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He sealed at least 2 games for us by getting to the right spot at the right time.

I agree. But what Sam provides is this - dude showed he can play at this level. Yeah he has his limitations. But he can play. What that does is it puts every incoming player at his position on notice. Sam looks like a guy that is all hustle all the time. Practice, hustle. Game, hustle. Walking to class, hustle. So if a new guy comes in slacking ass...Well, we got Sam we can put in and send a message. And putting Sam in doesn't give me pause one bit.

Agree we should be a better three point shooting team. But don't think Sam will be getting more minutes, barring injury. He averaged >20 mpg when he entered the rotation the last 1/3 of the season. If Keisei comes back, I'd be surprised if Sam is in the rotation next year.

Yeah, I am with the fans that were there at the time. Also, it was sort of a "unique" situation. A situation that could have gotten the football program in a little hot water. Prior to the late game chants and fanfare, Raiola was sitting in a suite. That suite is oftentimes occupied by ummm, football ahhh, dignitaries. Cameras caught him, which drew cheers from some of the crowd. BUT, here is the kicker, he was supposedly here on a social visit, and other than his uncle, he could not be contacted by staff. Hmmm, what to do. Sooo, they left the suite and had to be paraded through the crowd; past the students, behind our bench and in front of our basketball recruit. Talk about an embarrassingly bad plan. Oh well, both are gonzo now. Twice jilted by Raiola. Hope his uncle turns our offensive line into something special, a unit his nephew will envy down the road. But what were the fans supposed to do? Ignore him? I guess the basketball staff could have had our dude walk up and down the sideline and throw the bones. That likely would have elicited cheers as well.

It felt awkward to me as well: the strongest focus on Raiola came during a time-out toward the end of the game, and even basketball players in the huddle were looking around for what the disruption was all about; and with a basketball recruit of Bol's stature in the house, who received no attention at all, it felt like a little shade in Bol's direction--after all, this is a basketball game and he's a basketball recruit. Now that it didn't work out with the football player either, perhaps there should have been a stronger focus on basketball recruiting that night?

Eric Piatkowski bought a beer for me once. So, Eric Piatkowski.

It's honestly what separates him from your normal walk on. And it's not just 3's. He has been able to drive and finish, along with making his FTs. There's thousands of guys you could recruit to come in and be Mr. Hustle-Smart Play-Grit guy. Virtually none of them can score or get their own bucket like Sam seems to have a knack for.

What else Sam does regardless of the minutes he gets is knock down 3’s.

Didn't say that was they reason but I'm sure it didn't give him a very welcoming feeling.

This year's roster has another thing going for it. After a 7 year hiatus, the cip salsa garden was planted yesterday. When the Huskers win at least one game in the NCAA tournament this upcoming season, I want some credit. Whomever actually remembers this post and is the first to revive it, gets a quart of salsa! After we win the tourney game(s), of course.

For me it is Tyronn Lue!

It might be Bruce Chubick for his block of Alonzo Jamison's dunk at the buzzer in 1992. I was at that game. It was wild.

I'd say if there is an overarching change that people think should be made when we have a basketball recruit in house, that's one thing. That conversation has merit. Otherwise the argument that someone more famous shouldn't be as recognized as someone less famous really doesn't make much sense when you say it out loud.

Tech got one ?. We got two ??. What does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN??

Eemeli Yalaho spelled backwards is Ohalay Ilemee. I should have brought that up before.

Brice, Mast, more minutes for Sam, Keisa obviously the X factor, But it sure looks like we have more proven options. Lloyd, Lawrence, CJ, Ulis are all just Gravy…

You have to know people or work in basketball. They restricted the public access a handful of years ago.

What would be ironic is if Purdue goes 0 - 2 against us. MSU goes 0 - 2 against Indiana. Purdue needs to beat us and MSU needs to lose Indiana to make thetournament. East Lansing has a chance of rain, and we jump on Purdue early. MSU waits around for the rain to come, and eventually cancels the game once Purdue loses.

Puzzling transfer there..

Was thinking Bol was on his visit when Dylan Raiola was also at PBA. Pissed me off that Raiola got most of attention and Bol was a complete afterthought. Probably made no difference but football and basketball went 0-fer that night.

Nice all-around performance this weekend - I liked how the coaches basically forced the bottom half of the order to stop swinging for the fences by playing small ball with those guys, and it worked a lot. Saw a lot of unselfish at-bats and visible frustration when they knew they were a little selfish. Now it'd be tough to beat Maryland playing small ball that often, but it's going to work against most of the rest of the league. Also is a good strategy for playing in Omaha. And it should give those back half of the order guys some confidence - for example, they set up Evans in RBI situations quite a bit this weekend, and he hit the ball as well as he has in a month-plus. Haven't seen the two-base sac fly in a while - fun to do that in the same week as we get a triple play. On to Purdue - we owe them after the garbage they pulled last year ... and hopefully we kick the crap out of them and then stomp on the corpse.

Hmm...just a quick search later... When someone is "blowing smoke up your arse" today, it is a figure of speech that means that one person is complimenting another, insincerely most of the time, in order to inflate the ego of the individual being flattered. Back in the late 1700s, however, doctors literally blew smoke up people's rectums. Believe it or not, it was a general mainstream medical procedure used to, among many other things, resuscitate people who were otherwise presumed dead. In fact, it was such a commonly used resuscitation method for drowning victims particularly, that the equipment used in this procedure was hung alongside certain major waterways, such as along the River Thames (equipment courtesy of the Royal Humane Society

Who's writing checks for Wake Forest?

Not surprised when he is on an unofficial visit and the entire basketball crowd is chanting the name of a football recruit.

Sam’s too busy attempting to be the Bill Simmons of Omaha and I think he’s losing his fast ball.

Nice little lunch hour project. You want to compare last year's roster to this one coming up? Well ... There were some fluctuations. Game 1 starters vs. Maine: PG Griesel 2G Bandoumel 3G Wilcher 4F Gary 5C Keita Keita played 10 minutes; Denim played 24, scored no points, grabbed 1 board, committed 2 TOs. Game 6 starters vs. Memphis: PG Griesel 2G Bandoumel 3G Wilcher 4F Gary 5C Walker The return of Walker. Blaise takes a seat. Game 14 starters vs. Iowa: PG Griesel 2G Bandoumel 3G Wilcher 4F Gary 5C Walker Keisei logged 13 minutes, scored just 2 points. We still won. Game 18 starters vs. Purdue: PG Bandoumel 2G Wilcher 3G Dawson 4F Breidenbach 5C Walker Keisei came off the bench to score 16 in a blowout loss. Game 19 starters vs. tOSU: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Bandoumel 4F Dawson 5C Walker CJ falls out of the starting lineup, hits 2 buckets in 20 minutes. Huskers win with only Keisei and Sam in double figures. Game 21 starters vs. Northwestern: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Lawrence 4G Dawson 5C Walker Are you kidding me? Starting lineup the game after second starter lost for the season? This ain't even funny anymore. Dawson still starting. What choice do we have? Denim stays in the starting lineup until ... Game 26 starters vs. Wisconsin: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Lawrence 4F Breidenbach 5C Walker Trying to find a way to not have Dawson in the starting lineup. Wilhelm comes in and lays a goose egg in the scoring column. Keita with 2 points in 23 minutes. Did I mention we won anyway? Game 27 starters vs. Rutgers: PG Griesel 2G Tominaga 3G Lawrence 4G Wilcher 5C Walker Winning formula? Finally found the combo? Road win against a top-half team. This is your starting lineup for the rest of the season. OK, comparing last year to this coming year: So, you want to judge last year's *record* and assess next year's *prospects* by comparing rosters with the team that barely just broke even? Don't forget to factor in that Denim Dawson, who was essentially a true freshman, started 8 games last year, during which span we lost 6. He played 393 minutes, put up 47 points, turned the ball over 20 times, and committed 38 fouls. He was 35% from the floor and 40% from the line. And, especially after Gary went down, we had really no choice but to play him. And Wilhelm Breidenbach. Good kid. Great effort. High motor. But ADHD. He had more minutes than Denim but averaged fewer minutes per game. Scored 116 points against 25 turnovers and 62 personal fouls. Only shot 38.5% from the floor and barely 60% from the stripe. Wilhelm was whistled for more fouls than any other player on the team except Derrick Walker (by 3) despite Walker playing more than twice as many minutes. Now, you can say, well, those two were bit players. Bottom end of the roster. Comparing apples to apples means you only look at the likely rotation guys. Well, but Wilhelm and Denim combined for more minutes than Keisei and nearly as many as Derrick Walker. We played 32 games this last season. Four OT games means we had 6500 minutes on the season to spread around, and 12.3% of those minutes, and 10 starts, went to two guys who would not likely see the floor for this next year's team if they had stuck around. The top end of the lineup might not be quite as good (yet to be seen), but we're not going to be running ANY players out there next year who basically don't belong in a P6 rotation. The bottom and middle of the roster are going to be a lot better. We're going to field more guys who can score at more positions than any Hoiberg team to date. Just for some perspective, CJ Wilcher started 24 games for us last year. He's going to be lucky to be in the rotation next year. Doesn't that tell you something? Just some perspective.

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