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Besides early first half turnovers, this was our best all around game of the year, by far. Balanced scoring and efficient on offense. Lots of points in the paint. SG hit some timely threes. Gary played aggressive and attacked the rim with a lot of effort. His dunks are powerful. Someone asked in a previous thread whose minutes Walker takes…tonight it was Keita. Walker is just so much more established and developed as a basketball player. This is something to build on. We can beat BC. They apparently lost to Maine and we beat Maine. I know that’s not how it works, but still… Oh, I need to point this out. All summer when people were saying Kesei was so limited and one dimensional and just a spot up shooter. Well…his ability to drive and make heady plays, 13 points with only one three and no free throws, his scoring 10+ points off the bench, that’s been a nice development.

Its a win over a P5 team. There won't be many more this season. Watching Walker run point was fun! We all know this teams deficiencies so no need to pile on. Let's enjoy the win

The last two games there was a lot of anxiousness and stressing about getting beat, and my thought had been, well, neither Memphis nor Oklahoma really "manhandled" us. And I saw some things that I thought were good. Both of the teams we faced previously in this tournament were top 30ish type teams and we didn't get just blown out. Now, FSU isn't great but they aren't exactly chopped liver either. They might be 1-7 but if they were not a Power 5 team but were instead a solid mid-major coming in to face us at PBA, it'd be the kind of match-up where we'd be a little concerned even with our best of teams. It's a Kenpom top 150ish team. Those kinds of teams have given us fits at home in the non-con. And we handled them easily in this neutral floor game. Everything about this team is eminently more watchable than they were a year ago. No hero ball. No me ball. No bullshit of certain players wanting to make sure they get their shots in to the detriment of the team. I mean, yeah, we lack talent. But I'm going to rejoice in the improved execution by players who are more concerned with team goals than individual stats. That said, here are my three likes, in no particular order: After a rocky start, we got things under control. We had 4 TOs in the first 4 minutes of the game and only 10 TOs the rest of the way. We made some adjustments to the way they were pressing and it worked. Sam Griesel almost had a double-double with points and assists. He would have been well over 10 assists if Bandoumel had had a better shooting night from the corner. But Sam is showing some solid court vision and awareness. He's making the passes that set his teammates up for success. The return of Walker. What can you say? I mean, second game back and he puts up 20 points and grabs 13 boards on 10 shots from the field? He even had 4 assists. The man really showed up tonight. I don't think his presence would have flipped any of the games we lost, but it probably would have made them closer contests. But we probably win some going forward that we would have lost without him. Glad he's recovered from his health issues. He was probably the biggest difference in the game tonight. He's giving up 8 inches to McLeod, but he out-muscled him. And can we also give it up for @hhcmatt? His game day essentials pegged it. FSU is the second-tallest roster in the nation (behind only Oregon IIRC) and yet he predicted we'd out-rebound them. And we did. Good work on the essentials, Matt.

You know what they say. When the going gets tough... find somebody worse than you to make you feel better.

Trev indicated he was totally engulfed in his football coaching search. Now, I am sure Trev is a multi-tasker; but has he had the time or want to even consider ending Fred's reign??? I say no.

A big question for me is— does Walker change the outcome of OU or St Johns? It’s a hard question with no solid answer. However, I believe that he could have. We’re now 1-1 with Walker. Wednesday is big! BC is probably better than FSU and is hovering around where we are in KenPom. The next three after BC are very likely losses, so it’ll be important to grab the BC game. After seeing us play FSU, I believe we could give lower level B1G teams enough fits to pull out some W’s. However we have no room for error as a team. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury to have an “off night” and pull out a W. Already mentioned in this thread, but Keisei has been a really nice piece to have off the bench. So many wrote him off last year, through the summer, and earlier this month. He’s this years version of Benny Parker, young Tai Webster, etc. Every year we have someone who takes a lot of criticism because of their faults and doesn’t get a lot of praise for their good. KT has his faults and areas of struggle. But he’s not “just a shooter” for us this year. He’s done a lot of good on the O end. He does lack a little on the D end, but like I said. Role players have faults. He’s not an all star, but he’s definitely earned his spot.

Wilcher is 2 - 5 from 3 tonight.

8:15 p.m. start times are brutal for fans who don't live in Lincoln.

The tickets (or a lot of them) are sold. These preseason games are perhaps not the best litmus test. This team is not the most talented, but they are more enjoyable to watch. I am betting that the arena will be a bit more boisterous for many of the upcoming games, specifically the league games.

Surprised Derrick hadn't scored 20 points in a game before but then I think back to how much Teddy and then Bryce/Verge dominated the shots

I saw something different tonight. Was it me or did that look like one of his Cyclone teams? If he can get to 15 wins somehow and make the CBi…. He just might keep his job. I really think Trev likes Fred and wants him to be successful. Its different than it was with Scott in my opinion. I think any post season and he stays.

Looks to me that DW will be on the floor as much as possible. Also looks like Gary and Briedenbach will fill in when Walker is out. The game is just too fast for Blaise at this moment. Spare minutes here and there may earn him more minutes down the road. Briedenbach is going to get 8 to 15 minutes a night. I think that is a good thing; but it looks like I am in the minority.

22 assists on 33 made field goals. That's .667. We came into the game with .540 assist-to-made-FG percentage.

My God, DW looks like he is playing against a middle school team tonight!

Need to knee that man in the junk more often

Looking good. Amazing how much better you look when you don't turn the ball over and you make your shots!

Derrick: everyone move, i'm going to take this 7'4" guy to the rim

Unless he does something really dumb no way will he be fired by Xmas. He is in a much different spot than Frost.

It seems ludicrous to think that Alberts looks at these 3 games in the same way. He doesn't appear to be that short sighted. Perhaps if we are completely non-competitive then the narrative shifts but to think Fred has to make some noise against three top 10 teams seems like a bit of a stretch. Losing all three may be a part of any narrative of why he is fired at the end of the year (along with a lot of losses in the BIG as well) but I can't imagine losing these three games causes him to get the ax in season.

SWAC. We tend to do well there.

https://twitter.com/usmntonly/status/1597256936092618752?s=46&t=HmJL5j9xU0VUpXzF0h1Baw

At this point, I think it would a remarkable feat to make it to Omaha. That said, Cook has the chops to make it happen.

The character and watchibility of this team is night and day different than the last two years. So that is a positive step forward.

So very happy for this team and these players. I like every single one of the guys. An incredibly fun game to watch. This season has been HCFH best, from a coaching perspective, season. This is what I imagined his first season would have been like.

Agree, great placement. My only complaint, we had to wait until the final name was called, to hear "Nebraska". Fingers crossed for Omaha. WBB can wait another week or two for Maggie.

They said he’s the 5th Winningest Coach in ACC history which surprised me. I can remember when he was at Okie State.

In the first half both teams played pretty bad. It was a turnover nightmare. But I do give credit to the adjustments we made. But for a four minute stretch, we dominated. Man, that feels strange to say.

Something to build on

Nice win. Much better second half.

There’s bad P5 teams…. And then there’s FSU. My goodness. As much as I complain about us, they are about the most non-fundamentally sound P5 team I’ve seen in a long time. Looking at their schedule, it’s hard to find 5 win.

Oh it can hurt, trust me… it can hurt.

How’s everyone enjoying point-Walker?

Lol I now can't get the image of the woman having a panic attack in the movie Airplane with everyone lined up to try to calm her down.

Walker is beating that 7’4” kid like a rented mule

Keisei every time he scores

Alright. Both teams are not that good. But we're better than them. So let's close out the 2nd half and leave here with a win.

Unless Walker has to come out to take a piss he should never be off the floor

Is Bandoumel point shaving?

To be fair, might have been more folks at the belt sander event than this 8th place game.

If anyone was waiting for a sign of the end times, the existence of belt sander racing let alone televising it is pretty much the confirmation that we are done.

I hope I am not alone. The belt sander racing is spectacular, but I would rather be watching the game.

OMG yes. Great point. We almost turned the entire roster over, so it's not inconceivable that he could have built a roster in year 1 much like the one we're fielding this year. As much as any of us might criticize Keisei for being a defensive liability, is there anyone who would prefer Matty Kavas? Yeah, me neither. I wouldn't even take Jervay over Keisei. And I would definitely take Sam Griesel over Cam Mack even though Cam was more of a natural PG. The biggest apples-to-oranges critique is that Banton would have been immediately eligible if he was entering the program now. But, I mean, generally speaking, this is more like what I would have thought we'd be building on.

Announcer indicated the number of turnovers...and then added that is why they announcing the 7th place game...spot on.

Bonga Bonga or death

Thats the same as asking, "Do you want to get poked in the left or right eye?"

Not even Fred Hoiberg is this big of a boy scout. If it was up to Fred, Ramel would be playing

If you can play Reyna 7 minutes then he’s fit enough to play half an hour. And he says he’s 100%. Really strange situation going on there. Lots of contradictions. He has to get real time vs Iran. England quickly picked up on Zimmerman’s lack of technical ability. They laid off Ream but started pressing Zimmerman second half. You have to have the players with the technical ability if you want to play out from the back. Ream’s fine but the other US center with ball skills got left at home. Adams did a nice job of checking to the ball to help him out but he still gave away too many dangerous balls in our third. Adams was a baller but Turner for me was man of the match. After just part of a season with Arsenal and he’s dribbling out of his box. His distribution has improved drastically. This performance just makes bottling the Wales game even more painful. It’s must be the Husker fan in me that makes me fear for the worst against Iran. The Wales game proved being the better team is no guarantee of the result. And the tie means we go home. I fear for the worst and hope for the best.