I am so geeked.

[hskr4life]

2 hours ago, 75unlgrad said:

And it can't get here soon enough.

It's an endless circle of "welp, it's basketball season soon" to "at least baseball should be good this year" to "it's summer soon and then we've got Husker football baby!"  Who is going to be the team to break the streak?

[hskr4life]

You guys are getting me realllll excited about this Diop guy!  Is this the year we have fun Nov-Mar?

[49r]

You guys are getting me realllll excited about this Diop guy!  Is this the year we have fun Nov-Mar?

Nope

[AuroranHusker]

There is always hope, as it seems to be all we have. GBR

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2023 by AuroranHusker

[millerhusker]

10 hours ago, hskr4life said:

You guys are getting me realllll excited about this Diop guy! 

Husker fans also thought Matthew Atewe was the next Dwight Howard and Elbert Robinson was the second coming of Shaq when they were presumed to be coming here (they were non-contributors at the Power 5 level and finished their careers at Pepperdine and Old Dominion, respectively). 

Matar needs to develop a feel for the game. It will take time. Yes, we haven't had a long athlete like him since the Nee days, but just about every other team has. Mid-major conferences around the country are filled with long athletic players who don't have much of a feel for the game. 

I hope Matar doesn't have to play much at all this year. If he does, he'll turn the ball over a lot on offense and foul a lot on defense. And get discouraged. Then the transfer portal will be looming. That is what I see when I watch him move right now. 

I don't think this is a pessimistic view. I do think Matar has a ton of potential. What's pessimistic is Husker fans attitude towards players like this when they don't meet or exceed the hype and expectations.  

 

Is this the year we have fun Nov-Mar?   I think so. 

[49r]

Well said @millerhusker, I agree completely.

[Huskerpapa]

[cozrulz]

2 hours ago, Huskerpapa said:

 

Can we get a shirt like that?  Sweet design.

[Norm Peterson]

4 hours ago, millerhusker said:

Husker fans also thought Matthew Atewe was the next Dwight Howard

 

Not me.

[Handy Johnson]

After breaking down the Roster with Henry T. last night, he came to the same conclusion I did. We just might have TOO many Good Players. The Season can’t start soon enough…!!!

[hhcmatt]

It's safe to say that Allick has recovered from his off-season surgery

[basketballjones]

I don't know if this is our "best" roster... But it certainly seems to be, on paper anyways, our most "complete" roster. 

Everyone should probably cool their jets a bit on Diop. Long ways to go if he's going to operate in our offense like how we seem to want to use our bigs. Right now, if he's in the game, you've gotta be in a different offense (i.e., like a 4 around opposite post). 

[HuscurAdam]

On 9/29/2023 at 10:19 PM, Norm Peterson said:

I do not recall a big man in a Nebraska jersey as explosive as he is. Not ever...

 

CJ finally looks confident. Finally. Confident, but not cocky. And it showed with him winning the 3-point competition.

 

Hold up...more explosive than Mikki Moore?!?  That is a bold statement and would be a *very* big development.  

 

IIRC, CJ won the 3-point competition last year as well. Hopefully he sustains some consistency this year. I would love to see him be a reliable rotation player as an upperclassman.  

[hhcmatt]

To me it was watching Diop in person and noticing his speed and hops relative to everyone else on the court.  No idea if he can actually play but can see him outrunning opposing centers and even some guards on the break and protecting the rim on defense. I think we have fairly good depth at the post where redshirting him seems like a good possibility and in terms of him replacing Oleg as a center project I think we've upgraded. Tremendous end roster pickup.

[Huskerpapa]

42 minutes ago, basketballjones said:

I don't know if this is our "best" roster... But it certainly seems to be, on paper anyways, our most "complete" roster. 

Everyone should probably cool their jets a bit on Diop. Long ways to go if he's going to operate in our offense like how we seem to want to use our bigs. Right now, if he's in the game, you've gotta be in a different offense (i.e., like a 4 around opposite post). 

Yeah, I sorta agree. 

 

I spent the offseason skeptical, at best, regarding both our talent and our chances of success this coming season.  I sat down at the practice session and simply tried to evaluate what we had, talent wise and tried to compare our talent to what we see around our league.  It was almost shocking to see what we assembled...and that was a positive shock, not a negative.  We have a season to traverse, and a lot can, and usually does go wrong through the middle of March.

 

That said, we seem to be a mature team.  The team seems to get along.  The team seems to have quality depth.  The team seems to look strong.  The team seems to look athletic.   The team as a whole, seems to shoot well.  The team seems to have a plethora of quick hoppers.  The team seems to be basketball savvy.

 

Now, we all know the history of Nebraska.  What seems to be possible and what then becomes reality always sucks.

 

So we shall see.  I for one am geeked, at least for now.

 

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, basketballjones said:

Everyone should probably cool their jets a bit on Diop. Long ways to go if he's going to operate in our offense like how we seem to want to use our bigs. Right now, if he's in the game, you've gotta be in a different offense (i.e., like a 4 around opposite post). 

 

Two things can be true at the same time. He can be an athletic freak  (which I think he is) AND he can have a long way to go to operate   in our offense (which I think is  probably also  true.)

 

Having said that, he is not only explosively athletic,  but he's also  agile.  He does NOT have hands of stone. He might be a long ways behind Rienk Mast or Josiah Allick, but he's way ahead of Yvan Ouedraogo at the same point in their careers, and I would also give him the edge over Eduardo Andre.

[basketballjones]

4 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

but he's way ahead of Yvan Ouedraogo at the same point in their careers, and I would also give him the edge over Eduardo Andre.

Well, geesh - let's hang his damn jersey already then. 

 

[Fullbacksympathy]

They look like a tournament team.  Crazy depth, and diverse enough to create matchup problems with just about anyone.  
 

Diop would be wise to learn how to play like Gary.  If he learns to be a versatile defender and energy guy, yikes.  Mikki Moore was the last big who could jump like that, but I’ve literally never seen a big at Nebraska RUN like that.  
 

I’m far and out most excited for Eli.  Honestly, if I hadn’t been familiar with the roster, I’d think he was the guy we were building around.  I didn’t realize how explosive he was athletically.  
 

Josiah, Eli, and Diop are all newcomers, and they are also the three most athletic players on the roster.  And remember Gary is a freak of nature in his own right.
 

Holy crap.  

[basketballjones]

One thing I'm going to say about this roster that I have rarely ever been able to see from a Nebrasketball team - they look strong. Kudos to our S&C staff on the guys who've been here a while, and Kudos to Fred and Co. for identifying older, physically mature guys in the transfer portal to bring in. I've felt, many years, one of our biggest issues was we looked thin, physically immature to our competitors, and broke down towards the end of the season.

[cipsucks]

Robin Washut mentioned something last week that surprised me. If it's been mentioned here before, I apologize.  Age-wise, the Huskers have the oldest roster in the B1G.  We've seldom had that happen. 

[Tallbaby21]

We've gone from somewhere like 345 in rebounding % to 215 last year. And now this year instead of saying, "We'll be fine if we don't get killed on the glass" we'll say "we might kill these guys on the glass. 

[Norm Peterson]

1 hour ago, Tallbaby21 said:

We've gone from somewhere like 345 in rebounding % to 215 last year. And now this year instead of saying, "We'll be fine if we don't get killed on the glass" we'll say "we might kill these guys on the glass. 

 

This is a really good point. A REALLY GOOD POINT.

 

In practically all the years of Hoiberg, we've gotten hammered on the boards. You look over on the ribbon boards around the arena halfway through most conference games and we'd be routinely down 10 rebounds to the opposing team. At home.

 

Those 10 boards equate to 10 extra possessions where they have a chance to score. Figure every extra possession from every extra rebound is about an extra point give or take.

 

So, of the guys we picked up in the portal ...

 

Rienk Mast was the #2 overall leading rebounder in the Missouri Valley Conference last year at 8.0 per game.

 

Josiah Allick was the #2 overall leading rebounder in the Mountain West Conference last year at 7.3 per game.

 

Brice Williams was the #15 overall leading rebounder in Conference USA last year at 5.3 per game.

 

Jarron Coleman, even as a PG, was the #20 overall leading rebounder in the MAC last year at 4.9 per game.

 

So, the transfers we've brought in are decent to very good rebounders for their positions. And winning the rebounding battle will probably move the needle as much as anything in our win/loss record year over year.

 

In conference games last year, we won the game EVERY TIME we won the boards. And 12 out of the 16 games where we lost the battle of the boards, we also lost the game. And in the 4 games we won despite being outrebounded, we were only outrebounded by 1, 2, 3 and 5 boards each.

 

So, it seems safe to say this year, if we're holding our own on the boards, the dividends should be obvious.

[huskercappy]

And don't forget, we get back a healthy Gary. His offensive rebounding helped us squeak by a victory against Minnesota.

 

We seemed to have more a want to last year in regards to rebounding. I think that will carry over, also.

[Norm Peterson]

15 hours ago, huskercappy said:

And don't forget, we get back a healthy Gary. His offensive rebounding helped us squeak by a victory against Minnesota.

 

We seemed to have more a want to last year in regards to rebounding. I think that will carry over, also.

 

I think that change in want-to is what happens when you bring in assistants who actually care about winning instead of glad-handing and schmoozing.

 

I still acutely remember how I used to complain about the players goofing around during pre-game and halftime warmups. Just maddening. And then they'd go lay an egg.

 

That doesn't happen anymore.

[HuskerBB]

On 10/2/2023 at 12:01 PM, Fullbacksympathy said:

. . . 

Diop would be wise to learn how to play like Gary.  If he learns to be a versatile defender and energy guy, yikes.  Mikki Moore was the last big who could jump like that, but I’ve literally never seen a big at Nebraska RUN like that.  

. .  .

 

Don't have to go much before Mikki.   Made me remember watching Bruce Chubick get a rebound, throw the outlet pass and then finish a no dribble fast-break with a dunk on the other end.   Watching it in real time you would have to shake your head and think Wow did that really just happen? - How did he do that?