Leaderboard

Tim was a good person and a coach that was easy to root for. His players seemed to like playing for him, he always represented the university well. He did his best to take this program to a new level and was damn close. I think a lot of people just want to see him do well, myself included. I’d love it if he could take a team to the dance and win some games. I’ll always feel terrible for him that he was bounced from our game vs. Baylor.

My favorite part of Wednesday was that FH was locked in and pissed about stuff. He lit into the guys once, sat KT for quite a while, and knew he had to be on refs all game. All that and he kept the team together. 10/10 coach.

Jeezus guys. We get our poop pushed in by the sweater vests, I get subjected to endless heckling today at work by the legal department and Napa winery folks in blue and we think Tominaga is the problem here?? He was arguably the ONLY player yesterday that came out and EMBRACED the atmosphere and gravity of the game. Mast didn’t. Allick was weaker than Bekka out there. Wilcher looked like he couldn’t stay in front of Alison Weidner in a leg brace, Boogie hoisted up a shot that looked like he was shooting a half court shot for a weekend stay in Denver, Brice was wide eyed the first 15 minutes, and JL out of control at times and the take is KT is the issue??? Laughable. CU’s game plan was to shut down and deny KT and he kept us in the game in the first half. He came back with ZERO NIL deals. Yes he wants to prove he can play at the next level, but he loves it in Lincoln and playing for Nebraska. Unreal.

4 things jumped out to me: 2 turnovers against a team that played that physical is insane. One of the most efficient stretches of offensive basketball for the majority of the 2nd half I think I've ever seen NU have. Juwan Gary's step forward from where he was at this time last year is incredible. Our depth is legitimate. All 9 of those guys deserve to be on the floor. We caught a bit of a break that the refs decided to call the game almost completely differently to start the 2nd half than they did in the 1st half, but we took full advantage - not something we've always done. That's back to back very impressive wins. I like where we're at.

Thought this deserved its own thread! https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/38951577/japan-keisei-tominaga-found-second-home-lincoln-nebraska

At the start of the season, if someone said Huskers would be 7-1 after 8 games, most would likely have taken that. Not great, because we would know the loss was most likely to Creighton, but at least the Huskers took care of business in all the other games. If it was also known that Huskers would win comfortably and beat the spread on most games, that would be a bonus. With that said, we have now seen enough of this team and the players to get a good feel for what we have and don't have, areas of surprise (in a good way) and areas of concern. This is my general "state of the team" overview at this stage of the season, feel free to comment or disagree. 1. This team is not as deep as we all hoped/thought coming into the season. We have 6 legit rotation players (Keisei, JL, Williams, Allick, Mast and Gary). After that it drops off pretty fast. Unless CJ is hitting 40+% on his 3s, it is hard to justify his playing time. He is small, slow and really struggles on defense. Sam H plays incredibly hard and is scrappy on defense, but he is also small and limited offensively. Scrappiness only take you so far in the B1G. But so far, the biggest dropoff has been Boogie. He is playing decent minutes and averaging a whopping 2.5 pts/game, at 19%FG and 13% (2-15) on 3s, while on defense he is S-L-O-W. 2. Time for the time/rotation to shorten/change. CJ, Sam and Boogie's minutes all must decrease, and based on their play, at least one of them should be completely out of the rotation (as of now, that would be Boogie IMO). On the flip side, time to give Rice some rotation minutes and see what he can do. If Eli shows he can be a solid contributor, this will likely come at CJ's expense (unless CJ suddenly gets on fire from 3, which he is capable) 3. This is not last year's team (at least not yet). There is some selfish play, and dare I say there may even be some tension/hostility between certain players. I thought maybe I was just reading too much into things, but based on other peoples posts, others have observed some of it as well. 4. Keisei is still the most potent offensive weapon on this team. And it appears that some players on the team resent this fact. This must end. The primary goal should be to get Keisei as many good/open looks as possible. Keisei should not be having to do constant step-back's to get open, nor should he have to constantly create shots off the dribble. Last year, his teammates ran sets and set picks to get him open looks, time for this year's teammates to do the same. 5. Everyone loves Allick and his effort, but he is what he is. The experiment of having his shoot multiple 3s each game has to end. And frankly, he should never be the offensive focal point, whether inside or outside. Have others noticed he has a bit of "butter" hands? He rarely catches the ball cleanly, whether by pass or rebound. Too much risk going into him too often, only when he is wide open and has a clear advantage. 6. JL deserves considerable praise for all his work in converting to PG, and overall, he has been pretty solid in that role. But why oh why did his conversion to PG result in him forgetting how to shoot? Man, what an unfortunate tangent He's playing massive minutes yet averaging only 4 points per game on 32% FG and 20% on 3s (5-25). 7. Many people believe today's modern college basketball is largely guard-oriented. Our 3 primary guards (JL, Sam and Boogie) are averaging 4.0, 2.5 and 2.4 points per game, and 2 of those 3 (JL and Boogie) on atrocious shooting percentage. This just isn't going to get it done. Creighton wasn't even guarding JL at the 3. Same with Boogie. This results in a clogged paint, or more emphasis on Keisei, making things significantly more difficult for all the other players. 8. Right now, the only players on this team who I feel confident shooting a 3 are Keisei, Williams, Mast and Sam. If Rice was playing, I would probably add him to the list. I really want to add CJ, but man he just is so inconsistent. We wanted to believe we could play 5 out, but we can't. It is not reality at this time. 8. Wrong players shooting the wrong shots. There have been too many games in which Gary, or Allick or Boogie shot more 3s than Keisei or Williams. Last game, Allick and Gary combined for more 3s (6) than Keisei and Williams combined. And McDermott laughed all the way to a 30 point victory. I realize the defensive emphasis was on Keisei and Williams, but this goes back to the team running an offense as team designed to get the best shooters the best shots. 9. Overall, this team is slow and rather unathletic. Even against teams like Duquesne, this was evident. Which means we have to beat teams with skill, teamwork and shooting. So far, the shooting has been a let down, but some of this is because they still are not playing 100% as a team. 10. Before the season I stated I was curious about Williams because I had never seen him play. His stats seemed solid, yet he wasn't a starter at Charlotte. So far, I still am curious. What is he? He definitely has been "solid". But can he be bettter? Once again, his stats are excellent (14.6 pts/game on 45/42/90). But does he have a killer instinct. Can he take his game to the next level in the big games (had only 6 points vs. Creighton). Many call him "mature", "disciplined", etc. I hope it is all these "positive" attributes, but it is hard to know based on his demeanor. He also is the player that seems to have an issue with Keisei. 11. Time for Fred to start playing the top 6 more minutes per game. He is treating the players like they are made of glass. Keisei is being subbed out within the first 5 minutes of the game. No players are playing more than 28-30 minutes? Versus Creighton, Williams only played 21 minutes and Keisei only 25. I realize it was a blowout, but in contrast, Creighton had players playing 33, 33, 32, 28, 28 minutes. Nebraska only had one player with more than 28 minutes (JL with 29). 12. The rebounding in the last 3 games has been a massive disappointment. Is this a bad fluke, or is it the reality of this team. Some of this goes back to the lack of athleticism of the players, but some of it is because of lack of block outs, positioning, and just flat out fighting for rebounds. Can they get the rebounding mojo back, or will they continue to get dominated by the bigger and more athletic teams in the B1G?

I didn't know he is married.

Seems like everyone is either going to throw in the towel or start celebrating early after these next 4 games. These games might tell us a lot about how this season will go. They also might not. We could go 3-1 and not make the tourney in March. We could go 1-3 and still make the tourney. After 12 games last year Creighton was 6-6 and reeling. Fast forward a few months and they ended up 1 second shy of the final four. In 2014 we were garbage until late January, but ended up dancing in March. This year will be a fun ride regardless of the next 2 weeks.

Haven't seen an opposing coach try that hard to get a T against us since Wyoming coach Benny Dees in 1989. Towards the end of the game they were losing badly to us, he was doing everything he could do to get tossed, and the refs weren't having it. So the pep band (who were situated right next to the visitors bench - the last year that was allowed, btw) were yelling over to Dees saying "hey coach, give 'em one of these" with our hands around our neck. He smiled at us as if to say "watch this", and turned towards the ref and gave him the choke sign and got immediately tossed. As he walked past the band towards the visitor's locker room at Devaney he gave us all a high five and disappeared into the tunnel. I will never forget that day, it's one of my all time favorite Husker hoops memories!

We have a squad with a bunch of good dudes, all coachable, all great teammates… who I’m not sure are playing great team basketball yet - on the offensive side anyways. Was at the game tonight…. Lots of “get mine” ball. My biggest criticism of Hoiberg has always been role identification and role acceptance. It seems to be getting better, as a program, but this team isn’t sure about it yet. Which makes sense, lots of new pieces and toys, gotta figure out who is what. But right now there’s a lot of quick 3’s with no reversals, or paint/post touches, and that ball isn’t exactly pinging around. I think getting KT back, and a really good KT, changes that. You’ll see more guys moving and screening to get him going and whatnot. Defensively I like what I see as a team. I do hate how we automatically double and create a rotation when the ball gets in the post - recipe for disaster against a good passing/shooting team. And I also don’t like how we run guys off the 3pt line for the sake of running them off at times. We’ll run non-shooters, or guys who weren’t ready to shoot, off the line which gets us scrambling and in rotation. I understand that in a way it’s kinda what they want to do, because they believe in their rotations, but I’m not sure why you’d force it. We need KT and Gary back soon to get figured out who’s gonna be what and what our rotation looks like. Choppy, ugly game with how refs called it. Good to have complaints in a 27pt win. But you can’t overlook in victory what you wouldn’t in defeat.

You could say that he gambled and lost

Really excited to see the continued development of Jamarcus. 12 assists vs 0 turnovers in the last 3 games

It's kind of fun to be pissed about a 27 point win.

OK, I'm just going to throw this out there. Bash me if you want. I'm thinking maybe fame has gone to Keisei's head a little bit. Or something. Listen, you might be referred to as "The Japanese Steph Curry" but you're not actually Steph Curry and you're not going to get those calls. So this is the scenario: Keisei foolishly (some might say "selfishly") dribbles into trouble, gets stripped clean, and immediately looks to the refs and shrugs his shoulders like he should have gotten a call. Keisei, quit whining to the refs and just get back on D. This behavior has been going on for awhile now. When he rolled his ankle, he got up and limped down court gesturing at the officials like he was more mad about the no-call than in pain from getting hurt. Keisei, quit acting like a prima donna. Go back to being the lovable sharpshooter who played like it was just a joy to be on the floor. We liked that guy a lot.

And we have 7 wins. And 7 players shooting 35% (rounded) or better from 3-point range. Four at 40% or better. Four guys averaging between 14 and 16 points per game. Our portal post is averaging a double-double. Our portal SG is shooting almost 42% from 3 and over 90% from the line while posting a 2.4:1 assist/turnover ratio. Our portal native Nebraskan is putting up darn close to the numbers he posted a year ago as a starter at New Mexico in 6 fewer minutes per game. Our SG-converted-into-a-PG has dished 23 assists to only 10 turnovers on the season, and zero turnovers in the last 3 games. What we didn't find in the portal we seemed to have found within our own numbers. It'll be interesting to see what we do on Sunday, but it looks for all the world like all of our major roster needs over the off-season have been addressed. This just has the looks of a team that's going to win some games this year.

Yep. He's the definition of taking lemons and making lemonade. He's had to swim upstream his whole career and done it not only with success, but with a great attitude the whole time to boot. I will never apologize for having a soft spot for Coach Miles, the world could use a lot more people just like him.

Classic Blunders 1. Never get involved in a land war in Asia 2. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line 3. Never play Nebraska at the Sanford Pentagon

Having a bunch of adults who love rebounding is really fun to watch.

Ha, the jokes on Creighton for thinking they got a big win the other day.

Wisconsin is really good right now ... and college basketball is automatically worse off when that happens.

Kelly Pfieffer works for spite, and you can't put a price tag on that...

We were probably hurt more by Ulis losing eligibility than we would like to admit.

28 of 31 free throws won the game for us.

OR

I think our offense works well because of what KT did last year, he’s now the primary focus of the opposing team so it’s opened up the court for the others. I still think he’s our best overall scoring threat when he’s in the game. Last night showed me he can dish it back to a physical team that was doing everything they could to knock off his spots.

I don't care whether a player looks stoic or overexuberant as long as he hustles, performs up to his natural ability, and is a good teammate. Demeanor is irrelevant when compared with on-court results. Appearing to have too much disinterest or too much pizzazz Is often in the eye of the beholder.

I would rather they lose every game from now to eternity. Sent from my moto g stylus 5G (2022) using Tapatalk

I'm not. Long season boys, win Sunday. Were the last two disappointing.... beyond (Wednesday's 2nd half made me physically ill), but this team can be solid, we've seen it. Let's make a run. I'm making the trip to Manhattan next weekend and I can't wait.

At this rate, the NIL money needs to go to fans who have remained loyal through the 21st century. No fanbase has been more dedicated in the face of disappointment than Husker Basketball fans. Hanging on to the "glory days" of 7 NCAA first game losses and one NIT championship.

As embarrassing of a week for husker basketball as I can remember.

I am not prepared to abandon ship on Hoiberg but I better see five guys on the floor acting like they give a damn about their team the rest of the season.

Again, I can handle bad, but not lack of effort and cohesion

I personally think it is ludicrous to call out any of our players at this point in the season. We have started 7-1, and yes, as a TEAM, we laid an egg against Creighton. Specifically calling out our best offensive player because he over celebrates??? Should he get back on defense, absolutely; but I have not seen him blow any defensive assignment, more so, than any other player. I thought "our team" and the entire coaching staff, struggled against Creighton. We had a poorly constructed and/or implemented game plan. If we tried any in-game adjustments, they did not work, or again, "the team" failed to execute.

We absolutely deserve to be in a November bracket that has 0 actual meaning

Has 12 assists and 0 turnovers in the last 3 games

Natalie Potts is the B1G freshman of the week. She is going to be a fun one to watch all year.

One week from today I believe we crack the top 25. For the time being, we are at least opening some eyes: Relevancy is fun!

We played well enough to win; yet playing like that moving forward likely will end poorly. I really like Jawan; but he has to learn that not all open 3's are good shots. Just saying. Rebounding was bad. We gave up way to many offensive rebounds/2nd chance opportunities. Keisei was perfect from the floor and the line. Yet, what the hell, get him the ball. He did not get enough shots today.

Was at the game. Observations: Maybe 30-40 Husker fans there. Not bad since the gym otherwise was pretty empty. officials let a lot go, especially by Lamar, but it wasn’t as bad as claimed here. Lamar is pretty good and played hard. They started red hot and we couldn’t stop their dribble drive. Our switch to zone and increased intensity by 2nd unit in 2nd quarter were keys to turnaround. Stewart was still using scooter. Potts had a quietly efficient 22. She’s got the potential to be very good. As a sometimes critic of Markowski, happy to admit she’s playing aggressively well and wants the ball at crunch time. Jaz seemed unfocused at the start but was money when it was most needed. She has to play 4 good qtrs against good competition for us to have a chance. White was solid, especially at crunch time. Everyone else contributed, but we need a 5th difference maker badly. Getting Stewart back will help but Weidner was most likely that person. They are being coached hard during play, especially on defense by our assist. coaches, and it seems to be working. This team is not overly athletic but is playing with more defensive intensity this year. Matchup between Markowski and TCU’s 6’7” post will be worth a watch on Saturday. Unfortunately I can’t go.

I just want to add this here for posterity, needed to upload a screenshot because c/p doesn't maintain formatting.

Fun experience. I think it was the first time this season the whole crowd got up and yelled when on defense. The beauty of the neutral site game is the people who show up care and show it during the game. Watching Allick, Gary, and Mast relentlessly pursue rebounds all season is going to be good for the soul. Hope this gets some excitement at PBA this week because they may need it to beat Duquesne.

People who have watched Nebraska football over the last 20 years know that a 99% win chance does not actually mean that there is a 99% chance of winning

With our luck, he’d get ejected in a big game by Kelly Pfiefer and we’d find out later Kelly took Japanese in college.

Boy whomever set up this schedule deserves some credit.. Two cupcakes followed by a bit of a tester against rider. Then a get right game against a stony brook squad and then a decent pac 12 squad against Oregon St. followed by a real good Duquesne team. I feel like this schedule is allowing us to get our feet under us and get into rythm possibly as they play together more and more. It allows us some room to improve each game and hopefully keep winning. We shall see how the rest of this month goes but hopefully we are 7-0 going into that Creighton game.

This is the first team to hold their first 3 opponents under 55 points since the Mighty Mites of 2008-09

I don’t see why you’d redshirt anyone who can give you any meaningful minutes. Players have more freedom to leave than ever. Using redshirts for development is basically doing work someone else will reap the benefits of.

- The referees did not lose us that game-- but they were horrible and the fact that McD didn't get a tech around the 10 minute mark was ridiculous. When we went on our run, that was about the time he was on the referees hard and he pretty much got them to change the way they were calling things in that moment. - At the end of the first half, their player jumped into our player. That is not a foul and I'm pretty sure that an offensive player initiating contact is or was recently a point of emphasis for referees. - We'll rarely, if ever, win shooting like that from deep. Baylor will rarely ever shoot like that in the first half again... and he's a pretty good shooter overall. - This game doesn't take away anything from our overall goals. It's one game and we can't let CU beat us 2 to 3 times. Two big ones this week in which we could go 2-0. - The weight of outside expectations should be a nice lift off of our shoulders for a while. We won't have any national eyes on us again any time soon and I'm ok with that. We didn't handle being "the game of the day in college basketball" as it was touted. - Part of us shooting so rough from deep, I think, was that the wrong people were taking the threes. Allick shot 4, KT only got 4 as well and BW didn't even shoot one.

Put together some summer highlights and my thoughts on them for both Frager and Janowski if anybody is interested. https://hurrdatsports.com/nebraska-mens-basketball/nebraska-recruiting-breaking-down-fred-hoibergs-2024-signing-class/

Never saw it, so I'm gonna have to plead ignorance on this one. But, at risk of setting @jimmykc off on a nostalgia trip about Jo Jo White, I might offer Glory Road up for consideration?

- Stony Brook had some dudes, man. I wonder if they’ll make some noise in their conference? You can’t be “bad” with that guard play. And they had some serviceable size too. Well coached. - Some maddening stuff to start the game but they got in a better rhythm eventually. - KT’s gotta let the game come to him more and be focused on the other stuff to start the game. You could see his teammates getting a little frustrated. - Well Gary looked nice… dang. That’s a new element. - Our dudes are menaces on the glass. Adding Gary just made us even more menacing. He and Allick are bash brother’s material. - Guys…. Is Mast a better passer than Walker?!?!? Walker will absolutely hit you when you’re open a cut - Mast made guys open on some cuts. He threw some “if you’re even you’re open” passes that were to tight windows. - These guys have got to realize that Fred’s offensive system works if you do what he asks you to do first, and then read and react based off what it gave you. They gotta cut harder, move it faster, screen better, and dudes are gonna be wiiiide open. Can’t just go through the motions with those initial weaves and passes - that’s where everything gets set up. - Speaking of screening: ghost screens are the worst thing to happen to basketball in the last five years. They can’t be the fundamental aspect of your offense. Set hard, decisive screens. Ghost 1/5 times.