uneblinstu's postgame chatter : vol 17; ed 31- Iowa

7 minutes ago, Huskerpapa said:

Live by the portal, die by the portal.  Our swing was a miss on most of the players.  

Meah - D

Morgan - C

Berke - C+

Connor- B-

Goggles - F

 

The lack of consistency, the lack of improvement/development, injuries, lack of intensity, lack of chemistry seemed glaringly obvious the last half-season.

You're being really kind to Connor. 

3 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

And how much do we get from the CBC? $1M would be convenient. 

We need to remember that there are 2 pools to pay players going forward.   One is the $20-22 million the University can pay players in all sports.   The other is NIL.   Nebraska will pay the maximum amount allowed and has it funded.   The question is how it gets divided among the sports.   NIL is unlimited.    So revenue sources to the University won't affect what we can pay an individual basketball player.   Until they clamp down on the wild west, the teams with big NIL will thrive.

7 minutes ago, HB said:

 

No way.  We didn't make a conference tournament when 15 of the 18 teams make it.  Abject failure.   No other way to describe it.  Certainly it was described that way when we didn't make the Big 10 tournament in baseball.  

Fair, but still better than the season the football team had. Their best conference win was a 7 point win at home against Rutgers. Rutgers and Colorado were the only bowl teams Nebraska beat. The cumulative record of the other 4 opponents we beat in the regular season was 12-36. The basketball team beat possibly 7 teams that will make the NCAA tournament and a couple others that will make other postseason tournaments. 

16 minutes ago, millerhusker said:

Fair, but still better than the season the football team had. Their best conference win was a 7 point win at home against Rutgers. Rutgers and Colorado were the only bowl teams Nebraska beat. The cumulative record of the other 4 opponents we beat in the regular season was 12-36. The basketball team beat possibly 7 teams that will make the NCAA tournament and a couple others that will make other postseason tournaments. 

Ultimately who cares about the opponents' records?   We finished 7-13 in conference and didn't even make the conference tournament, 17-14 overall with a bunch of patsies in the win total vs. a winning record and a bowl win.   Maybe in some hyper-technical sense you can try to make that sense, but in the big picture, failure vs. progress.  

24 minutes ago, HB said:

 

Ultimately who cares about the opponents' records?   We finished 7-13 in conference and didn't even make the conference tournament, 17-14 overall with a bunch of patsies in the win total vs. a winning record and a bowl win.   Maybe in some hyper-technical sense you can try to make that sense, but in the big picture, failure vs. progress.  

The football team finished 3-6 in conference for the second year in a row… there’s nothing hyper-technical about that. The basketball team will finish with a higher win percentage both in conference and overall again. 
Just imo the product on the floor was not good for much of the season, and the product on the field was worse. 

11 minutes ago, HB said:

 

Ultimately who cares about the opponents' records?   We finished 7-13 in conference and didn't even make the conference tournament, 17-14 overall with a bunch of patsies in the win total vs. a winning record and a bowl win.   Maybe in some hyper-technical sense you can try to make that sense, but in the big picture, failure vs. progress.  

Another way to look at it is Nebrasketball, a historically downtrodden program, was 2 baskets away from making the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row (which hasn't been done in 30+ years).

Meanwhile, NU football, a blue-blood and historical powerhouse, whose winning record was also due to beating non-con patsies, went 3-6 in conference, didn't beat a team with a winning B1G record, and was light years from making the CFP. 

There isn't any sugar-coating the fact this basketball season was an utter disappointment. But it was still a better season than football managed. The only reason it may not seem so is because making a bowl game is a *very* low bar to clear. 

9 minutes ago, HuscurAdam said:

 

Another way to look at it is Nebrasketball, a historically downtrodden program, was 2 baskets away from making the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row (which hasn't been done in 30+ years).

 

Meanwhile, NU football, a blue-blood and historical powerhouse, whose winning record was also due to beating non-con patsies, went 3-6 in conference, didn't beat a team with a winning B1G record, and was light years from making the CFP. 

 

There isn't any sugar-coating the fact this basketball season was an utter disappointment. But it was still a better season than football managed. The only reason it may not seem so is because making a bowl game is a *very* low bar to clear. 

Feel free to keep piling on football, which cracks me up when this board does that, given the life long futility in basketball.  But if it makes you feel better, pile on football.

If you want to make the "one or 2 baskets from" argument, that can be done with football.   One catch (Neyer), one throw (Raiola to Linderman vs. Illinois),  bad calls (Ohio State).

Face it, basketball went backward this year, and football went forward, from the previous seasons.  

29 minutes ago, HB said:

 

Ultimately who cares about the opponents' records?   We finished 7-13 in conference and didn't even make the conference tournament, 17-14 overall with a bunch of patsies in the win total vs. a winning record and a bowl win.   Maybe in some hyper-technical sense you can try to make that sense, but in the big picture, failure vs. progress.  

I agree if you are talking about expectations.  The basketball team had higher expectations than the football team.  If you look at it from the same expectations the basketball team had a better season.  Opponents records matter as it determines the strength of a team's schedule.  Non-playoff bowl games are meaningless.  People try to compare making a bowl game to making the NCAA tournament in basketball and that is ridiculous.  You only have to have a .500 record (or less) to make a bowl game.  If you are a bad to average team that makes a bowl game you get to play another bad team.  When you make the NCAA you are seeded against very good teams.  We won 22 games a few years ago and didn't even sniff an NCAA tournament bid.  It is much harder to make the NIT than a bowl game.

19 minutes ago, HB said:

 

Feel free to keep piling on football, which cracks me up when this board does that, given the life long futility in basketball.  But if it makes you feel better, pile on football.

 

If you want to make the "one or 2 baskets from" argument, that can be done with football.   One catch (Neyer), one throw (Raiola to Linderman vs. Illinois),  bad calls (Ohio State).

 

Face it, basketball went backward this year, and football went forward, from the previous seasons.  

The only comment I'll make about football is that I wish we had a Raiola on the team who would help us recruit, within the limits that the NCAA allows, of course. If we do, I sure don't know who it is. 

1 hour ago, HB said:

 

You're being really kind to Connor. 

I may be in the minority; but I thought his defense, rebounding an intensity increased as the year progressed.  He lost his shot; however, and his scoring was inconsistent.   One offensive area improved and that was his penetration, which often ended with a shot or decent pass.

21 minutes ago, Navin R. Johnson said:

 

I agree if you are talking about expectations.  The basketball team had higher expectations than the football team.  If you look at it from the same expectations the basketball team had a better season.  Opponents records matter as it determines the strength of a team's schedule.  Non-playoff bowl games are meaningless.  People try to compare making a bowl game to making the NCAA tournament in basketball and that is ridiculous.  You only have to have a .500 record (or less) to make a bowl game.  If you are a bad to average team that makes a bowl game you get to play another bad team.  When you make the NCAA you are seeded against very good teams.  We won 22 games a few years ago and didn't even sniff an NCAA tournament bid.  It is much harder to make the NIT than a bowl game.

I'm not comparing making, or even winning, a bowl game to making the NCAA tournament.  I'm comparing it to not even making the conference tournament when 15 of 18 teams get in.   Abject failure.  

8 minutes ago, HB said:

 

I'm not comparing making, or even winning, a bowl game to making the NCAA tournament.  I'm comparing it to not even making the conference tournament when 15 of 18 teams get in.   Abject failure.  

You did list it as an achievement to go 7-6 with a bowl win.  The basketball team basically did that while beating much better teams than the football team.  That was my point.  Apples to apples, the basketball team had a better year. 

13 minutes ago, Huskerpapa said:

I may be in the minority; but I thought his defense, rebounding an intensity increased as the year progressed.  He lost his shot; however, and his scoring was inconsistent.   One offensive area improved and that was his penetration, which often ended with a shot or decent pass.

I thought his fight was there most of the time. He just couldn't hit a shot. 

We don't win the NW game without how hard he crashed the glass. He definitely got tougher this year, he just needs to shoot a bit better. 

2 hours ago, Huskerpapa said:

Live by the portal, die by the portal.  Our swing was a miss on most of the players.  

Meah - D

Morgan - C

Berke - C+

Connor- B-

Goggles - F

 

The lack of consistency, the lack of improvement/development, injuries, lack of intensity, lack of chemistry seemed glaringly obvious the last half-season.

I mostly agree with Meah and Morgan as they were 1 year mercs. For the other three, I think it all depends on whether they stay or transfer. If they are all three to stay, we should see marked improvement from all three and their overall portal grade should in theory increase.

2 hours ago, HB said:

 

We need to remember that there are 2 pools to pay players going forward.   One is the $20-22 million the University can pay players in all sports.   The other is NIL.   Nebraska will pay the maximum amount allowed and has it funded.   The question is how it gets divided among the sports.   NIL is unlimited.    So revenue sources to the University won't affect what we can pay an individual basketball player.   Until they clamp down on the wild west, the teams with big NIL will thrive.

Wonder if colleges will mainly focus their allotted amount on the revenue generating sports or if it'll be more equally divided? Do you know if there are Title 9 implications on whether it has to be equally allotted between men and women?

2 hours ago, HB said:

 

No way.  We didn't make a conference tournament when 15 of the 18 teams make it.  Abject failure.   No other way to describe it.  Certainly it was described that way when we didn't make the Big 10 tournament in baseball.  

2 hours ago, HB said:

Ultimately who cares about the opponents' records?   We finished 7-13 in conference and didn't even make the conference tournament, 17-14 overall with a bunch of patsies in the win total vs. a winning record and a bowl win.   Maybe in some hyper-technical sense you can try to make that sense, but in the big picture, failure vs. progress.  

Several points on this.  Missing the BTT should definitely be cause for concern and dialogue not just amongst the fanbase but hopefully within the AD's office.  Results have to matter.  However, the results this year are definitely being viewed in a vacuum.  The Big 10 has an unbalanced schedule.  Fred, or someone on the radio (Kent or Jake) mentioned the other day that our league schedule was 2nd hardest in the Big 10.  I will trust this at face value and perhaps someone has a resource to support or debunk this.  Anyways, practically speaking, we did not finish 16th in the league.  We finished tied for 12th with 5 other teams.  Because we lost too much to teams at the bottom of the standings, we lost on the round robin tiebreaker.  If our league schedule was amongst the hardest, some grace has to be given while also recognizing that we did a crappy job of not beating the teams we should have or at least not winning nearly enough against those teams at the bottom of the standings.  Hoiberg should be reflecting and addressing on why we couldn't beat the teams we should have at a higher rate or close out/win more of the one possession games.  

Calling the season an abject failure is very extreme.  Is it disappointing to miss the BTT?  Yes.  Were we a missed shot against Michigan, or a made shot from Minnesota, or a double OT ref-screw job against OSU, a non-Berke rolled ankle, or a 15 point lead not pissed away against Iowa from having a good season?  Yes, very likely.  The margins between a very frustrating/disappointing end to the season and having a good and perhaps a special season, were exceptionally thin.  The breaks did not go our way this year, some self-inflicted (Essegian missing a wide open three against Michigan, Brice missing the FT against OSU) and others were just a calamity of bad luck or shitty circumstances.

We've made progress as a program the past two years.  Next year is a big year for Fred.  I have faith and I'll be ready to be hurt all over again in November.

8 minutes ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

 

 

Several points on this.  Missing the BTT should definitely be cause for concern and dialogue not just amongst the fanbase but hopefully within the AD's office.  Results have to matter.  However, the results this year are definitely being viewed in a vacuum.  The Big 10 has an unbalanced schedule.  Fred, or someone on the radio (Kent or Jake) mentioned the other day that our league schedule was 2nd hardest in the Big 10.  I will trust this at face value and perhaps someone has a resource to support or debunk this.  Anyways, practically speaking, we did not finish 16th in the league.  We finished tied for 12th with 5 other teams.  Because we lost too much to teams at the bottom of the standings, we lost on the round robin tiebreaker.  If our league schedule was amongst the hardest, some grace has to be given while also recognizing that we did a crappy job of not beating the teams we should have or at least not winning nearly enough against those teams at the bottom of the standings.  Hoiberg should be reflecting and addressing on why we couldn't beat the teams we should have at a higher rate or close out/win more of the one possession games.  

 

Calling the season an abject failure is very extreme.  Is it disappointing to miss the BTT?  Yes.  Were we a missed shot against Michigan, or a made shot from Minnesota, or a double OT ref-screw job against OSU, a non-Berke rolled ankle, or a 15 point lead not pissed away against Iowa from having a good season?  Yes, very likely.  The margins between a very frustrating/disappointing end to the season and having a good and perhaps a special season, were exceptionally thin.  The breaks did not go our way this year, some self-inflicted (Essegian missing a wide open three against Michigan, Brice missing the FT against OSU) and others were just a calamity of bad luck or shitty circumstances.

 

We've made progress as a program the past two years.  Next year is a big year for Fred.  I have faith and I'll be ready to be hurt all over again in November.

Great debate about the basketball and football seasons. But I'm over here like...

5 minutes ago, cornfed24-7 said:

Great debate about the basketball and football seasons. But I'm over here like...

You know it's the offseason when we're arguing about which of our mediocre programs was less medicore. 

34 minutes ago, GhostOfJoeMcCray said:

 

You know it's the offseason when we're arguing about which of our mediocre programs was less medicore. 

Baseball looking like it may throw their hat in the ring too if we don’t get it turned around.

3 hours ago, Navin R. Johnson said:

 

You did list it as an achievement to go 7-6 with a bowl win.  The basketball team basically did that while beating much better teams than the football team.  That was my point.  Apples to apples, the basketball team had a better year. 

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that.   You state the better year as fact.  Hardly.  A complete regression and failure of a year.

2 hours ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

 

 

Several points on this.  Missing the BTT should definitely be cause for concern and dialogue not just amongst the fanbase but hopefully within the AD's office.  Results have to matter.  However, the results this year are definitely being viewed in a vacuum.  The Big 10 has an unbalanced schedule.  Fred, or someone on the radio (Kent or Jake) mentioned the other day that our league schedule was 2nd hardest in the Big 10.  I will trust this at face value and perhaps someone has a resource to support or debunk this.  Anyways, practically speaking, we did not finish 16th in the league.  We finished tied for 12th with 5 other teams.  Because we lost too much to teams at the bottom of the standings, we lost on the round robin tiebreaker.  If our league schedule was amongst the hardest, some grace has to be given while also recognizing that we did a crappy job of not beating the teams we should have or at least not winning nearly enough against those teams at the bottom of the standings.  Hoiberg should be reflecting and addressing on why we couldn't beat the teams we should have at a higher rate or close out/win more of the one possession games.  

 

Calling the season an abject failure is very extreme.  Is it disappointing to miss the BTT?  Yes.  Were we a missed shot against Michigan, or a made shot from Minnesota, or a double OT ref-screw job against OSU, a non-Berke rolled ankle, or a 15 point lead not pissed away against Iowa from having a good season?  Yes, very likely.  The margins between a very frustrating/disappointing end to the season and having a good and perhaps a special season, were exceptionally thin.  The breaks did not go our way this year, some self-inflicted (Essegian missing a wide open three against Michigan, Brice missing the FT against OSU) and others were just a calamity of bad luck or shitty circumstances.

 

We've made progress as a program the past two years.  Next year is a big year for Fred.  I have faith and I'll be ready to be hurt all over again in November.

Wow, looks like Jones and I against the world.   This year was not progress.   Our roster sucked.  It was not athletic, and we couldn't shoot the basketball  or handle it well.   Our portal acquisitions as a whole were really bad.  

Man, the standards on here are low. 

19 minutes ago, HB said:

 

 

Wow, looks like Jones and I against the world.   This year was not progress.   Our roster sucked.  It was not athletic, and we couldn't shoot the basketball  or handle it well.   Our portal acquisitions as a whole were really bad.  

 

Man, the standards on here are low. 

 

 

Having a conversation on standards is fair.  Arguably our standards for this program have been too low forever and that has impeded progress.  It's probably a result of the success of football back in the 70's through 90's that mediocrity was largely ignored for most other sports, basketball included.  That's perhaps a gross oversimplification but I do think that's part of it.

I just can't get onboard with calling the season, in totality, an abject failure.  There are a lot of adjectives in between a "resounding success" or even a good or special season to "abject failure".  I would classify the season as good but the ending as wholly disappointing.  But again, this comes back to the standards discussion.  We were a play here or a play there or a call here or there from having the opportunity to have a special season.  Because literally all of the critical moments went against this team and we still ended up with 17 wins and were an eyelash away from so much more, it's hard for me to call the season a failure.

2 hours ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

 

Results have to matter.

This is 100% spot on and why I feel we need to be careful about trying to make excuses about this season. Sure we had some bad luck on the court, Berke rolled an ankle at the wrong time, we missed a few key and important shots. But as you said, results have to matter. If this was more of a one-off year and we had a very successful first few seasons then maybe you could point to this as an outlier.

I don't remember which game thread it was, but I jokingly said that the only reason we could entertain the idea of not wanting Fred back was if we missed the B1G tournament. At the time, I figured we'd 100% make it. There was no way we wouldn't. In a two to three week period we went from 80% likely to make the NCAA Tournament to not even making the B1G tournament.

I'm firmly on the fence honestly. The university I feel will 100% retain Fred and give him more opportunities and I truly am ok with that. I hope we pony up some money and we're able to secure the type of commitment that went elsewhere last year. However, I won't sit here and say that I'd be up in arms if the university decided to move in a different direction either.

Whether the season was a failure or not is, I believe, all about how you look at the season as a whole. If you are going by before the year, I believe that expectations were a little bit lower, so maybe one could say that it was an ok season where we finished about where some expected. BUT if you look at the season by what we now know, I can certainly see how one could thing it is a failure of a season. 12-2 and just beat UCLA at home. Blow a 15 point lead and rattle off 6 straight losses. Win 4 in a row including a road sweep and then lose 6/7 to end it. Blow an 80% chance to dance. I could see it being a failure in the sense of we were greatly exceeding expectation and all we had to do was play average to do something special. And we played well below average to finish at "expectations".

12 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

 

This is 100% spot on and why I feel we need to be careful about trying to make excuses about this season. Sure we had some bad luck on the court, Berke rolled an ankle at the wrong time, we missed a few key and important shots. But as you said, results have to matter. If this was more of a one-off year and we had a very successful first few seasons then maybe you could point to this as an outlier.

 

I don't remember which game thread it was, but I jokingly said that the only reason we could entertain the idea of not wanting Fred back was if we missed the B1G tournament. At the time, I figured we'd 100% make it. There was no way we wouldn't. In a two to three week period we went from 80% likely to make the NCAA Tournament to not even making the B1G tournament.

 

I'm firmly on the fence honestly. The university I feel will 100% retain Fred and give him more opportunities and I truly am ok with that. I hope we pony up some money and we're able to secure the type of commitment that went elsewhere last year. However, I won't sit here and say that I'd be up in arms if the university decided to move in a different direction either.

 

Whether the season was a failure or not is, I believe, all about how you look at the season as a whole. If you are going by before the year, I believe that expectations were a little bit lower, so maybe one could say that it was an ok season where we finished about where some expected. BUT if you look at the season by what we now know, I can certainly see how one could thing it is a failure of a season. 12-2 and just beat UCLA at home. Blow a 15 point lead and rattle off 6 straight losses. Win 4 in a row including a road sweep and then lose 6/7 to end it. Blow an 80% chance to dance. I could see it being a failure in the sense of we were greatly exceeding expectation and all we had to do was play average to do something special. And we played well below average to finish at "expectations".

Yeah, that's fair.  Knowing how close we were in so many games and moments definitely slants my opinion.  They all went against us.  Is that bad luck or emblematic of an issue with coaching, leadership, etc.  We didn't have these issues in 2023-2024.  Or, I don't remember many gut punches that year although I am sure there were some.  We took kicks to the balls repeatedly this season.  So which season is the outlier or is the reality probably somewhere in the middle?  If it was even sort of close to the middle this year, we are talking about seeding today.  And, right or wrong, I largely ignore Fred's first three seasons here.  He had to do a hard reset and adjust his coaching and recruiting philosophy to today's college basketball.  Maybe I am part of the standards problem with Nebrasketball but I am willing to give someone I believe to be a really good head coach the benefit of extra time and patience.

Regardless, as I said, next year is pivotal for Fred.