UNO

[Norm Peterson]

Astonishing.

 

This is only their 2nd season in D1.

 

Their roster has no players with any Rivals recruiting stars, let alone Rivals top 150.

 

Their two best players are both from Omaha (North and Creighton Prep) and neither got a sniff coming out of high school from either of the other two D1 schools in the state.

 

Their head coach is a Nebraska kid who graduated from Wesleyan more recently than some of the kids on his team were born.  He's been there 8 seasons and he's already the 2nd all-time winningest coach in their program's history.

 

And Kenpom has them more highly ranked right now (119) than our highest ranking all of last year (127).

 

They'll probably hit a rankings skid when they go through their league as they'll take a big hit on their strength of schedule.

 

But GEEEEEZ.  

 

Major props to UNO men's basketball.

 

If they manage to win their league this year, that coach is going to find himself really quickly in a job that pays the big bucks.

[huskerbaseball13]

Astonishing.

 

This is only their 2nd season in D1.

 

Their roster has no players with any Rivals recruiting stars, let alone Rivals top 150.

 

Their two best players are both from Omaha (North and Creighton Prep) and neither got a sniff coming out of high school from either of the other two D1 schools in the state.

 

Their head coach is a Nebraska kid who graduated from Wesleyan more recently than some of the kids on his team were born.  He's been there 8 seasons and he's already the 2nd all-time winningest coach in their program's history.

 

And Kenpom has them more highly ranked right now (119) than our highest ranking all of last year (127).

 

They'll probably hit a rankings skid when they go through their league as they'll take a big hit on their strength of schedule.

 

But GEEEEEZ.  

 

Major props to UNO men's basketball.

 

If they manage to win their league this year, that coach is going to find himself really quickly in a job that pays the big bucks.

 

And they should have taken down Dinger and his Rainbows.........let that game slip away.  If I remember correct they are a pretty senior laden team.  So I'm expecting them to come back down to earth next year.  It's a shame they cant make the big dance this year as they have a decent shot of winning the Summit. 

[hskr4life]

Shoot... I thought this thread was about the card game....

 

But you are correct... they are making a heck of a run.

[FredsSlacks]

their backup center is from Lincoln and is putting up comparable numbers to Pitchford and Smith.

[Huskerpapa]

Must be an Omaha thing.

[TheGov21]

Their two best players are both from Omaha (North and Creighton Prep).

Carter was a Benson Bunny

[AuroranHusker]

Omaha Mavs play an exciting brand of ball.  If you can, try to make one of their ballgames... And, in a couple of years, the UNO Arena will be ready just to the south of their Aksarben campus (near 64th & Center).

[GoBigRed]

I know I might get shot for saying this, but I've watched all their TV games and seen them in person a couple times and I really think if we played UNO this year they might just beat us.

 

And they aren't really that senior-laden, only 1 full-time starter is a senior, and 3 seniors come off the bench as role players (Simmons is down this year). Their best player (CJ Carter) is just a junior too. Their big man Karhoff (Creighton Prep) is a senior and he would play minutes for NU this year. He can really shoot the midrange jump shot. On top of that, they have a 6-8 transfer from Wichita State who has to sit out this season.

 

They play up tempo and their coach really knows how to coach to his players' strengths.

[GoBigRed]

One could argue that UNO has 4 guys who are 6-7 or 6-8 playing this year who are as tough or tougher than Smith and Pitchford (talking just pure physical toughness). Their big men are more suited to play in the Big Ten than ours are. That is sad. These guys would eat Vucetic alive.

[hhcmatt]

I know I might get shot for saying this, but I've watched all their TV games and seen them in person a couple times and I really think if we played UNO this year they might just beat us.

 

And they aren't really that senior-laden, only 1 full-time starter is a senior, and 3 seniors come off the bench as role players (Simmons is down this year). Their best player (CJ Carter) is just a junior too. Their big man Karhoff (Creighton Prep) is a senior and he would play minutes for NU this year. He can really shoot the midrange jump shot. On top of that, they have a 6-8 transfer from Wichita State who has to sit out this season.

 

They play up tempo and their coach really knows how to coach to his players' strengths.

 

Someone has to be the new Colorado St

[FredsSlacks]

One could argue that UNO has 4 guys who are 6-7 or 6-8 playing this year who are as tough or tougher than Smith and Pitchford (talking just pure physical toughness). Their big men are more suited to play in the Big Ten than ours are. That is sad. These guys would eat Vucetic alive.

incredible that we wasted so much scholarship time, recruiting time, and effort getting a kid from Serbia here, and there were guys in our own state that appear to be better suited to play in the B1G than Vucetic.

[atskooc]

 

One could argue that UNO has 4 guys who are 6-7 or 6-8 playing this year who are as tough or tougher than Smith and Pitchford (talking just pure physical toughness). Their big men are more suited to play in the Big Ten than ours are. That is sad. These guys would eat Vucetic alive.

incredible that we wasted so much scholarship time, recruiting time, and effort getting a kid from Serbia here, and there were guys in our own state that appear to be better suited to play in the B1G than Vucetic.

 

Wasn't Serj "here" already?  By that I mean in the States.  I don't think we got him here, did we?

[HB]

 

One could argue that UNO has 4 guys who are 6-7 or 6-8 playing this year who are as tough or tougher than Smith and Pitchford (talking just pure physical toughness). Their big men are more suited to play in the Big Ten than ours are. That is sad. These guys would eat Vucetic alive.

incredible that we wasted so much scholarship time, recruiting time, and effort getting a kid from Serbia here, and there were guys in our own state that appear to be better suited to play in the B1G than Vucetic.

 

Give me a break.  We didn't go to Serbia for him, and had little recruiting time and effort in him.  In April of 2012, it wasn't like we were in the heat of signing time.  We took a flier on the guy and it didn't work out.  I've seen UNO and at least one of those bigs could no more play in the Big 10 then the man in the moon.  Serge isn't the first 7'1" guy who busts, nor will he be the last.   In fact, we've had a whole line of busts for years, so missing on a guy in a short recruiting season isn't incredible at all, it's actually pretty typical.  And it appears we've having fewer of those complete washouts than in the previous two regimes.  Folks can keep flogging the Serge miss to death, and I'll look at the hits. 

 

Norm, what the hell is Dan Heimos doing these days?

[GoBigRed]

 

 

One could argue that UNO has 4 guys who are 6-7 or 6-8 playing this year who are as tough or tougher than Smith and Pitchford (talking just pure physical toughness). Their big men are more suited to play in the Big Ten than ours are. That is sad. These guys would eat Vucetic alive.

incredible that we wasted so much scholarship time, recruiting time, and effort getting a kid from Serbia here, and there were guys in our own state that appear to be better suited to play in the B1G than Vucetic.

 

Give me a break.  We didn't go to Serbia for him, and had little recruiting time and effort in him.  In April of 2012, it wasn't like we were in the heat of signing time.  We took a flier on the guy and it didn't work out.  I've seen UNO and at least one of those bigs could no more play in the Big 10 then the man in the moon.  Serge isn't the first 7'1" guy who busts, nor will he be the last.   In fact, we've had a whole line of busts for years, so missing on a guy in a short recruiting season isn't incredible at all, it's actually pretty typical.  And it appears we've having fewer of those complete washouts than in the previous two regimes.  Folks can keep flogging the Serge miss to death, and I'll look at the hits. 

 

Norm, what the hell is Dan Heimos doing these days?

 

at Iowa:

Karhoff - 11 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 0 turnovers (24 minutes)

Rostampour - 3 points, 3 rebounds, 0 assists, 2 turnovers (19 minutes)

Hagerbaumer - 2 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 turnover (27 minutes)

Krych - 8 points, 3 rebounds, 0 assists, 1 turnover (10 minutes)

 

at Iowa:

Pitchford - 13 points, 12 rebounds, 1 assist, 0 turnovers (30 minutes)

Smith - 0 points, 2 rebounds, 0 assists, 0 turnovers (10 minutes)

 

That's essentially what each team got out of their "big" men at Iowa. UNO's big men are not great and only Karhoff is actually "skilled" from what I've seen, but their Division II/Summit League recruited big men would be helpful on our roster this season. That's the disappointment to me, how poor our post recruiting has been. When they break off into guards and post work in practice, does that leave at one end of the court: Sergej Vucetic, Leslee Smith, David Rivers, Kye Kurkowski, and possibly Walter Pitchford switching between guards and posts? I can't think of a worse group of big men at any point under Doc or Collier, and there were some bleak years. I hope Jacob Hammond is the real, real deal, but I really hope we sign a JUCO big man. I'm hoping we sign 3 more players in addition to Hammond.

[Norm Peterson]

Sorry, HB.  Don't know much about Big Dan.  I didn't follow Heimos after his Husker career ended.  I just knew that Barry was sending him the signal that he should leave by never playing him except at the tail end of blow-outs.  I also didn't follow the career of Kelly Lively after he transferred to Denver U.  Nor did I pay too much attention to the post-NU career of Leif Nelson.  I believe Chris Sallee finished his eligibility, as did Justin Boeker, but you might not have noticed because, unless you went to practices, you probably never saw them in action. 

 

Chad Ideus, I think, is doing pretty well, post college.  Not sure what the heck is up with Roy Enright, though.  Shang Ping and Alex Chapman have similarly drifted off my radar, along with Kris Douse, Jim Ledsome, Kyle Marks, Mike Smith, Marques McCarty, Shuan Stegall and James Reynolds.

 

Now, what was it you were saying about not every recruit panning out?

[Norm Peterson]

 

 I can't think of a worse group of big men at any point under Doc or Collier, and there were some bleak years.  (Snipped)

Oh, let's see.  How about the big man group that consisted of ... Chris Balham as the ONLY scholarship player taller than 6'6".  I'd say that was worse.  (Didn't take me long to think of it either.)

[GoBigRed]

 

 

 I can't think of a worse group of big men at any point under Doc or Collier, and there were some bleak years.  (Snipped)

Oh, let's see.  How about the big man group that consisted of ... Chris Balham as the ONLY scholarship player taller than 6'6".  I'd say that was worse.  (Didn't take me long to think of it either.)

 

 

You're right, Norm. My fault. I forgot Diaz sat out that season even though he was on the team. I loved that small team actually - can't believe I forgot about it. One of the closest teams we've had to making the tournament since we last made the tournament.