At 18 game mark - are we where we thought we would be?

[89Husker]

• We didn't lose any "buy" games
• We beat Creighton at Creighton
• We beat Iowa at our house
• We beat MN at their house

 

What say you? Did you think we would be 9-9? Or is this about what you expected?

 

Problem is, we will be without Gary for extended stretch. The rest of this may be real tough

[cornfed24-7]

2 minutes ago, 89Husker said:

• We didn't lose any "buy" games
• We beat Creighton at Creighton
• We beat Iowa at our house
• We beat MN at their house

 

What say you? Did you think we would be 9-9? Or is this about what you expected?

 

Problem is, we will be without Gary for extended stretch. The rest of this may be real tough

Not where I thought we would be, but its looking like we'll end up where I thought we would. 

[HuskerFever]

Above expectations. But those expectations are much lower than when this staff started.

[Huskerpapa]

I had pretty low expectations going into the year.  Effort, rebounding, defense and running the  offense has generally met or exceeded my expectations.   Finishing on offense, specifically hitting open looks created by running the offense sometimes meets; but oftentimes (frustratingly) falls well below my expectations. 

[hskr4life]

48 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

But those expectations are much lower than when this staff started.

This is an excellent point.  Go back through and look at the season win total projections on the first pick em thread.  I would say we’re at or above MOST expectations so far. 
 

However, those expectations are poor.  Those should not be what the fan base hopes for.  We’re 4 years in and hoping to get near .500 for the first time.  

[Cazzie22]

We are better than I thought we would be but with our injury situation the rest of the season is going to be a struggle.

[89Husker]

I fully expected us to lose one of those "buy" games this year, maybe two.  I expected a beat down by Creighton.  So, based on our 3 prior years, we are 3-4 wins ahead of what I expected. It's the main reason I did not renew my season tickets this year.  I regret that now.

 

Assuming we get Griesel back, I think we will steal 4 or 5 more wins this year.  maybe on the road at Penn St or something, and then a few at home. That would put is at 13-14 wins. After the last 3 years, that's much better than I expected this year.

 

Edit: I'll add that, if we get to 14 wins, we will really regret the first Purdue game where we had chances to win at the end and couldn't pull it off.

Edited January 14, 2023 by 89Husker

[HuskerFever]

9 minutes ago, 89Husker said:

I'll add that, if we get to 14 wins, we will really regret the first Purdue game where we had chances to win at the end and couldn't pull it off.

 

It doesn't work in one direction, as many allude to. Sure, we lost a chance to beat Purdue. If we get to 14 wins, it's also because we snuck out a win in OT against Minnesota.

[Handy Johnson]

After being Historically awful the last three years it’s hard to be optimistic when you see a roster that’s filled with journeymen & “projects.”  Blaise isn’t nearly the Offensive player I thought he’d be, & Wilhelm/CJ look like they aren’t going to be anything more than complimentary players. I thought we might have a chance @ .500 but now 12-13 Wins seems more likely, then this Era might be coming to a close. 

 

[demone]

I did my best to go into the season without an expectation. I simply wanted to see competent basketball most of the time. While there has been improvement in some areas, one of the core tenets of competency is shooting the ball. I will continue to watch, add what I hope to be relevant commentary to this board…but I don’t see a lot of wins left for this team. I will take the same approach whatever happens next - no expectation and hoping to see an improved product at some point in the future.

[throwback]

I certainly think we've overachieved versus where I thought we'd be, but, as others said, when expectations are as low as they've ever been, I'm not sure "exceeding expectations" is all that impressive. 

 

Took a quick look at some simple numbers, and they are about what I expected and just show how offensively challenged we are. I love the effort we give, but we just don't have enough skill on the offensive end to win unless almost everything goes right on D.

• Allow 68 or more points in regulation > 0-8 vs Power 5 teams. 
• Allow 67 or fewer points in regulation > 5-1 vs Power 5 teams. (Loss in OT vs Purdue)

It all has to start on the defensive end for us, which is why losing Gary is going to be so tough to overcome. He cleans up the defensive glass like no one else we have on the roster. Our defense can force a poor shot on quite a few possessions, but if we can't clean up the glass, it's not going to matter. We just can't give up second chance points and expect to keep teams under 68. 

• Record with one or more starters out > 0-4 vs Power 5 teams (0-5 if you want to count Illinois where Gary missed half the game)
• Record with all 5 starters available > 5-5 vs Power 5 teams (5-4 if you want to take Illinois out)

If Gary cannot return for a while, obviously, we're in deep trouble. If he is back after a couple more games, and if he's healthy enough to be as effective as he's been, maybe we can salvage something. I don't even want to talk about any chance of Griesel also missing additional games.

 

[tcp]

I thought we'd be bad, and we're not. We're just not particularly good. 

 

When your expectations are already near rock-bottom, where else is there to go?

[HuskerFever]

At 9-9, we've already matched or exceeded 12% of our HHCC pre-season expectations. There are still 13 regular season games remaining.

 

Wins | Cumul. % HHCC Expectations

7 | 5%

8 | 7%

9 | 12%

10 | 26%

11 | 38%

12 | 60%

13 | 74%

14 | 88%

15 | 91%

16 | 95%

17 | 98%

18 | 98%

19 | 100%

[Chuck Taylor]

I didn't think we had the talent to make the tournament but might make it to .500 if we followed through on the promises of tougher, team play. But I'd say my expectations have been passed, regardless of record, by having beaten Creighton and being more competitive with top teams. 

 

 

[89Husker]

4 hours ago, Chuck Taylor said:

I didn't think we had the talent to make the tournament but might make it to .500 if we followed through on the promises of tougher, team play. But I'd say my expectations have been passed, regardless of record, by having beaten Creighton and being more competitive with top teams. 

 

 

This is kind of where I am right now, and I don't even know if I am "for" retaining FH.  But the fact we beat Creighton and Iowa this year has exceeded my expectations.

[busticket]

We currently have the #1 SOS in the country according to ESPN.  Based on what we had on our roster going into this season, 9-9 at this point isn’t bad at all.  If we can get to 15 it is a heck of a job.  That Gary injury absolutely sucks….

[HuskerFever]

This season has been really odd from a "Do we have it? / Are we meeting expectations?" perspective.

 

Preseason: "Yeah, but will our team gel?"

After the season started: "Yeah, but can we beat all our cupcakes?"

Going into the early season tournament: "Yeah, but can we get a win?"

Big Ten/ACC Challenge: "Yeah, but can we win that game in the challenge?"

In-state game: "Yeah, but can we beat Creighton? On the road?

Three ranked opponents in a row: "Yeah, but can we compete?"

Home conference game: "Yeah, but can we win this home Iowa conference game?"

Away conference game: "Yeah, but can we defeat Minnesota on the road?"

Defeat Ohio State without Gary: "Yeah, but Ohio State didn't play well."

 

And now we're sitting here at 10-9 (3-5), above 0.500 overall. It's almost February, we're out of the bottom four right now, and there's still "hope" in this team that usually gets deflated by late December/early January. We've already matched Hoiberg's best win total with 12 more regular season games remaining and one win away from tying Hoiberg's best conference win total.

 

We're putting up all our walls on why this team isn't something, when time and time again (in ugly ways many times) shown that they can at least compete. I'm not saying this is the pinnacle/best team we've seen even in the last ten years, but there's still room for this team to compete. We have our guard up because we don't want this program to hurt us again. But sometimes you just have to take a risk and believe.

[Huskerpapa]

I believe you can also get the pulse of the program by reading tweets from our AD.  He seems to favor the direction this team has taken.

[49r]

at the beginning of the season I would have expected our record to be 7-12 (1-4) at this point, so we're ahead of that.  Still, feels like there is no hope for the foreseeable future for this program, and that kinda sucks.

[hhcmatt]

 

[Ron Mexico]

Significantly better than I anticipated.

If this was year 1 for HCFH I would have been ecstatic. 

 

I can honestly say I'm enjoying this group far more than I have any group during the prior 3yrs.

This group deserves to play in the post-season. Going to require a .500 record for the remainder of the season.

[HuskerFever]

On 1/15/2023 at 9:41 PM, HuskerFever said:

At 9-9, we've already matched or exceeded 12% of our HHCC pre-season expectations. There are still 13 regular season games remaining.

 

Wins | Cumul. % HHCC Expectations

7 | 5%

8 | 7%

9 | 12%

10 | 26%

11 | 38%

12 | 60%

13 | 74%

14 | 88%

15 | 91%

16 | 95%

17 | 98%

18 | 98%

19 | 100%

 

Update:

 

We're at 26% of the HHCC participant's expectations with 12 regular season games remaining.

[busticket]

7 hours ago, Ron Mexico said:

Significantly better than I anticipated.

If this was year 1 for HCFH I would have been ecstatic. 

 

I can honestly say I'm enjoying this group far more than I have any group during the prior 3yrs.

This group deserves to play in the post-season. Going to require a .500 record for the remainder of the season.

Haven’t you heard?  Year 4 is the new year 1!

 

Seriously…I’m with you…if this was truly year 1 I’d be thrilled.  It is frustrating that it took until year 4 for Fred to figure out he needed hard working, team first guys.  Stars are great but if you don’t do the little things you will have losing basketball.  All that said, I am glad Fred finally started recruiting lunch pail types of players.  To me that is the type of player/team that will succeed here.

[Navin R. Johnson]

On 1/19/2023 at 10:25 PM, busticket said:

Haven’t you heard?  Year 4 is the new year 1!

 

Seriously…I’m with you…if this was truly year 1 I’d be thrilled.  It is frustrating that it took until year 4 for Fred to figure out he needed hard working, team first guys.  Stars are great but if you don’t do the little things you will have losing basketball.  All that said, I am glad Fred finally started recruiting lunch pail types of players.  To me that is the type of player/team that will succeed here.

 

Now he just needs to find those hard working team first guys that can shoot.