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Meh, what do they know? I know our team has some talent. I know our team had some holes this year that held back the talent we had. Our young kids will now be experienced, young kids. That makes a difference. Biggest jump tends to be the summer after freshman year. If we can plug that one hole, I think we'll really surprise people. The best seasons in Nebrasketball history have come when we were picked to finish last or close to it.

Watson is back in the gym working

Trepidation. Anticipation. First the trepidation: How will we fill that last scholarship spot? Will any additional vacancies come available? If so, how will we fill them? We need a big. Or two. But I'd also love to take in another Andrew White/Anton Gill sitting out a year and becoming eligible when White and Tai Webster graduate. The returning players have some work to do. Will they get after it? Will they come back better players than they were when the season ended? Will they take, in some cases, the substantial leaps forward they're capable of and that we need them to take? Now the anticipation: Isaiah Roby. I don't want to overhype the dude, but I'm really looking forward to seeing this kid in action. To be clear, I think he'll be good for a freshman. I'm not expecting him to come in and start right off the bat, but I think he could be a very solid back-up for Andrew White. He'll be a good freshman. Don't take my words as saying I think he's going to be all-conference. My expectations are relative to his year in school. He'll be a freshman. He'll have a learning curve. That doesn't mean that, as freshmen go, he won't still be ahead of the pack of freshmen. I think he will be. Jeriah Horne. I think this kid could surprise some people. I'm not totally sure about his athleticism but I think his skill level is upper D1. If he has the athleticism to back it up, he could be special. He's entering a packed race at the PF position. He might find it tough to earn minutes with the guys we have returning. But I wouldn't be surprised to see him find a spot in the regular rotation. I can't wait to see what happens. Seriously. I feel like a kid at Christmas going to bed early in hopes of waking up to Santa Claus but realizing, deep down, it's going to be a long wait before it happens.

He'll finally get that redshirt that he needed.

Keep scrolling.... keep scrolling.... keep scrolling. http://www.btpowerhouse.com/2016/3/28/11304050/way-too-early-2016-2017-big-ten-power-rankings-michigan-state-spartans-predictions

The rumors aren't directly basketball related. They have nothing to do with this year's record; Any discussion of a coaching change based on on the court performance would be absurd. Basketball-wise there is a long history of extraordinary success for this program. We have the freshman player of the year in the league and a highly ranked incoming class. There is nothing there basketball wise to discuss. If the record we had this year (nearly 20 wins and a .500 record in the league; not exactly a disaster) after losing 4 senior starters and then half the team to injury has people calling it a tough year creating a rumor mill, our fan base has become spoiled beyond belief. I don't know whether any rumors flying around are true, but I assure you if something happens it will have nothing to do with the past season, on the court performance in games, or recruiting.

As long as your car is not sitting in neutral in a Lincoln park after midnight, I think you'll be fine.

Can one develop athleticism or is it God given? FWIW this a classic binary trap question in logic. Something akin to asking me if my wife is smart or pretty. The two things are not necessarily exclusive. Oh, the answer if "Yes." The caveat is you can become all you CAN be but you cannot become more than you can be. Hence, a 6 foot point guard can improve his free throw technique but he cannot stretch himself into a 7 foot center.

UConn will not win the national title next year. You'll hear calls of "parity" They're mostly not true. There is not a lot of parity in women's college hoops. A handful of teams dominate their conferences. Baylor is 118-6 in the Big 12 over a six-year period. ND is 56-1 in the ACC over the last 3 years. During one stretch, Stanford was 134-6. Maryland is 40-2 in the Big Ten, with both losses to the same Ohio State team that had to woo a 5-star guard by offering her dad a job and her benchwarming sister a scholarship before the 5-star even committed.

True. But, sometimes, the locations are very close to each other. Norm, I didn't want you to have a thread where no one commented on it. In today's politically correct world, people are afraid to say anything on a subject like this. You are exactly right. Fraternization within a sports team is counter productive. That, however, pales in comparison to what happens in our military---something that really matters.

Cal Ladies were ranked #22 (AP) when we played them. I don't follow them so don't know what happened after we played them, but I was not super impressed. Athletic, yes, and had some length (we couldn't seem to stop their Kristine Anigwe), but not better than the Lady Huskers imho. We led as much as 20-4 early, trailing 44-38 at the half, coming back to tie at 70 to go to OT. Our passing was just not crisp; Cal got a lot of steals & turnovers resulting in points in transition. I think we lost the game more than Cal won it.

Disregard. Already posted

Ahead of only Rutgers? Wow. How anyone could pick us behind the Gophers is beyond me. I hope all the other teams think that way. It would be nice to sneak up on some of the other teams next season. I would guess we should be closer to 9th.

Wasn't he given the career ending scholarship thingy? That sounds kinda ominous, Silver!

I like his confidence. I think he's skilled enough to play the 3. His frame wouldn't matter as much there, and his height would be an advantage.

Interesting prospect. I'd be cool with it. Definitely unorthodox, but very athletic... based on the shots he took beyond the arc, it looks like his coach gave him the green light out there. That's always a good sign.

It's about that time of year. Transferring is such a phenomenon that we'll have to put out a statement that no one is transferring if that is the case.

I always thought it would be cool to get rid of the conference tournaments and go to pods of 4 and then seat all the D1 teams so that after one more week we could get down to the 64 that then are reseated to see who the big dog is. Kind of like a big state tournament. Also the top what? like 88 teams would host the two games. More money for everybody. I think after that weekend we would have like 87.75 teams but it could be figured out.

So I did a little exercise a while back regarding NCAA D-1 membership and the relative number of postseason slots available in the "modern era" of College Basketball. And while it is arbitrary and not really a bright line, many people argue that the postseason has been the most relevant since the NCAA expanded their tournament to 64 teams in '85. So I'll use that as my reference point. You'll see what I'm getting at shortly. In 1985, when the tourney expanded to 64 teams, there were 282 schools in Division 1. So, at that time, 22.7% of Div. 1 made it to the tourney. The NIT had 32 teams, and that accounted for an additional 11.3% If my research is correct, "power" leagues - conferences that received more than 2 bids (and yes I even included the Mo Valley here) placed about 47% of their members in the NCAA Tourney. Today that number is 43%, and the Mo Valley no longer qualifies. Now, there are 351 schools in Divison 1. If we were to keep the same 1985 percentage of schools in the NCAA Tourney, we'd need to have 79.7 teams in (let's just round that up to 80). To have the NIT stay the same, they would need to have 39.7 (or let's just say 40) teams. Of course, they don't. The two account for just 100 postseason bids instead of the 120 that they should given a constant % based on total membership, making it just *slightly* more difficult to gain entry into postseason. Except for the CBI and CIT - and now the Vegas 16 (8) takes the total number up to 140. Question is, do these three "lesser" tournaments make the postseason better? Or worse? Should we just expand the NCAA Tourney to 128 teams (or one more round) and eliminate the NIT, CBI, CIT and Vegas tourneys altogether? What say you?

Watch this guys hudl, he looks a little weird basketball wise... but hes got HOPS

I hope those betting on crowd size took under

More of a prune at this point.

Changing the "Vegas 16" from 16 to 8 teams and then not having any Power Five programs probably doomed this event from the get-go.

Yes. On CBS Sports Network, at least the last game of the day was on. I watched a few minutes of it. Ugly, ugly. I'd be fairly surprised to see them continue this event after this year. Too bad, too because at least in principle it was a good concept.

I doubt he will want to redshirt knowing that if we continue to recruit more people for his position, his playing time will just continue to diminish.

But is he eye candy?

I'm picturing this... not a pretty picture. lol

Hell, I would take Benny Parker on stilts at this point....

This is an interesting observation. If you could give the PGs (or any position) in the conference a grade of their skill and athleticism on a zero to 100 scale where zero is horrible, 100 is perfect, and 50 is average, the range of scores might be from 75 to 35 from top to bottom. Let's say. The guys at the 5th through 10th positions within the conference might be separated by just a few points. There might be more significant separation between the top 2 or 3 and the bottom 2 or 3. But the guys in the middle are going to be fairly close to each other. And probably more separation at the top than the bottom. The other thing is that there will be some cross-over in terms of where each team stands at each position. There might be a team or two that has top-third talent at each spot, right? But there will also be teams that have that one really good player but are just so-so everywhere else or that team that's pretty solid most places with one or two weak links (think of us this season not having that big man.) A team that has top-half talent across the board is probably going to find itself in the top third overall. So, for example, if each of our players at the 1-3 positions are in the top half of the conference, I would say it wouldn't be a stretch at all to suggest that we'd have an overall backcourt in the top third of the conference. I'm not quite ready to go that far. I'm more willing to say we're top third at SF and middle third at worst at PG and SG. That probably puts the whole back court group somewhere in the top half of the league. I'm comfortable with that.

I hope he has a huge summer

I watched his film also and I thought he did a lot of things that I liked. First of all, when he would set up in the low blocks, he would do it at 6'10" and 250 pounds. I really liked the way he ran the floor at 6'10" and 250 pounds. There were a couple of times in the flow of the game where he really stepped in and was 6'10" and 250 pounds. So, I mean, I don't think we have anyone on our roster who can do those things at 6'10" and 250 pounds. Nebraska has recruited a bunch of big guys that cant play. That's the point. Your sarcasm and view that he is a good player because of his size is well beneath your own intelligence. Oh, please. Whatever. Save your sanctimony for someone else. You're the same guy who started a thread on November 28, 2015 entitled, "Any hope of a big man next year?" Followed by starting a thread on December 15, 2015 entitled, "Nearly a decade since recruiting a true center, why?" Followed by another thread on December 25, 2015 entitled, "10yr season ticket holder. Time to give up?." Well, hey, guess what? We're involved with a big man for next year, a true center, who happens to have offers from Arizona, Virginia Tech, TCU, Oklahoma State and Boston College among others, and you're going to look down your nose at him, the very kind of player you've claimed you've been wanting, because he's just not quite as pretty as you wanted? Knock it off.

Make a sign or something to show us were you are. I'll be the one wearing Red! And it will be covered in emojis right?