How does this years roster stack up to last years?

[huskerbill85]

I would say scoring wise it might be a little better certainly more depth. I'm still not sure I can look at this roster and say it's a tournament team. 18-19 wins-ish.

 

What say you?

[HuskerFever]

Does this assume that other Big Ten teams don't see equal or better improvement?

[k3s3i]

this years roster offensively is better imo, but do they go into the season with the same defense and selfless identity? i think that will determine if we have a good season 

[huskerbill85]

41 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

Does this assume that other Big Ten teams don't see equal or better improvement?

I'm just going off our roster I haven't been following other B1G's too much

[cornfed24-7]

I think this is a right side of the bubble team

[Norm Peterson]

10 hours ago, HuskerFever said:

Does this assume that other Big Ten teams don't see equal or better improvement?

 

I haven't seen other Big Ten teams mentioned in terms of "winning the portal."

 

Sure, all teams try to improve over the prior year. But, to use a golf analogy, it's a lot easier to go from shooting in the 90s to shooting in the 80s than it is to go from shooting in the 80s to shooting in the 70s. And, if you're a scratch golfer, it's not necessarily *easy* to stay there. The effort it took you to get there is pretty much the effort it'll take to stay there.

 

Teams at the bottom sometimes have opportunities to take bigger strides than the teams above them who, a lot of the times, are just fighting to not backslide.

 

Our problem is we have to not only replace Derrick Walker and Sam Griesel, but we also have to upgrade the talent across the lineup. I am very excited about the first two players we landed from the portal. I'm not sure yet what to think about our PG transfer. But, if he pans out, I feel pretty good about our chances to improve compared to our league foes.

[49r]

11 hours ago, HuskerFever said:

Does this assume that other Big Ten teams don't see equal or better improvement?

 

Exactly.  What precisely makes anyone think that we will automatically improve over last year, and how is it that we will be the only ones improving.  I see another season right around .500 and struggling to make the NIT (probably on the outside looking in) again.

[49r]

32 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

I haven't seen other Big Ten teams mentioned in terms of "winning the portal."

 

@Norm Peterson we didn't "win the portal" in as much as we did make some of the more serious improvements in the quality of our roster via the portal.

 

HOWEVER, we were still a ~100 KenPom team at the end of the season last year, ranked below San Jose State and all but one of our conference mates.  In most cases WELL below...

 

The amount of improvement needed to jump just one spot above where we finished last year in the Big Ten pecking order is so substatial I am not even sure that it's possible.

[cornfed24-7]

39 minutes ago, 49r said:

 

The amount of improvement needed to jump just one spot above where we finished last year in the Big Ten pecking order is so substatial I am not even sure that it's possible.

This seems to be a bit of hyperbole. To put it in terms of actual records let's use Michigan St and Iowa overall and conference records last year. Both were tournament teams. And I wholeheartedly understand if we had thier record we may not have been invited, but I digress.

 

Michigan St 21-13, 11-9

Iowa 19-14, 11-9

Nebraska 16-16, 9-11

 

Now that's not exactly having to climb Mount Everest in terms of improvement to get this team dancing

 

Edit confused Mich an Mich st oops

Edited May 9, 2023 by cornfed24-7

[millerhusker]

48 minutes ago, 49r said:

 

@Norm Peterson we didn't "win the portal" in as much as we did make some of the more serious improvements in the quality of our roster via the portal.

 

 

The amount of improvement needed to jump just one spot above where we finished last year in the Big Ten pecking order is so substatial I am not even sure that it's possible.

We were 3 games back from 2nd place in the league. Iowa and Maryland tied for 5th and we were 3-1 against those two teams. Cheer up. 

[hhcmatt]

We'll be an improved rebounding team. If Brice Williams plays a lot at the 3 we're likely to have the best rebounding team of the Hoiberg era on both ends.

 

In terms of rebounding Mast, Allick and Keita should be an improvement over Walker, WB, and Keita at the 5. Gary and Allick should be a slight improvement over Griesel, Gary, and WB.  Williams playing instead of CJ is a massive leap in rebounding ability. The numbers indicate this should be easily visible on the court.  Limiting possession for the opponent and obtaining more possessions on the offensive end are one of the 4 factors to winning.

 

Keep coming back to how important Ramal Lloyd will be for this season because I have questions about our ability to get to the FT line (we haven't added anyone who has shown that ability) and our ability to hold onto the ball.

 

[MichHusker]

3 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

We'll be an improved rebounding team. If Brice Williams plays a lot at the 3 we're likely to have the best rebounding team of the Hoiberg era on both ends.

 

In terms of rebounding Mast, Allick and Keita should be an improvement over Walker, WB, and Keita at the 5. Gary and Allick should be a slight improvement over Griesel, Gary, and WB.  Williams playing instead of CJ is a massive leap in rebounding ability. The numbers indicate this should be easily visible on the court.  Limiting possession for the opponent and obtaining more possessions on the offensive end are one of the 4 factors to winning.

 

Keep coming back to how important Ramal Lloyd will be for this season because I have questions about our ability to get to the FT line (we haven't added anyone who has shown that ability) and our ability to hold onto the ball.

 

Rebounding was a huge point of emphasis from what I heard last Saturday 

[hhcmatt]

1 minute ago, MichHusker said:

Rebounding was a huge point of emphasis from what I heard last Saturday 

 

To add on to the above, our two best years rebounding were when we could stick Griesel and Banton in at point to supplement this weakness. The other two years were basically watching the other team consistently get second chance buckets. Probably not a coincidence that our two best defensive rebounding seasons (2020,2022) lined up with our 2 best rebounding seasons.

 

If you just averaged the minutes played by our best rebounders vs our sub-par rebounders, we tended to roll out 2.3 good rebounders and 2.7 poor rebounders on any possession. Like I said the more minutes that Williams plays at the 3, the better our numbers will be. If Lloyd has a nose for the ball, this could be our best rebounding team since 2015-16.

 

Finally, while rebounding is important, shooting is more important.  If CJ is shooting 40% from 3, we're probably better off rolling out a team like Ulis, Keisei, CJ, Williams, and Mast while just being so-so on the boards.

 

 

 

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, 49r said:

 

@Norm Peterson we didn't "win the portal" in as much as we did make some of the more serious improvements in the quality of our roster via the portal.

 

HOWEVER, we were still a ~100 KenPom team at the end of the season last year, ranked below San Jose State and all but one of our conference mates.  In most cases WELL below...

 

The amount of improvement needed to jump just one spot above where we finished last year in the Big Ten pecking order is so substatial I am not even sure that it's possible.

 

So, just for some perspective, we have a veteran player who started 24 games for us last year and averaged almost 27 minutes. I haven't seen anyone project him into next year's starting lineup. Some people, including me, have questioned whether he even makes the rotation. Now, he *could* make the rotation. He might even start. But, for him to do that, I'm quite confident he'll need to take a massive step forward and up his game by a lot. Otherwise, we've got some other players on this roster who didn't log a minute for us last season, at least one of whom I'm confident will represent an upgrade. Maybe even a substantial upgrade.

 

Also, I'll take Gary/Allick over just Gary by a lot. Allick, of course, started on and averaged 32 minutes for a team that was ~65 KenPom. He *could* bump Gary from the starting lineup. At the very least, he represents quality front court depth that we lacked last season.

 

On the other side of the ledger, losing Walker is tough. Those are big shoes to fill. But Mast has a lot to recommend him. I don't think he'll do everything Derrick did, but he'll do some things Derrick did not. Like shoot treys at an above-average rate.

 

The biggest concern I have is over who replaces Griesel. I don't know quite what to think about Ulis. A change of scenery might be just what he needs. Does he have all the right tools? Yeah, I don't know. He's an unknown for me at this point. But he did start for an Iowa team that reached the NCAA Tournament. Y'know, ~40 KenPom or thereabouts.

 

Our portal departures this year were from the bottom end of the roster; our portal adds plug in at or near the top. We grabbed a couple of the best players from teams that were certainly no worse than we were and we grabbed a couple of role-player starters from teams that were a lot better, KenPom-wise. Griesel and Walker are big losses, to be sure, but *everywhere else* across our roster, we're at least as good as we were, and in some spots, much better.

 

So, I feel like we have a shot to climb the ladder a bit. The coaches should be applauded. The off-season roster moves at least give us a chance.

[millerhusker]

1 hour ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

I haven't seen other Big Ten teams mentioned in terms of "winning the portal."

 

Sure, all teams try to improve over the prior year. But, to use a golf analogy, it's a lot easier to go from shooting in the 90s to shooting in the 80s than it is to go from shooting in the 80s to shooting in the 70s. And, if you're a scratch golfer, it's not necessarily *easy* to stay there. The effort it took you to get there is pretty much the effort it'll take to stay there.

 

Teams at the bottom sometimes have opportunities to take bigger strides than the teams above them who, a lot of the times, are just fighting to not backslide.

 

Our problem is we have to not only replace Derrick Walker and Sam Griesel, but we also have to upgrade the talent across the lineup. I am very excited about the first two players we landed from the portal. I'm not sure yet what to think about our PG transfer. But, if he pans out, I feel pretty good about our chances to improve compared to our league foes.

Took a quick glance at the portal activity of teams who finished ahead of us last year. It is less than impressive for most of these teams. A bunch of teams are taking a bunch of guys who people on here would be furious about if they were Nebraska additions. 

 

Maryland lost Hakim Hart to Nova (stud who I believe will be a good NBA 3 and D guy). They took a wing who averaged 4 and 2 at Indiana and a guard who averaged 6 and 1 at Loyola Marymount. Neither of these guys were starters. 

 

Indiana took a 5th year forward from Miami who averaged 3 and 1. Just played spot minutes. 

 

Michigan lost their best player who carried them the entire year. They took a 5th year forward from Seton Hall who averaged 6 and 2. Was not a starter. 

 

Ohio State took a wing from Penn st who wasn't in the rotation. And a 5th year guard from Baylor who wasn't a starter and averaged 4 and 2. 

 

Iowa just took a 4th year big from Belmont who averaged 7 and 5.  

 

Some blue bloods around the country are taking younger, unproven talent (for example, KU took a freshman guard from Texas who wasn't in the rotation and Texas took a forward who averaged 7 and 4 at UTEP). 

 

Nebraska lost 4 guys who combined to average 5.9 ppg.  And gained four older, proven players who started a lot of games for winning teams. Aside from Ulis, the other three had very good production, albeit at lower level conferences. It's interesting that we decided against going the Petteway/Palmer/White route of taking talented players who couldn't crack the rotation at their former Power 5 school and went the Griesel-type route. 

[basketballjones]

I tend to think the overall roster is deeper and more versatile this year, and having a guy like Keisei effectively show-cause for the last half of the season certainly gives us a dude teams have to specifically gameplan around. 

However, I just do not see how we replace Walker and Greisel. Mast, imo, can maybe get to 85-90% of Walker... But Greisel just did so many other things that I'm not sure you can measure, that I am not sure we can replicate. 

You are getting a year older KT, Lawrence, Gary, Hoiberg, and Wilcher so you have to somewhat consider that an "upgrade" in each one of those spots. I also think Allick is a definite upgrade over Breidenbach. So yeah - overall roster and depth might be "upgraded," but I don't see how you replace the two we lost very easily. So I'm going to have to consider it a wash for now unfortunately. 

Also - if all you had told me about last year was that we'd sweep Iowa, beat Creighton at Creighton, beat Maryland late, beat Wisconsin, win at Rutgers - I would have guessed we were like a NCAA second round team. Yet we finished 16-16 losing in the first round of the Conference Tournament. So who the hell knows what next year brings. But I can tell you we're not going to do "that" again, so we better find wins elsewhere. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by basketballjones

[Norm Peterson]

29 minutes ago, basketballjones said:

I tend to think the overall roster is deeper and more versatile this year, and having a guy like Keisei effectively show-cause for the last half of the season certainly gives us a dude teams have to specifically gameplan around. 

However, I just do not see how we replace Walker and Greisel. Mast, imo, can maybe get to 85-90% of Walker... But Greisel just did so many other things that I'm not sure you can measure, that I am not sure we can replicate. 

You are getting a year older KT, Lawrence, Gary, Hoiberg, and Wilcher so you have to somewhat consider that an "upgrade" in each one of those spots. I also think Allick is a definite upgrade over Breidenbach. So yeah - overall roster and depth might be "upgraded," but I don't see how you replace the two we lost very easily. So I'm going to have to consider it a wash for now unfortunately. 

Also - if all you had told me about last year was that we'd sweep Iowa, beat Creighton at Creighton, beat Maryland late, beat Wisconsin, win at Rutgers - I would have guessed we were like a NCAA second round team. Yet we finished 16-16 losing in the first round of the Conference Tournament. So who the hell knows what next year brings. But I can tell you we're not going to do "that" again, so we better find wins elsewhere. 

 

We replace Walker by committee. I don't know that we'll ever find the assists he produced. He and Keisei just had a thing going. They knew how to read each other. That will be difficult for anyone to replicate. But Walker wasn't knocking down treys and Mast can do that.

 

Walker wasn't perfect, though. He had his flaws. You'd like to see him a little longer. He's maybe a bit more of a below-the-rim kind of player, for example. He managed to get stuffed a bunch by players like Dain Dainja. He also reverted back to being a bad freethrow shooter this last year. And he wasn't a perimeter threat. Griesel, too, had his limitations. As good as he was at the things he was good at, he also had some aspects of his game that weren't first rate. His handles weren't the best. His 3-pt accuracy was pedestrian. And he maybe turned the ball over more than you'd want to see. But he played really good defense and he had the unique ability to post up on smaller guards.

 

You make a really good point about going the Griesel route and picking up guys who were veteran stars on mid-major teams as opposed to young guys who didn't crack the rotation at elite programs. But, all in all, as I said above, I think the coaches did about as good as we had any reason to hope in terms of finding the pieces we needed to find in order to build a roster that could climb further up the conference ladder next season.

 

Maybe we'll climb further up the ladder; maybe we'll fall. But the roster moves at least put us in position to have a chance. And that's as much as we could ask.

[aphilso1]

To do this exercise properly, you can't view last year's roster through the lens of how they actually performed.  You have to look at it from how it appeared entering the season.  And that roster was full of holes and question marks entering the season.

 

Key returning players:

Walker - serviceable but undersized big man

Wilcher - high expectations after ending the '21-'22 season with increased efficiency.  Probable leading scorer.

 

Key transfers:

Sam - big pickup, but still a question mark since he would be playing more of a PG role than he had previously.  Not an elite passer or ballhandler

Bandoumel - lockdown defender, average offensive player

Gary - undersized PF who has elite defending and rebounding abilities for his size.  Dennis Rodman Light (before Dennis went crazy).

Blaise - questions about his health and ability to make the jump up from JUCO competition, but has potential to be dominant force

 

 

That's really it.  The rest of the roster were freshman and guys who needed to make a monster leap in production compared to the previous season.  And looking at this year's roster compared to that isn't even close.  We are miles ahead of where we were a year ago.

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by aphilso1

[k3s3i]

59 minutes ago, basketballjones said:

I tend to think the overall roster is deeper and more versatile this year, and having a guy like Keisei effectively show-cause for the last half of the season certainly gives us a dude teams have to specifically gameplan around. 

However, I just do not see how we replace Walker and Greisel. Mast, imo, can maybe get to 85-90% of Walker... But Greisel just did so many other things that I'm not sure you can measure, that I am not sure we can replicate. 

You are getting a year older KT, Lawrence, Gary, Hoiberg, and Wilcher so you have to somewhat consider that an "upgrade" in each one of those spots. I also think Allick is a definite upgrade over Breidenbach. So yeah - overall roster and depth might be "upgraded," but I don't see how you replace the two we lost very easily. So I'm going to have to consider it a wash for now unfortunately. 

Also - if all you had told me about last year was that we'd sweep Iowa, beat Creighton at Creighton, beat Maryland late, beat Wisconsin, win at Rutgers - I would have guessed we were like a NCAA second round team. Yet we finished 16-16 losing in the first round of the Conference Tournament. So who the hell knows what next year brings. But I can tell you we're not going to do "that" again, so we better find wins elsewhere. 

isn’t williams just a way better griesel? similar post up numbers, with absurd shooting numbers. just plays off the ball a little bit more 

[49r]

57 minutes ago, basketballjones said:

Also - if all you had told me about last year was that we'd sweep Iowa, beat Creighton at Creighton, beat Maryland late, beat Wisconsin, win at Rutgers - I would have guessed we were like a NCAA second round team. Yet we finished 16-16 losing in the first round of the Conference Tournament. So who the hell knows what next year brings. But I can tell you we're not going to do "that" again, so we better find wins elsewhere. 

 

Yeah I keep coming back to this.  We were incredibly lucky in a lot of games last year, notably 4 or 5 of the 6 games listed above.  In my mind we were a lot closer to 12-20 than 17-15 or better.  Look, I get it, we had manageable attrition off a team that last season overachieved their expectations by a considerable margin.  And yeah the parts we plug in this year will on paper be as good or maybe slightly better as what they replaced.  But does the regression to the mean cause us to simultaneously improve our roster AND end up with a worse record.  The answer is, "maybe".  This regression is just as likely in my mind as the '23-'24 team just plowing forward from last season and making a push towards post season play.

[millerhusker]

9 minutes ago, k3s3i said:

isn’t williams just a way better griesel? similar post up numbers, with absurd shooting numbers. just plays off the ball a little bit more 

They have the same measurables and that's where the comparison stops and the contrasting starts IMO. Completely different types of players. 

[doc1394]

The team still has a glaring weakness (that is probably worse now than last year) and that is a guy who can go get a shot at the end of a shot clock or beat his man off the dribble and get a bucket if needed. A Petteway/JPJ/Shavon guy. Walker could do that at times when he’d start at the free throw line and Griesel could get a size mismatch but the team as it currently is formed does not have that guy. We’re totally dependent on Fred’s offense being the only way to get looks. 

[Dean Smith]

29 minutes ago, doc1394 said:

The team still has a glaring weakness (that is probably worse now than last year) and that is a guy who can go get a shot at the end of a shot clock or beat his man off the dribble and get a bucket if needed. A Petteway/JPJ/Shavon guy. Walker could do that at times when he’d start at the free throw line and Griesel could get a size mismatch but the team as it currently is formed does not have that guy. We’re totally dependent on Fred’s offense being the only way to get looks. 

Sam could do a lot but he was not good at creating a shot for himself at the end of the clock. 

[millerhusker]

43 minutes ago, doc1394 said:

The team still has a glaring weakness (that is probably worse now than last year) and that is a guy who can go get a shot at the end of a shot clock or beat his man off the dribble and get a bucket if needed. A Petteway/JPJ/Shavon guy. Walker could do that at times when he’d start at the free throw line and Griesel could get a size mismatch but the team as it currently is formed does not have that guy. We’re totally dependent on Fred’s offense being the only way to get looks. 

I agree, but I don't see any reason why Lawrence couldn't turn into that guy eventually.  I wish whoever puts together highlight reels would make one for JL. He's capable of doing some things with the ball in his hands that'll make even Tom Izzo raise his eyebrows. 

[Norm Peterson]

50 minutes ago, doc1394 said:

The team still has a glaring weakness (that is probably worse now than last year) and that is a guy who can go get a shot at the end of a shot clock or beat his man off the dribble and get a bucket if needed. A Petteway/JPJ/Shavon guy. Walker could do that at times when he’d start at the free throw line and Griesel could get a size mismatch but the team as it currently is formed does not have that guy. We’re totally dependent on Fred’s offense being the only way to get looks. 

 

I don't want to put too much on the kid -- especially for someone we've never seen play at this level -- but it's possible Ramel could be that guy.

 

I think it was the Husker basketball official Twitter account that posted a video of clips of Ramel portraying the other team's best player. He was getting shots off against our best defenders. He's able to drive to the rim, pull-up from mid-range, and shoot the long ball. Three-level scorer. Plus he's long. I think he could be that guy.