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Hi Guys, Some of you may remember that you had kindly donated to a cause I'm in a ways back and I wanted to give you a finall update on what your hard-earned charity dollars did and then I will leave this subject alone hopefully for the remainder of my time in this community. I just feel I owe this to you since you guys were decisive to our recent success. Our mission to DC was a bigger success than we could have hoped .As a result of our efforts, we have managed to get a seat at the Vets Admin table to discuss the plight of chronic pain patients in the VA system and their difficulty obtaining adequate treatment for persistently painful conditions and llnesses. We now have lined up sponsors in both chambers of Congress and are going to proceed with our mission to get the VA to alter it's Opioid Safety Initiative policy to ensure vets that need opioid medications can receive them while safeguarding the health of others as well. I, personally, will likely be testifying before the Senate and telling my personal story for the first time in public. Maybe I'll get my Al Pacino moment and get to bellow, "I'm put of order?! You're out of order!" Or maybe not. Anyhow, I can't thank you all enough and of course my friend Cip for facilitating it in the first place. The good lord indeed works in mysterious and unexpected ways. On behalf of myself, my community, and disabled vets everywhere, I thank you. *Now* we can get on with hoops and I swear, these guys had better win something while I'm still bloody alive. :) tom

My dad could sense my optimism for this team and wanted to know what our roster looked like this year. I typed up a little Athlon style roster summary for him. CG – Jarron Coleman 6-5 Sr. 14 ppg 5 rpg 4 apg (at Ball State). Low efficiency. Good ball handler, passer. Big guard. 2nd team all-conference last year. CG – Jamarques Lawrence 6-3 Soph. 5 ppg(38% 3FG) 9 ppg over last 1/3 of season as true freshman. Great perimeter defender. Could end up being best two-way player on team 2G – Keisei Tominaga 6-2 Sr. 13 ppg (50/40/87). 20 ppg over last 1/3 of season. One of best shooters in the country. HM all-big ten last year. W – Brice Williams 6-7 Jr. 14 ppg 5 rpg (at Charlotte) (48/40/85). Career 40% 3FG. Was willing to come off bench at Charlotte, still 2nd team all-conference. WF – Juwan Gary 6-6 Jr. 10 ppg 7 rpg 1.5 spg Elite athleticism and high motor, can defend all 5 positions. Limited skill offensively. F/Post – Josiah Allick 6-8 Sr. 9 ppg 7 rpg 2 apg (at New Mexico). 56% FG. Leader, brings good energy, will accept his role. 2nd in Mountain West in rebounding last year. Post – Rienk Mast 6-10 Jr. 14 ppg 8 rpg 3 apg (at Bradley). (52/36/74). Skilled big man, passing will remind of Derrick Walker. Better shooter. 1st team all-conference last year. CG – Ramel Lloyd 6-6 RFr. Redshirted last year. Versatile guard w/ potential. Struggles shooting. Needs to get stronger, more physical. Highly recruited. CG – Cale Jacobson 6-4 RFr. Walk-on who could’ve taken a scholarship at lower level schools, could get minutes as ball handler off bench. 2G – Sam Hoiberg 6-0 Soph. 4 ppg 2 rpg. (55/41/82). Coach’s kid, clutch shooter last year W – CJ Wilcher 6-5 Jr. 8 ppg 3 rpg 2 apg. 41% 3FG two years ago. Will have to compete to keep spot in rotation. WF – Eli Rice 6-8 Fr. Shooter, athlete. Led team in scoring in Spain trip this summer F/Post – Matar Diop 6-10 Fr. High level athlete. Very raw offensively. May redshirt. Post – Blaise Keita 6-11 Jr. 2 ppg 4 rpg. 52% FG. Great post defender. Injury issues 16-16 record last year. 9-11 in conference (was maybe the toughest conference schedule in several years). Went 6-2 in last 8 regular season games – 7 of those games were against postseason teams. 5 wins against NCAA tourney teams, 2 against NIT teams. Won at Creighton. Beat two ACC teams. Last 1/3 of season, played like a borderline top 25 team. Tominaga was playing at an all-conference level. True freshman Jamarques Lawrence often looked like the best defender on the court, also very skilled offensively. This will be by far the deepest, most balanced and mature roster Hoiberg has had. All comes down to how they mesh. Prediction: 10-1 non-conference. 10-10 in conference. NCAA tournament and will win some games when they get there.

To nearly quote the nearly famous Navin Johnson: I'm actually a little excited about the roster for this year's team. That is my problem. Every year I think we got something going. So these are the reasons why we have a chance at a good season. Hope these happen, but I need to temper my excitement. Damn near everyone you would have wanted to keep off of last year's roster decided to stay. The only guys we lost to the portal were guys who would not likely have made the rotation this year. In addition ... Rienk Mast. We had to hit a homer in the transfer market to replace Derrick Walker because we didn't really have anyone in-house who could fill those shoes. We got the best player from the best team in the Missouri Valley. Word is we got the kid Iowa really wanted. He's strong. He's long. And he's efficient. Even from beyond the arc. Keisei decided to stay. He could have a Cary Cochran kind of season. He's that good of a shooter. And he's just so damn crafty. Plays with joy and a joy to watch play. Brice Williams. Frickin A. Call him pennies from heaven because, on paper, he was maybe one of the best shooters in the portal. Really wasn't expecting a wing. Not a great position of need. But nice to add an efficient scorer regardless. He could have AWIII kind of impact. With him and Keisei, opposing Ds could have to pick their poison. Matar Diop. Very late add. Usually not a good sign. But, in this case, he might have just snuck under the radar. He's REALLY long with a 7'3 wingspan. He's really bouncy. He's probably really raw, but he has some tools. But the thing I LOVE about him is his mindset. I love big men who have a little bit of that dawg in them. Before he was a known recruit and only had offers from places like Sam Houston State, I became high on Bruno Fernando for just that reason. He just had that dawg in him. Matar is like that. High motor competitor. And the biggest thing is it looked like we were going to be really iffy around the rim and lacking in depth down low. Blaise still having ankle problems and who knows if he'll contribute. I think Matar just took that spot. Jamarques Lawrence. Freshman stud who took advantage of our injury situation to get some serious, real minutes. And he rose to the occasion. Could he have a sophomore slump? Sure. But that doesn't seem likely from a guy who rose to the challenge of stepping into the starting rotation as a true freshman when we got hit with injuries. Josiah Allick. Another Lincoln kid who wants to do the home crowd proud. And he's merely a 32 min/game starter from a top roughly 60 team out of New Mex. Stop and think about that for a sec. He STARTED and played 32 min/game for a roughly top 60 team last year. We POACHED a starter from a team that was sniffing the bubble a year ago and it's possible he won't even start on this year's Husker squad. Mind blown. If you don't think THAT is a positive sign, I don't know what to tell you. Jarron Coleman. Let me set the scene: Our starting PG graduates. We recruit the starting PG from one of last year's conference rivals. He has some ... trouble. Trouble that could affect his eligibility. And, right about that time, a 6'5 PG with roughly 4 years of starting experience, including 1 at a P5 school, materializes in the portal. And he picks us. Color me crazy, but it seems like the stars are maybe kind of starting to align. I mean, I don't want to get too carried away, but I feel like we really did OK in the portal, y'know? We got what we had to get at every position. We kept the guys we needed to keep and landed at the very least serviceable players at every position we needed to find someone. We bolstered our bench. You'd have to think we're in pretty good shape going into the season. Now talk me down off the ledge.

So we won at Wisky in Davison's freshman year? Nice.

This Friday

Reminds me of the feeling I had starting the season in 1990 before we won 26 games and were rated 11th in the nation prior to the fateful game with Xavier. Danny's team had lost 18 games in 1989-90, but you could feel all of the pieces were in place to begin the 1990-91 season.

Hoiberg said that Diop is really raw but also said that this might be the first guy he's had on the team who looks down at the rim when he dunks

Where did you get that he has committed? All he has done is set up a visit.

Die gas pumper

Typical run-of-the-mill bastard

I thought I had every line in the movie memorized then I watched it again a few days ago and saw this. I LOL and my wife just shakes her head. https://clip.cafe/the-jerk-1979/man-st-louis/

since followers pretty much have a good idea what huskers face in the conference, here is the ranking and record for the non-con: Northwestern State 324 8-18 Wyoming 87 21-11 Alcorn State 325 10-17 Creighton 24 22-9 Lamar 188 17-12 TCU 198 8-23 Florida Atlantic 236 10-18 Georgia Tech 114 13-17 UNC Wilmington 337 4-24 Southern 193 16-14 Kansas 51 22-11

link to schedule... https://huskers.com/news/2023/09/21/huskers-announce-loaded-2023-24-schedule

Okay, I’ll play… Coleman, Tominaga, Wilcher, Eli, Mast (Sub: Sam) This team will flat-out shoot any of those first 3 teams out of the gym. Lawrence, Ramel, Brice, Gary, Allick (Sub: Cale) This team wins with defense…size, length, and athleticism in spades. None of those 3 teams had the heart to compete; this team would crush their will.

Thank you TCP. It is our duty to take care of our vets.

Fred mentioned it to me in passing while @Norm Peterson and I were dining at Venue. It was kind of annoying for him to interrupt Norm and me but it is what it is.

You have no idea how much I wanted to post this immediately after @Norm Peterson posted this thread, but I refrained because I didn't want to immediately derail the thread. I'm glad you did it though.

Solid play, jay.

It's okay to be excited for Nebrasketball. There's no shame in being prepared for that Big Dance appearance.

Juwan was also a team leader last year. Brice Williams, Rienk Mast, Josiah Allick and Sam Hoiberg all have leadership qualities coming out of their ears. I'm not worried about the maturity and mental toughness of this team. It will be on par with last year.

Arguably, we lost our three team leaders; leadership is fickle and is hard to simply slot players into that role. Scoring and rebounding seems present; but who will respond to the leadership gap? I am encouraged that we have players willing to do the little things that are necessary to win close games. I guess we will get a glimpse of the team on Friday that hopefully will answer a few of the questions.

Ahron Ulis practiced today and will continue to do so. Washut says he and others were "fired up" after practice.

Thanks for bringing this up. I listened to it and In my recollection Baylor brought up the question about Mendelson saying : " you have a talented Maggie Mendelson as a backup Middle Blocker but is playing behind Andi Jackson etc. I thought good we will hear a little about Maggie. Coach answered but just as you noted only talked about Jackson. Baylor could have pushed a little farther but didn't. Whether it was intentional by Cook or not we probably won't ever know. Lauren Cook West isn't shy about asking the tough questions and doesn't allow her father to get off the hook. Previously about a week ago in an interview I think by Jessica Coody she asked the coach about the fact that we have 3 committed recruits coming in 2024 but no scholarships available right now with no seniors on the team. He said that has already been addressed and it is all figured out which means to me they know which scholarship players will be leaving at seasons end. Maggie is not on a volleyball scholarship but I will stick to my previous post about her making a decision which will be announced at the end of the VB season as to which sport she will concentrate on in the future.

You should be able to read the whole thing here.