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With all this "word on the street" talk, I felt the need to post this guy again.

I think the goal should be close to what Rutgers has established itself as the past 4 seasons. Not expecting you to be the MSU, Purdue, Indiana, Illinois's of the world. But at least get to a point where you're consistently competitive for the middle of the B1G.

Here’s the formula to dancing. Schedule 3 tough non-con games. Win one, in the other 2 slow the game to a snails pace so your 4 point defeat is a NET dream scenario. Go .500 in B1G play. Most importantly - beat the absolute pants off the scrubs on your schedule. I’m talking all gas, no brakes, full speed, beat downs. Make their coach complain to ESPN after the game that you were full court pressing up 35.

The players and schools involved in postseason are not very active in the portal now. Arizona State and Arkansas were the only NCAA team in the list for the Central Arkansas dude. Things should start to heat up this weekend as teams are eliminated. For the school up the road, the exodus begins Friday.

I know it’s like beating a dead horse, but every time I see one of these statistics, I can’t believe we fired the coach that is probably 2/3 of these seasons… if not 3/3 because it wasn’t “good enough”.

Not sure if this has been mentioned anywhere else. I noticed, our opening round WNIT game, will be televised on B1G+. I'm looking forward to watching the girls compete, at least for one more game (hopefully more). GBR

Watching BTN on-demand. The 2014 conference championship victory over Iowa is available for viewing, so I’m reliving better days and watching it. My word, do I miss Rachel Theriot. What a complete player she was. Great court vision, great passer. Top notch instincts for the game. An absolute pleasure to watch her play. If memory serves, she was hampered by a nagging injury her last year and sadly wasn’t 100 percent on the court. Anyway, this is a fun game to watch. Hard to believe there was a time when Lisa Bluder and Iowa didn’t absolutely own NU WBB like they have the past 3 or 4 seasons.

I'll weigh in on this one, having little (i.e. no) experience beating a dead horse. I believe the horse is likely indifferent. I mean, it's dead so it probably doesn't feel good or bad or more dead than it already was. The horse is probably ambivalent at the point of death regarding future beatings. I think the real question is does the "beater" feel better after beating the dead horse. Again, I lack experience with horses but I suspect the answer is yes. Speaking from experience, I feel remarkably better when I beat the ever loving crap out of spider with the bottom of my shoe. I'm pretty sure it's dead after the first whack but the ensuing onslaught of a dozen or more "beatings" brings about a great sense of relief. I suspect it's the same feeling for someone that beats a horse, although they may be a bit more tired.

The first years in the conference we absolutely owned Iowa. Fun times.

Well, she may not be just hanging out here a year after her collegiate VB playing days are over. At any rate, what she's trying to do - at 17 no less - is really, really hard. Jennifer Hamson probably did it best among college players. Cepero did it best at Nebraska. And she was a pretty spectacular athlete. To be clear, I think she oughta play more in the NIT. But who knows if that'll happen.

It was simple for refs, coaches, players, and scorekeepers, and probably easier for fans & announcers as well. And all uniform numbers were between 10 and 55, with the second number never being higher than '5' for signaling fouls committed. Recently I saw a youth sporting a jersey with #57, and it made me think the kiddo's an offensive lineman.

that's going to be a tough 42 seconds/game to replace

Always hate to see one of our guys enter the portal, but it's the nature of the business. Best of luck to Oleg.

Hmm. This kind of stinks. I thought he had the skills to help...all he needed was strength and weight. Oh well.

Nebraska’s first off-season departure

Saw one baseball poll (top 50) and we weren’t included. Still a lot of work to do for the boys after that opening weekend. Let’s keep the train rolling.

My only memory of him involves the hokey jokes about his name, which I am quite willing to revive.

I believe the speculation was premised on the idea that we might not have NIL money to go around. If he’s not getting paid, the logic goes he will probably leave. Makes sense we would keep our powder dry and use funds for players we want to get through the portal rather than spending on an underperforming player we already have.

Done some brief research... Missouri State is no slouch. They're well coached (she was an assistant at Notre Dame and Duke for about 10-15 years before becoming head coach at another school before Missouri St) I think she (coach Cunningham) was at Notre Dame as an assistant when Jess Shepard was there..(natl championship). (trivia....she played at and is Notre Dame's all time leading scorer) They have some quick slashing guards, good rebounding. (watched a clip of short video) They have won lots of games this year, and also in their past history. Common opponent : They lost to Drake by a few points. We lost to Drake by about 18. We must be ready for this one.

No P5 teams set the expectation at NIT. NCAA Tournament is the goal of every P5 program (at some it’s the minimum goal). I would say at Nebraska the expectation should be NCAAs every third season. Part of the reason I think Fred needs to be NCAA bound or damn close (NIT 1 seed, first 4 out) next year.

That is crazy, and pretty impressive in today's world of basketball. I think Lincoln East has had only three head coaches since they opened in 1967. Paul Forch, Ed McPherren and Jeff Campbell are the three and Ed was Paul's assistant and Jeff was Ed's, so they have never hired outside of the school!

I'm sorry, but 115-114 overall and 52-76 in the BIG for 7 season is not good enough. Just because we've hired people who were worse does not make that "good enough." This raises a question: Does a dead horse feel good when you stop beating it?

About time you recognized this.....lol. I appreciate you stepping up your game and helping the program move forward. :)

If so, then I weep for all of us. This has only been done 3 times in the last 23 seasons. Only 2 times over 0.500. That's a pretty good ambition to strive for as a next step.

I believe all numbers also had to be double digits so 0,1,2,3,4 and 5 were illegal. 10 was the lowest legal number.

Battling near .500 in the B1G and a couple games over .500 overall should probably be the standard for a successful coach at Nebraska. I think Fred's offensive sets this year were great for the B1G and the defensive approach also works well. There's actually still quite a bit of freedom to his offensive system once kids get in rhythm. You really just need one or two mismatches to patiently go iso and a lot of movement to prevent help defense, and running it through the 5 position might bring in some unique talent while everyone else is going stretch 5-out. I think (hope) there is going to be a renaissance of bigs again soon (see Purdue) and Fred might be ahead of the curve again.

Our home whites were even numbers and away greens were odd numbered. Not sure when same number home and away jersey switch was made.

Weren't the charges dropped against Beard?

Fred definitely earned himself another yearC but we can’t be afraid of what’s on the other side should things not work out.

Let's reflect on the season for a moment. We started out the season with some mild optimism. We beat some early cupcakes and were showing some decent form, then we get hit in the jaw by St. John's. Then optimism starts to dwindle as we lose 2 games back-to-back in the ESPN Events Invitational in Florida. Among injuries and starters not performing well, we still muster up three straight wins. We solidified our Nebraska state title and the energy in the program is starting to resurge. Although we went 1-2 against top 15 teams, we held Indiana close for awhile and we took Purdue to OT (or they took us to OT). We survived all of the cupcake trap games for the season, but our fans weren't expecting much out of the conference season. We start out 3-9 in the Big Ten (losing 6 of our last 7 games) and Hoiberg's name was essentially etched into the hot seat at this point. But then we go on a 6 game run over our next 8 games to close out the conference season. Having beat Creighton, Iowa twice, and Wisconsin all in one season. All of a sudden there's some long-shot NCAA tournament conversations and, more realistically, NIT hopeful conversation brewing. Aaaaaaaaaaaand then a shot back down to reality after losing the first round game in the Big Ten tournament to last-place Minnesota (now 5-12 in Big Ten tournament games, with Hoiberg seeking his first win in four tries). In retrospect, it was almost as if we went on this wild ride where the pinnacle would get you close enough to have hope, but not even close enough to have a shot at any postseason. All that said, I looked at some prior "Final Standings" HHCC threads and we're in a completely different place today. Last season still had some COVID scheduling adjustments, the season prior had massive cancellation and rescheduling impacts, and the season prior we saw Hoiberg crouched over with the flu in the Big Ten tournament. The world is different now than it was before. Health and safety, NIL funding, relaxed transfer portal rules and COVID extensions, Brad Davison finally retired, etc. We're losing some key contributors after this season, so there's likely as many unknowns next season as we've had over the last few seasons. How that will shake out? We'll find out soon enough. With that said, here are your final results for the 2022-2023 Husker Hoops Central Challenge. We have, yet again, a 1-time winner of the HHCC trophy. Handy Johnson took the lead in the final two weeks and never looked back. And for everybody else, you contributed to knocking Ken Pomeroy out of the Top 10. LNKtrnsplnt and hhcmatt also take the podium this season, with silver and bronze, respectively. Congratulations, Handy Johnson, and thank you everyone for taking part in HHCC this season! This game lives on because of the participation and contributions that you make throughout the season. Until next time. 2022-2023 HHCC Final Standings (End of Week 18) 1 Handy Johnson 934 NC * 2 LNKtrnsplnt 950 NC * 3 hhcmatt 951 U2 * 4 75unlgrad 956 NC 5 HuskerFever 970 D2 * 6 Noah121 993 U1 7 REDZONEDAN 1000 U1 * 8 BLB115 1004 U4 9 AuroranHusker 1012 NC * 10 MichHusker 1016 D4 * 11 TheNovice 1028 D1 12 BjoeHusker 1037 U3 * 13 basketballjones 1042 U4 * 14 aphilso1 1045 D1 ^15 KenPom 1050 D1 * 15 Crush78 1062 U2 * 16 emwilliams 1062 D1 * 17 Cazzie22 1069 U1 * 18 demone 1082 U1 * 19 cornfed24-7 1093 D9 20 jimmykc 1095 U4 * 21 roscoe 1097 U4 22 throwback 1104 D1 * 23 Huskerpapa 1106 D1 * 24 Bugeaters1 1120 D4 * 25 Ralph Wiggum 1131 U7 * 26 roundball3 1150 NC 27 SkersHoops 1158 U1 * 28 Silverbacked1 1159 U3 * 29 tcp 1164 D6 30 twinswingohuskers 1165 D3 * 31 brfrad 1166 D2 * 32 hal9000 1252 D2 33 hskr4life 1259 U1 * 34 nuhusker7 1262 U4 * 35 Nebrasketball1979 1272 D2 36 UnicamMan 1290 D1 37 Tallbaby21 1293 D1 38 Vinny 1303 D1 39 HuscurAdam 1321 NC 40 NUtball 1380 NC 41 NeeandMe 1439 NC 42 bb33ch 1496 NC 43 BigTate 1662 U1 44 Cowboy Kermit 1669 D1 45 colhusker 1934 U2 46 1sdpad2 1951 D1 47 hhctony 1972 D1 48 4NUfans 2012 NC 49 huskerbaseball13 2130 NC 50 Busch Light 2349 U1 51 bigred4 2355 D1 52 mkroll12345 2405 NC 53 Cornyfan1 2526 U1 54 DudeAbides 2552 D1 55 huskerbill85 2651 NC 56 The Jazz Huddle 2668 NC 57 nustudent 2738 U1 58 Breslin Petteway 2740 D1 59 ConkintheCorner 2742 NC 60 uneblinstu 2819 NC 61 Jurgey 2832 NC 62 thrasher31 2875 NC 63 busticket 2881 NC 64 Cookie Crumbs 2883 NC 65 HolyBobpilgrimage 2893 NA 66 Husker Hoops Penitent 2895 D1 67 Craytonhater 2925 NC 68 Minnesota_Husker 2925 NA 69 MontanaHusker 2925 D1 70 Nighthawk 2939 D4 Biggest Rise Ralph Wiggum U7 Biggest Fall cornfed24-7 D9 (U# = Up, D# = Down, NC = No Change) ^ = Celebrity member: KenPom (Ken Pomeroy) * = Did not miss a game prediction

Maybe this aligns to Hoiberg's quote of (something to the effect of) having the right formula but needing to find the right players for those roles?

I don’t want to say I called it, but I may have called it 2 years ago.

Bring it On KenPom, in true Husker fashion, I’ve only just begun to FIGHT…!

It might be more than you think. Here's a great interview with Larry Cox. Well done, Dave!

If my, personal, expectations for Fred's next season is what has been holding this program back from achieving the greatness we all so richly deserve, then I offer you all my humblest apologies. Clearly it is my responsibility and I haven't taken it as seriously has I should. I will try to do better in the future.

Yep. Stupid metric in my opinion. Promotes running up the score versus letting your kids deep on the bench play and get experience when games are essentially over. I don’t like overdoing the out of conference…if we scheduled 3 more layups our season looks much different. 19-13 on paper looks much better than 16-16 and nothing really changed other than who we played.

Should be named after him at this point

Matt’s former broadcast school. Hope the Huskers are focused or it will be a waste of time. Get Maggie M some playing time.

That same word is that we didn't run him off; he's welcome to stay. But he's not going to command a good NIL deal or any other accommodations.

MOV is dumb I think. It places emphasis on winning big and losing small. Until it gets changed, I, as a coach, would try and beat cupcakes by 50.

Back when they used the RPI, many mid-major programs figured out a way to "game the system" with how they scheduled opponents. Now that they are using the NET, it seems there is a new formula to "game the system", and crafty coaches and programs will learn the system and craft their schedules to best utilize the idiosyncrasies of the NET. Playing in a P5 conference like the B1G with 20 conference games severely limits what can be done, but it makes it even that much more important to carefully craft the non-conference games that are scheduled. Also, as many have pointed out, since margin of victory is such a large factor, there is incentive to leave "sportmanship" aside and try to beat your opponent by as many points as possible, often by leaving in starters much longer than necessary to just "win" the game. Injuries are also a critical issue under the NET. Imagine this scenario. Team A has a solid core and wins all of its Q3 and Q4 games, and 60% of its Q1 and Q2 games with that core. But in the middle of the season, 4 of that teams starters get injured at the same time for a period of 5 games. During those 5 games that team gets absolutely drilled and loses each game by 30+ points. But, when the the injured players return, they immediately resume winning at the previous pace, including 60% wins vs. Q1 and Q2. The computers have no idea that the reason why Team A got smashed for 5 straight games is because it had 4 injuries to players that are now once again healthy. But the computer significantly downgrades Team A to the point where Team A may not even make the post season. This is a flaw in computers that can't factor in real world factors that affect outcomes of games and margins of victory.

Mickey, if you're paying attention, apply for some jobs in the SEC....

The portal approach should be the same as vb. You bring in someone to either desperately fill a need, or, to sit a current starter on bench.

Need to hit the portal.

Does anybody else remember that you had two different numbers back in the day? Home white was even dark away was odd.

I wouldn't be sad to see Strewsberry leave the Big Ten. He could elevate GU back to prominence.

It's to the point where if we aren't in post season next season, it might be time to re-evaluate if Fred is the guy to continue to lead this program forward or not.

Here is something I found elsewhere that may be helpful, should we get a NIT Bid. "From Wikipedia (I was looking to see if the championship game or final four was played someplace predetermined): Since the WNIT is a for-profit tournament, all games are played on the site of the higher bidding team. The national championship game is currently carried on CBS Sports Network. Teams can host in the first round for a guarantee of $6,500 a game and in the second round for $7,500 a game. Early-round pairings are regionalized as much as possible in order to minimize missed class time and travel costs."

Excellent points, 12dozen. Given what NU pays the WBB head coach (which I’m sure is very competitive with other programs in the B1G), given the b-ball facilities at Nebraska (PBA and the Hendricks Training Center), and given how willing the fans would be to come out and support a consistently winning program (13,000 Hoosier fans came out and supported the #2 ranked Indiana WBB team against #5 ranked Iowa on Thursday night. That kind of turnout could totally happen at PBA if NU WBB was ever ranked in the top 5 or top 10), anyway, given all those factors, is it unreasonable for us to expect a better product than where the WBB program currently is after almost 7 full seasons with Amy Williams at the helm? I don’t think it is unreasonable. Having said all that, we could get a new WBB HC, and they could turn out to be a spectacular flop and we’d be stuck looking back fondly on the days of the Amy Williams tenure where we were a .600 win percentage, middle of the pack team in the B1G. Just never any guarantees in sports.