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Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that, for a team not exactly flush with ball handlers, our press break is actually technically pretty sound? I remember with past coaching staffs, this was not a strong suit of ours. Too much dribbling. Too much dribbling into trouble. Too much dribbling into traps. It was always an adventure when we'd face a pressing team. And maybe my memory is off, but it seems like Dana Altman's Creighton squads would sometimes make us look silly. And I can still remember Lance Jeter trying to break the press all by himself, one against the world. This team seems to know how to find the spots in the zone and where the next pass needs to go. Rienk will hit the spot at center court, for example, and know that CJ will be streaking down the sidelines for that next pass before he even gets the ball. We've gotten stuck sometimes when we've tried to dribble too much. But, by and large, I've been pretty impressed with this team's ability to break the press. The best news is we're finally winning enough and in position to hold leads that other teams are having to press us. And we're responding pretty well.

Statistic wise, he may not be a top ten player, but as far as overall impact to the program he’s at the very top. He’s become an international ambassador of the university and just a great kid. And he grew the popularity of the program. He got other fan bases talking like nobody else I’ve seen. I remember seeing a post on this board last year about someone seeing two Asian guys wearing Tominaga jerseys as they arrived to PBA. It’s moments like that when you know he’s having a huge impact. Now you see a lot of 30 jerseys, worn by all kinds of people. All my interactions with him - he’s been very gracious, accommodating, and responds with “thank you” when you say something to him. He will truly be missed and I hope he comes back often.

I don't care if it makes me a bad person, but I really, really, REALLY want Wake Forest to miss the cut and have to sit at home and watch us dancing. I know it's petty, but that's honestly how I feel.

KT30 is an international icon and revered in Japan. His Olympic fame is another factor in how he's perceived. He's a global basketball player, basically a college version of Steph Curry as far as impact on this Nebrasketball program, as he's elevated his game, he elevated the NU stature in the process. Every single opponent had to figure out how to stop and/or slow him down, in the B1G it was grab, tug, pull, or push. In the Big Dance, that shit won't fly. KT will lead NU to the Promised Land, I've basically willed that result for 2+ years, and it WILL HAPPEN for this specific team. They have all the mojo any team would love to have going into the post-season. Now, it's almost time to unleash their inner beasts!! LET'SO DO THIS, BIG RED!! Like Moses KT will lead us outta the wilderness into the land of milk and honey. GBR!!!

It still amazes me that they don’t call that shit. Absolutely pisses me off. It just supports the theory that the Big Ten favors certain teams, and we’re not one of them.

I actually think his D has improved since year one. He’s never been the most athletically gifted player, but he now has a nack for being in the right place. And he, for the most part, is able to keep his guy on front of him. He doesn’t get a ton of steals (though he’s already at a career high 25 this year), he doesn’t hound guys, he’s not a menace on D. But he doesn’t have to be. Theres other guys to fill that role. He just needs to be a guy that plays sound, in the right spot, fundamental D. And he does that for the most part. He actually has a career high for rebounds too. FWIW.

Tony Wilbrand is pissed right now

That's pretty good for Nebraska to have a 1st teamer in Alexis M. and a 2nd teamer in Jaz S. as well as a FROSH of the year in Natalie P. All in all, that's excellent. GBR Just read Sam M.'s tweet, how the heck didn't Potts become the unanimous selection of coaches & media for FPOTY?!?!

Fun find on Ty Lue's Clippers coaching staff: Player Development/Video Coach - Cookie Belcher

I wonder if our football staff knows how good he could be

The measure of the quality of a player is what the other team does to defend him. Without question teams "game plan" heavily for Keisei. Even last night, Rutgers ran a number of defenses with an eye on stopping Keisei. It is tough to rate players who played decades ago. Heck, they defend Keisei by holding and pushing. Two or three decades ago, he would live at the free throw line. Let's not even try to debate the diffences brought about by the three point line. There are also differences in the positions. Tough to compare Keisei to Hoppen. Yet to the teams they played during their era, they were the player that the other team concentrated on. Sooo, is Keisei a top ten player...perhaps.

Put Keisei on any former team, and we are immediately several wins better.

I'll go ahead and say it. Keisei is not the best player to ever play in a Husker uniform. Not even top 10. He'll never have his jersey hanging in the rafters (or will he?). But he ignites like no one I've ever seen. When he's on, with our defense, his offense alone makes us difficult to beat. I've seen him hit so many clutch shots no one else would even attempt. And I'm not talking about deep, heat-check threes. There was one he was cutting baseline from one side of the hoop to the other, catches a bounce pass, and in a single motion, catches, turns, elevates, shoots, makes. From about 8-10 feet. Nobody else takes that shot, let alone makes it. There was no hesitation. No time to think. Didn't give the defense any time to react. Just catches and nails a shot. He's not always on. But when he is, he's scoring at all three levels and defenses don't know what to do about him except try to grab and hold him and hope the officials don't call it. Yeah, he might not be one of the best Husker players of all time. Maybe not even top 10. But he sure as hell has been one of the ten most fun to watch of all time. Even if he wasn't Japanese, the word that would seem to best describe him is "Ninja." Quick, precise, technically masterful, and deadly. And he's going to win us our first NCAA tourney game. Just watch.

Did anyone catch Fred’s comments during the postgame interview with Shon Morris - he mentioned that going on the run that they did the last part of last season is what allowed them to target the level of guys in the portal, and then he said that certain guys wanted to transfer here to play with Keisei. Won’t show up on the stat sheet but it may have helped us land a guy like Mast

I videotaped parts of a couple of games in the 80’s and ran across them recently. One of them had a friend of mine from college courtside screaming at the camera who has since passed. Kind of cool to see him again. He’s got the best seat in the house now up there I’m sure rooting this team on.

Yes all of our freshman played a big part in this team's success.

Just FWIW, right now at most places like CBS and of course BTN…we are not a topic of discussion of bubble but NCAA seeding. Yesterday they were pondering if we could elevate to a 7-seed down the stretch. This is a wild position to be in. Would be great to finish off Michigan on their senior night and be sitting at 22 wins before the conference tourney. So great.

The nice thing about all 3 of them, I don't think any of them are necessarily looking to be Head Coaches right now. Coach Ernie seems pretty settled in his role, Coach Howard does too and he's too young/unpolished, and Coach Loesner essentially gets to be a co-Head Coach with this team. I think Coach found himself a loyal, engaged, intelligent group of dudes.

Black ranks 117 in the accuracy standings over the past 5 years.

Some bracketology guy on Bracket Matrix called "Black" has the Huskers an 11 Seed and Michigan State a 6 seed. How any sane person could believe that to be accurate is beyond me. Fine you want Michigan State in the Tournament based upon their SOS... but a 6 seed at 17-12 with no amazing wins is homerism at it's finest.

What makes it even more maddening, if WE did that type of grab and hold against our opponents, WE would be called for a foul(s)!!!

Make it 8 FOTW awards. Hello B1G FOTY! So Potts has tied Alexis with her 8th weekly award.

Regardless where he ranks if I am picking a dream team starting 5 of players that ever put on a Husker jersey he's one of them.

Maybe one of the few times Joe Holmes gets mentioned on HHC. in the spirit of that, I’m gonna type: Ross Buckendahl Craig Wortmann Shang Ping Steve Harley Adam Bohac and Dan Hiemos

Sounds like they’re due.

Jaz made the All Defensive Team last year and was 1st team. She and Alexis switched places on 1st and 2nd teams. Natalie was the best freshman in the league. Glad that Logan N. was included and I think Jess Petrie wasn’t far from being on the All Freshman team. Congrats to Maddie K for the Sportsmanship Award.

If CJ is under control, he's very good at pounding the rock & making a spin move to score; unfortunately, also true is that CJ is rarely under control on his drives.

Pettiness and an insane-level-of-fandom go hand-in-hand.

Could your imagine? It’s the dog days of summer in Mid-July. It’s 108 outside. And we start a historical game thread at 7 PM where everyone’s invited to join and watch one of our previous basketball games while cooling off from the day.

Winning for the 1st time at Crisler will be prime motivation as well. And it would also be great to ensure that Michigan is a single digit wins team, too, unless they can rattle off 2 wins in Minneapolis... which would be crazy talk.. lol

Another spot where being old helps.

I'd just like to point out that EVERY GAME IS A HOME GAME FOR THE CINDERELLA OF THE TOURNAMENT. And that'll probably be us until we get knocked out. These are not likely to be neutral environments. If we're in the lead or close with five minutes left in our first-round game, the whole arena is going to be chanting "GO! BIG! RED!" in unison. And every game thereafter, all the rest of everybody's fans will be pulling for us to pull off upsets. If you are fortunate enough to attend, be sure to welcome all the new Husker fans to the fanbase.

CBS currently has us as a 10-seed against Boise St in Indianapolis. Honestly? That would not suck. We're one spot ahead of them in Kenpom, so they're not like invincible. Winner of that game would take on Marquette as the 2-seed per their current bracketology. I'd be down with giving a run at that.

Sounds like he didn’t need “1 more beer”

Ernie Ziegler, Adam Howard, Nate Loesner are our assistant coaches. They seem to mesh as a group and all appear to be well engaged on the sideline. Add in the supporting staff such as Joseph and Luca (and many others) leads me to believe this is one of the better coaching groups we have had. Danny had a good staff for one or two years and Cip had a good staff towards the end of his regime as well. I'm not 100% sure where all their responsibilities lie; but I have a pretty good idea. I simply love the individual and team development and cohesiveness I see on the floor. I also look at the players that currently are not in the 8-man rotation and see that some of them can potentially become rotational players. Of course that depends on whether they stay or transfer. Our present and future seems so much brighter.

Just to add to your point about transcending the game. There's a famous statue of TO with a player who also transcended the game. Have a lot to say about KT and this team, however I'm saving all of that for when the season is officially over. A few note worthy stats from last season to this season: GP : 32 <-- 28 MP : 803 <-- 720 GS : 14 --> 28 PTS : 420 <-- 392 ( Regular Season 397 <-- 392) FTA : 53 --> 64 FT% : .868 --> .889 TRB : 51 --> 61 AST : 22 --> 35 STL : 18 --> 25 TOV : 27 <-- 30 (This is likely due to him attempting to distribute the ball more) These STATS point to a more complete player. Last season he caried a much larger offensive load late in the season and was way more efficient. He was also not given the attention defensively by teams last season as he's been given this season. I'm going to say the quite part out loud. KT saved HCFH from being fired at Nebraska last season. It is no coincidence that his permenant insertion into the starting lineup in Feb 2023 allowed us to finish out the se regular season 6-2. There was an adjustment period in January for KT and the team to the losses of Gary and then Bando. It's not like we where world beaters prior to Bando and Gary getting hurt as we where 9 and 7 with both and then and went 1 and 2 after Gary got hurt prior to Bando being hurt.

Purdue will be without starter Caitlyn Harper due to a torn ACL on senior night. 11.6 ppg/3.9 rpg. Indiana's Holmes and Meister suffered injuries against Maryland. Though, i do not know how serious. I know Holmes bumped knees with someone.

After 30 games: Mast 83 assists (in 28 gm) J-Law 77 Brice 72 On another note, Brice is averaging 29 min/gm while Mast is at 30 min/gm. But I believe Brice may end up surpassing Mast for the team's leader in minutes per game, especially after the last ballgame being 37 min. for Brice and only 24 min. for Mast, that is, if this type of trend were to continue. The present difference is 28 min. in favor of Brice with Brice having played 2 more games than Mast. Worth denoting that Brice Williams is the only dude on the roster to have started all 30 games, and became the starting PG halfway through the Big Ten schedule - no small feat.

For those who think to make that downvote, my avatar says you better think twice.

Like So?

(In honor of the Thread Title "Keisei watch") I'm Watching Keisei get Fouled! (by Rutgers) (What Could he have Done if he wasn't being continuously Held?)

I agree there will be scholarships available even if we pick up a couple of portal players for next season. We have been in competition with Creighton for talent over the years but that is starting to swing our way a bit with Potts this year and Prince and Hargrove next year. The Big Ten stage is getting much bigger for next season with 4 very good programs that have great history coming in. Also don't under estimate our facilities and fan support which are pretty much second to none.

Typically I don't participate but I did send one last night

It's one of my favorite parts of driving home (when I'm not the one drivin'... to be abundantly clear), I'll review all of the trollin' on the opponent's final score on the twitter-box, X-thingymajig. It's glorious, amusing, and quite entertaining. lol

let's get the Gessert twins. Huskers lose at least four players after next year so there's plenty of room. And those 6 foot 1 backcourt players looked Power Five to me!

I'll worry about who is coming back after the season if over. In the mean time, just enjoy the ride and don't stress about who is returning at this point.

We’re either not going to realize how good we had it, or were gonna win by 400 when we get away from big ten refs.

NCAA Tourney? It'll be a first round home loss in the NIT. I can't handle this stuff. Quit saying this won't happen, blah, blah blah. Start saying this will happen. The Huskers WILL be in the Sweet Sixteen! The Huskers will be in the finals of the B1G Tournament! It's not that hard just to say it. Speak it out loud.

There was a long stretch of that game where I was afraid the three blind mice show was going to let RU's efforts to turn it into a football game be successful and do serious damage to our NCAA tourney hopes. I know the refs have allowed a lot of hand checking against NU all season, but tonight was the worst yet, especially at home. Then all of a sudden they blow the whistle on almost every possession the last 7 minutes. Just god awful and definitely not a style that fits what we do. Having said that, we played so hard that RU just couldn't find easy shots. Our half court defense was tremendous and made up for an inability to get the offense going. Rebounding, too - we were as good as we've been on the glass all season. And I know we didn't make any FGs the last 6 minutes, but we got to the FT line a lot (wish we'd have made more). Possessions that end with FTs are just as good, if not better. It'll be good to get some days off now to gear up for the stretch run. What a season so far, but we've got more work to do.