edited by BigTate
Fullbacksympathy

Fullbacksympathy

Posted
Posted
On 11/21/2022 at 8:26 AM, Norm Peterson said:

 

Damn those Husker fans for showing up by the thousands to watch a terrible product on the floor.

 

I haven't mentioned this before but I'm going to take the opportunity now and say some things of which I am RELIABLY informed:

 

Matt is a terrible dude. He undermined the coaches. All of them. Even Hoiberg. All of those great recruits he's so proud of for bringing in? He basically sheltered them from consequences for crappy behavior. If your last name was McGowens and you didn't want to show up for conditioning, Matt would fix it for you. If you were one of Matt's guys and the coaches got on you in practice, Matt would take you aside and tell you you didn't have to do what they said. Matt was the cause of rifts among the assistants. Matt tried to get good people fired.

 

Matt is an awful dude and the night-and-day difference you see in effort and team play this year is directly attributable to him not being here anymore.


All of this is 100% true, and worse still… 
 

The truth behind that “health” hiatus he took is movie level insane. 
 

He really needs to stfu about Nebraska or some real shit is going to leak.  

aphilso1

aphilso1

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, Fullbacksympathy said:


All of this is 100% true, and worse still… 
 

The truth behind that “health” hiatus he took is movie level insane. 
 

He really needs to stfu about Nebraska or some real shit is going to leak.  


🤔

thrasher31

thrasher31

Posted
Posted

I've refused to listen to this for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of what I'm reading on what he said. To say "well I got guys to Nebraska and brought them to levels that they never saw recruiting wise" was true, but it also was the reason he was let go. Throwing a team together without factoring in how guys may potentially fit together, which he clearly did based on how the last few seasons have gone, is the opposite of correct team building. That doesn't absolve Fred of blame to not make it work, but if your job is to get players together that can lead to a good season you would factor in fit. 

 

There's more to this pod I'm sure, but it reads like he is not having any self accountability, which isn't necessarily shocking. 

tcp

tcp

Posted
Posted

guy still needs to get a job. unlikely he's going to admit to sucking. 

 

save the honesty for the retirement ceremony. he's in mid-career: this is the time to lie like a rug. 

hskr4life

hskr4life

Posted
Posted
On 11/24/2022 at 11:15 PM, Fullbacksympathy said:


All of this is 100% true, and worse still… 
 

The truth behind that “health” hiatus he took is movie level insane. 
 

He really needs to stfu about Nebraska or some real shit is going to leak.  


Im here for it— let me grab that popcorn quick though.

basketballjones

basketballjones

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 11/21/2022 at 4:43 PM, millerhusker said:

Out of context. Matt didn't say anything was the fault of the fans. He talked pretty highly of the fans, I thought. I think he's a pretty insecure guy who tries to make himself sound a lot better at his job than he is. But there is nothing here that should make Nebraska fans upset. 

Finally listening to parts of this. I'd agree. That wasn't as bad as some of you are making it out to be. I found him quite complimentary of the place. 

I would also, in theory, agree with him that he did his job as far as getting guys here. Two of Hoiberg's teams, if they were effectively managed from a leadership/culture/chemistry perspective, should have had their records flipped around. He also, according to everything I have read here and elsewhere, was just an absolutely terrible assistant coach from a leadership/chemistry/culture/basketball perspective. 

But nonetheless, that is a failure on FH, and FH alone, for letting stuff like that fester and for how long it did. I would have canned him a long time ago, recruits be damned, if he ever remotely disrespected my authority or undermined me. You absolutely, 100%, cannot have that on a coaching staff. There has to be harmony and cooperation. 

Edited by basketballjones

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