Wilhelm Breidenbach gone

[Handy Johnson]

This is what I meant when I said we had TOO many good players. I wish him nothing but the best…

[Vinny]

I bet this was the call at last night’s wine dinner.

[Dean Smith]

5 hours ago, cipsucks said:

 

Can you coach it?  To me, it's either on the inside, or it's not. 

It can be coached. Today's terminology referrers to it as creating a culture. It starts by weeding out the "bad apples" regardless of their talent and then it helps to bring in a couple that do have it on the inside and they can help create that culture where it is more than expected but demanded from all involved. Having a roster that is competing for time can also create a greater work effort over all but I guess that would be on the recruiting side.

[FredsSlacks]

he may very well improve, but if you look at his stats there's just nothing there to suggest he was gonna help us win games.

[basketballjones]

17 hours ago, cipsucks said:

 

Can you coach it?  To me, it's either on the inside, or it's not. 

You can absolutely coach effort. It's exhausting when you have to all season but you can do it. 

[hhcmatt]

If defense is equated to effort, it's hard to reconcile how bad WB's on/off the court defensive numbers were.

[Huskerpapa]

Bobby Knight once said, paraphrasing, that you teach/coach effort by sitting a kids ass on the bench.  He will soon learn that the only way he will play is by giving effort. 

[k3s3i]

he was god awful, wasn’t even good at doing the “dirty work”.

[cozrulz]

Should have stayed just for the trip to Spain...

[basketballjones]

@Huskerpapa I just want to be clear before I offer any criticisms of Wilhelm as pertains to your subject, and the rest of the subject. Are you related to him or another husker on the team? You seem pretty defensive of him and I in no way want to offend you. 

Edited May 5, 2023 by basketballjones

[Faux Mike Peltz]

I wish him the best. Appeared to be a good teammate that hustled and tried but just couldn’t put it all together like some had expectations of. 

[HuskerFever]

1 hour ago, k3s3i said:

he was god awful, wasn’t even good at doing the “dirty work”.

 

Like spelling Keisei's name incorrectly in your username?

[k3s3i]

38 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

Like spelling Keisei's name incorrectly in your username?

what

[Huskerpapa]

1 hour ago, basketballjones said:

@Huskerpapa I just want to be clear before I offer any criticisms of Wilhelm as pertains to your subject, and the rest of the subject. Are you related to him or another husker on the team? You seem pretty defensive of him and I in no way want to offend you. 

Nope.  Not that it matters.  I liked him because I viewed him as a tough mother.  He seemed willing to do the dirty work that few appreciate.  He had bad wheels that he worked to overcome.  He had a good left hand around the basket and good hands.  He was criticized for his clumsiness which is fair.  He was criticized for his outside shot...but he apparently was greenlighted by someone. 

I just think more highly of him than many of my brethren, and for that, I do not apologize. 

[CrazyforNUHOOPS]

5 hours ago, k3s3i said:

what

He’s saying that you’re missing an “i”. 

[49r]

13 minutes ago, CrazyforNUHOOPS said:

He’s saying that you’re missing an “i”. 

 

I bet dimes could fix that...

[REDZONEDAN]

5 hours ago, Huskerpapa said:

Nope.  Not that it matters.  I liked him because I viewed him as a tough mother.  He seemed willing to do the dirty work that few appreciate.  He had bad wheels that he worked to overcome.  He had a good left hand around the basket and good hands.  He was criticized for his clumsiness which is fair.  He was criticized for his outside shot...but he apparently was greenlighted by someone. 

I just think more highly of him than many of my brethren, and for that, I do not apologize. 

I would have liked to see him stick around one more year to see if he could develop into the player Hoiberg thought he would be.

My biggest complaint about him was I felt that he would throw his hands up in the air and look at the refs way too much when things didn’t go his way.  That was something I noticed about him when I watched a couple of his high school games that were on tv.  I’m not a big fan of players do that.

He seems like a good kid.  I do wish him the best and hope he does well wherever he goes.

[k3s3i]

5 hours ago, k3s3i said:

what

yea but i said wilhelm doesn’t do the dirty work and he said “like spelling keiseis name incorrectly in your username” what’s dirty work have to do with me not being a professional speller 

[hskr4life]

39 minutes ago, k3s3i said:

yea but i said wilhelm doesn’t do the dirty work and he said “like spelling keiseis name incorrectly in your username” what’s dirty work have to do with me not being a professional speller 

He didn’t do the dirty work… you didn’t do the spelling work.

 

I think that’s the comparison he was making.

[Swan88]

I always hate people kicking a guy when he’s down.  
Message boards are the worst: internet geniuses hiding behind anonymity . . . and trashing a kid.

Kinda pathetic, if you ask me (though no one ever has).

Edited May 6, 2023 by Swan88

[tcp]

if someone uproots their life to come and wear my school's colors, I'll get their back as long as they're not behaaving like a two-legged crime spree. 

it's uncoommon that decisions like thiis are made in a vacuum. i'm confident that the staff gave him every support possible. 

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by tcp

[basketballjones]

On 5/5/2023 at 2:10 PM, Huskerpapa said:

Nope.  Not that it matters.  I liked him because I viewed him as a tough mother.  He seemed willing to do the dirty work that few appreciate.  He had bad wheels that he worked to overcome.  He had a good left hand around the basket and good hands.  He was criticized for his clumsiness which is fair.  He was criticized for his outside shot...but he apparently was greenlighted by someone. 

I just think more highly of him than many of my brethren, and for that, I do not apologize. 

I never asked you to apologize, I just did not want to offend because you seem very attached/defensive of him, which I greatly appreciate the dedication and love for our guys. I also have no intent of being overly critical or negative towards our guys, however I do feel like an honest conversation and evaluation of his abilities is warranted now that he is gone. I also have to caveat that I think Wilhelm is a phenomenal young man, appreciated his contributions, and think he can be a very nice piece to a mid-major type team. And I also acknowledge his injury created set-backs for him. 

Why do you feel he is/was such a tough/hard worker/dirty work guy? Do you have inside information regarding his, like, weight room or practice habits or something? Nothing about what he did on the court said to me he worked harder or less harder than anyone else on the team. Again, I am not, in anyway, say he isn't or wasn't a hard worker. I just think he's getting a bit of a..... "goofy looking guy" pass here. One just assumes he works hard because of how he looks. Nothing I saw or heard seemed he did anything extraordinary I guess? He certainly took some shots and kept getting up - but I kinda feel all our guys do?  

 

I think what can be mistaken for his "effort," often looked liked someone who was clumsy and out of control. And he never seemed to fix or address that. So many silly fouls, just so many. And him ending up on the floor or in precarious situations seemed less to me about his effort but more of an indictment of his clumsy, bull-in-a-china-shop physical capabilities. As far as basketball goes, his jump shot was B-R-O-K-E. Probably works well in a practice-gym setting receiving kickouts from a rebounder, but with bullets flying, that thing hit the side of the backboard more times than I care to remember. He continuing to have a greenlight is more of an indictment of Coach Hoiberg's philosophy than it is Wilhelm, to be fair. 

I will admit - much of my disappointment and criticism of WB comes from his HS ranking. If he was a local kid who we knew was a development project I'd probably be ecstatic - for a lot of the reasons you stated above. I mean this was a top 150, near 4-star (right?) type kid that I thought was going to be the perfect stretch 4 for Hoiberg's system and I thought you'd see the ability/pieces right away even as freshman. But it is what it is I suppose.  

[Huskerpapa]

4 minutes ago, basketballjones said:

I never asked you to apologize, I just did not want to offend because you seem very attached/defensive of him, which I greatly appreciate the dedication and love for our guys. I also have no intent of being overly critical or negative towards our guys, however I do feel like an honest conversation and evaluation of his abilities is warranted now that he is gone. I also have to caveat that I think Wilhelm is a phenomenal young man, appreciated his contributions, and think he can be a very nice piece to a mid-major type team. And I also acknowledge his injury created set-backs for him. 

Why do you feel he is/was such a tough/hard worker/dirty work guy? Do you have inside information regarding his, like, weight room or practice habits or something? Nothing about what he did on the court said to me he worked harder or less harder than anyone else on the team. Again, I am not, in anyway, say he isn't or wasn't a hard worker. I just think he's getting a bit of a..... "goofy looking guy" pass here. One just assumes he works hard because of how he looks. Nothing I saw or heard seemed he did anything extraordinary I guess? He certainly took some shots and kept getting up - but I kinda feel all our guys do?  

 

I think what can be mistaken for his "effort," often looked liked someone who was clumsy and out of control. And he never seemed to fix or address that. So many silly fouls, just so many. And him ending up on the floor or in precarious situations seemed less to me about his effort but more of an indictment of his clumsy, bull-in-a-china-shop physical capabilities. As far as basketball goes, his jump shot was B-R-O-K-E. Probably works well in a practice-gym setting receiving kickouts from a rebounder, but with bullets flying, that thing hit the side of the backboard more times than I care to remember. He continuing to have a greenlight is more of an indictment of Coach Hoiberg's philosophy than it is Wilhelm, to be fair. 

I will admit - much of my disappointment and criticism of WB comes from his HS ranking. If he was a local kid who we knew was a development project I'd probably be ecstatic - for a lot of the reasons you stated above. I mean this was a top 150, near 4-star (right?) type kid that I thought was going to be the perfect stretch 4 for Hoiberg's system and I thought you'd see the ability/pieces right away even as freshman. But it is what it is I suppose.  

I am retired; but have a part-time gig that provides some insider information.  WB worked hard for his recovery and to build his skills.  He never fully recovered his springs which hindered his performance.

 

I simply believe he was undervalued.  I really believed that with an off-season free of injury, we would see an improved product on the court.  But like you, I base that on his reputation, in part.  

 

Hey we move on.  Players come and go and I simply saw him as a complimentary piece of the puzzle that I thought could help us turn the corner.  He had his faults, but again, others have faults as well.

 

We move on.

[royalfan]

He had several games this year where he was a complete nuisance doing little things.  K st gane is was tremendous.  If memory serves Iowa read win he made some key plays.  
 

Depending on how our schollies are used, I would have been more than fine with him back.  

[hhcmatt]

One thing thing that occurred when we essentially swapped WB for Allick is that we opened up another scholarship in 2024-25.  With our glut of guys on the roster with a 2025 graduation date, that's fairly helpful for recruiting out of HS.