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I just want to shout-out Juwan Gary. He plays with an edge and consistently makes winning plays. When UCLA was trying to come back and steal it at the end, it was Gary who slammed the door shut. It was also Gary who knocked down a couple 3s, forcing UCLA to guard him, which helped open up the floor for Brice to get to the rim (and get fouled). I do tire of some fans complaining about him taking 3s. His shot has obviously improved, and is to the point where he should be taking 3-5 open/rhythm 3s per game. The threat of him shooting opens things up for everyone. He just shouldn't try to make a living out there, and he hasn't. Gary is a program-changer, and I don't think we will understand just how valuable he is to this program until he's gone. I'd love to see the record of games with Gary in the lineup versus the same number of games without him.

Since I gave up my season tickets, Nebraska is 28-1 at home. You're welcome.

Fox was gushing over the UCLA defense before the game. Nebraska: Hold my beer

From this photo one might be led to believe it was OSU that was giving it to Brice Williams. But he in fact was the one giving it to them.

Really hopeful to be dancing this year. #GBR Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I thought Connor would struggle today because I thought UCLA's quickness and physicality would bother him. I was wrong on that. He handled that part very well and was still impactful with 3 assists, 3 rebounds and 2 steals. His defense is coming along. Offensively, he was patient and didn't really force anything. He got 6 good looks, they just didn't fall today. But he didn't let that negatively impact the rest of his game.

50% from three is pretty efficient no matter how many you take.

I hope everyone has a great final 8 days of 2024. And that 2025 is a very happy and HEALTHY year for you and your loved ones. Peace to all!

Here are my 13 scholarship players who should have some eligibility left PG - Lance Jeter SG - Nate Johnson W - Ade Dagunduro F - Tony Farmer F - Kimani Ffriend Bench: G - Keisei Tominaga G - Dylan Talley G - Our friend, Steve Harley G - Marcus Perry G - Brennon Clemmons W - Bernard Day F - Steffon Bradford F - Bernard Garner

The turnaround by Hoiberg is remarkable. Simply astounding, tbh.

In the last 50 games the Huskers are 37 and 13 dating to February of 2023 Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

Hell of a comeback !!!! Great team win !!!!! Great composer in the 4th !!!!

We’re a real PITA to play. This particular roster is exotic. Very long, deceptively athletic, and smart. It’s likely the best FT shooting team we’ve ever had. Just wanted to shout out Morgan who was a friggin dude this game. He and Sam were awesome. Brice didn’t shoot well against UCLA’s elite defense but he got to the line 12 times and made 11. That’s what pros do. Also, I’m not sure anyone could watch Connor’s play and not see an enormous improvement defensively. Being able to hold his own makes us almost unbeatable if he’s shooting well. Hell of a win. We should be ranked.

I started to get some Husker Hoops PTSD with about 4 min left. Where'd that 13 point lead disappear to? And it's like, not this shit again. But, we pulled it out. Players made plays. Rollie, Andrew, Sam and Brice hit some clutch free throws. And we beat the spread on a day when we shot like crap. This wasn't quite a must-win but winning it sure takes some pressure off down the road.

Was Mara in the paint long enough to qualify for in-state tuition?

From a roster construction perspective (around Juwan and Brice), this roster couldn’t be much different than last year’s. I expect next year will be a blend of the two. I’m not sure if it was overcompensation from the A&M game, but we prioritized size and physicality over everything in portal recruiting. It has worked out exactly as planned defensively, but offensively we only have two shot makers and nothing is easy for us on that end. I expect us to continue to prioritize toughness and positional size (Berke returning should be priority #1), while adding more shooters. Looking at five of the guys who won’t be on next year’s roster - Ulis, Rollie, Gary, Morgan and Meah - it’d actually be hard to add five players who collectively aren’t better shooters. Mast’s return will help, of course. Having the offense run through him makes everything a little less cluttered and a little easier for the guys around him. B1G coaches know how valuable he is - they voted him 2nd team all-league last year. Not sure if they’ll be in the rotation next year, but Frager and Janowski have the positional size of Rollie and Gary, while probably being better shooters. Physically, Quentin Rhymes is a Brice Williams clone. Skill set eerily similar as well, he’s just 6 years younger. A returning core of Mast, Essegian, Berke and Sam is interesting enough. In May of ‘23 I was worried about what we would be without Griesel and Walker. There were games when they were our entire offense. We ended up being a tourney team in ‘24. I just think Hoiberg and staff have figured out the blueprint they want, and will keep tweaking and honing it each season.

I'm sure I'm not the first to say it and I'm not going to scour everyone's post trying to find who else said it already, but as much as Braxton is clumsy on the offensive end and doesn't rebound well (his strategy appears to be to swat the ball against the backboard hoping that one of his teammates will chase it down before someone on the other team), he really changes the game on the defensive end. Other teams just don't challenge the lane when he's holding down the fort in the low post.

3-0. Average margin of victory: 14.3. A pretty sweet trophy. I’d call that a successful trip. LG

Last year, we had 11 guys who averaged at least 30% from beyond the arc. That's right, 11. Right now, we only have 3 guys with at least 7 attempts who are shooting over 30% from 3 (granted, two of them are well into the 40s). But, after those 3, of all the guys with at least 7 attempts, nobody else is shooting better than 22.2% from beyond the arc. On six attempts, Andrew Morgan has hit two (33.3%) so I'm not counting him. But other than Morgan, the only three guys on the team shooting better than 22.2% from beyond the arc right now are Bryce, Connor and Juwan. That is shocking. Hawaii was daring Rollie to jack up a 3. Daring him. We'll leave you alone back there, dude, go ahead and take that shot. Nope, we're not gonna let you drive. But we'll leave you wide open to miss that 3-pointer. Him and Berke both. Chase Bryce, Connor and Juwan off the 3-point line and we might have trouble scoring.

I’m just sorry that Bluder bailed on her team and she didn’t have to suffer that L at home.

Even after giving up all those 3s in Iowa, feels like our FT shooting and inability to dictate tempo was what cost us the game.

I miss the guys hawking paper tickets as you walk up to the stadium. Fun story, I would bring all three of my boys to the games back at the Bob. But never had tickets for one of them so would give them cash and they would go get a ticket from a scalper. So my middle son who has a bit of a learning disability goes to get a ticket. The guys asks for like $10, my son says I only have money for $5. He is like in 5th grade so the guy says fine. So my son hands him a $20... Guy says I thought you only had $5? He says yeah I have $5 for the ticket, the rest is for food. He just told the guy matter in factly that what was going on. His two brothers start to laugh and the guy says I'll remember you. He sold it to him any way, Next week we are walking up and that same guys asked if we need tickets. Then starts laughing and says ain't selling to you no more.

I don't disagree with you but going to play devil's advocate a bit. Tai Webster's sophomore year. I don't think I've ever seen a rotation guard more in over his head. The game moved way too fast for him at that point. I actually remember feeling bad for him. Tai wasn't bad or selfish. He did play with fire and toughness imo. He just needed reps, experience and, maybe most of all, confidence.

I mean when Cale Jacobsen can come in to a game like this to give you spot minutes and you don't feel terribly concerned about it, that's when you know you have a deep team.

Long range 2 for Meah

Worster was outstanding today - wasn't sure what would happen against that UCLA pressure, but he was great with 0 turnovers. Plus he gave us a bit of offense early & hit big free throws late. Probably his best game with NU. Ulis gave us nice minutes too. I don't think we gave up a 'pick-six' live ball turnover - that was huge in a game where points were going to be tough to come by and after we've been giving up a few of them per game lately. UCLA could've had a couple, but Brice's foul stopped one (and UCLA only got 1 point on the possession) and Worster stopped a 2-on-1 by himself in the 2nd half. When Berke picked up that 4th foul with 10+ min to go, I thought we were in trouble. But the bench guys extended the lead nicely after that and really put it out of reach. Our early defensive communication was poor, but we dialed in far better after the first media timeout. Between the first media timeout and last media timeout (~32-ish min) we gave up only 38 points. In a conference game. Against the #15 team in the country. Insanely good defense. Ultimately our ability to get to the FT line - and make them - was the difference. That ability to draw fouls and score from the stripe when the other shots aren't falling is what makes Brice elite. Big opportunity to steal one on the road Tuesday against an Iowa team that is down from normal. Win that one and the sky's the limit for this group.

Zero turnovers for Rollie, Ulis and Sam in their 58 combined minutes. In a game against the best team in the country at turning opponents over, that's probably the most important stat right there. I've been pretty hard on Rollie for how loose he gets with the ball sometimes. But you could tell from the very first possession that he was going to take ball security seriously. Not sure we win this game without his reliable ball handling.

Best part of the game was that 4 minutes by GG

Hope everyone was this excited to open their Christmas presents

Ya I was expecting a lot more from Worster. He does a good job running the show and getting us into our offense but has struggled shooting and with turnovers a both more than I expected.

Our defense was good enough to win. They shot 40% from 3 but they also shot 48.5% from 2 which is their second worst home mark this season. We held Queen to 3. To me it was missed FTs and mindless turnovers...execution stuff. Also this is the second game in a row we've lost by three to a team that made a 3pt shot to end the half.

And yet our freshman were better than their freshman

I've been thinking about this too. We are trapping the post/baseline just like we did last year. So what was the point of getting a 7-1 statue to protect the rim only to play the same way? Our 2pt FG% allowed right now is 48.3% and 3pt FG% allowed is 32.6%. Last year those numbers were 45.2% and 32.5%. So our opponents are shooting the 3 at the same efficiency as last year but are actually shooting better inside the arc. At the end of the day, we were 309 out of 362 teams in 3-point attempts allowed last year and this year we are 358. If our opponent is hitting 3s, we are toast. I wish it didn't have to be that way and we had an alternative plan for teams like Iowa and Purdue, but it seems like we are who we are and we're content with trying to win our home games and hope our strategy works in a road game or two against someone who goes cold (like Creighton did). However as was posted above, Purdue (7) and Iowa (10) are elite 3pt shooting teams. Rutgers (223), Maryland (60) and USC (321) have not been. In fact, the next closest 3pt% teams behind Purdue (7) and Iowa (10) are Ohio State (33), Michigan (33) and Maryland (60). Perhaps it was just a horrible week against two horrible matchups for us, both on the road. Let's go out and win some.

Sandfort shooting free throws.

Kent and Greg are the best basketball/football 1-2 punch in the nation and it isn’t even close.

tcp is smiling.

This should be a ranked basketball team.

May this year break new ground for the Husker basketball program. Let your imagination run wild!!!

Some context: 24/7 sports ranked all the portal transfers from last year. Indiana had three of the top 25. And 4 total who were ranked higher than ANY of our transfers (Griffiths graded out tops ofr us at #171.) Yet we kicked their ass. Ever since we parted ways with Matt Abdelmassih, the staff have done a very good job of identifying the kinds of players they want and landing at least some of them. At this point, I don't see any reason to think that trend won't continue.

Be nice to see Griffiths get 15ish minutes of run in this game, never know when we might need him in conference play either due to injury or foul trouble

Yes, all things considered Brice had a pretty good hump day

Brice will be averaging just under 20 a game and be a part of the 50/40/90 club after tonight.

::Ryan Kalkbrenner updates his preferred landing spots for his professional career:: Playing in Italy Playing in Spain Playing in Greece Playing in France

1. To get his knee surgery done by a world class surgeon. And top of the line rehab, all at no cost to him. 2. NIL money 3. To get to play another year of college basketball. In an offensive system that will all flow through him. He's not an NBA guy and European basketball will always be there for him to go back to. 4. He's still looking for that bastard who knocked him off his scooter.