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I wouldn’t give up on high schoolers entirely, but I know what I would do… only recruit them if they’re from around the area. Like 500 mile radius max. The probability of someone like Lawrence from the east coast staying more than a year or two are so much lower than a kid who is within reasonable driving distance of home.

That's a lot of money to finish middle of the pack in the Big 12 and then flame out in the NCAA tourney.

I know a lot of our fanbase thinks the sky is falling and that Fred somehow hasn't earned his extension (yes, there are people saying this). But on April 1, 2023, our Nebraska Basketball scholarship roster for 2023-24 looked like this: Keisei Tominaga (did not announce his return until June 1) Blaise Keita Juwan Gary C.J. Wilcher Jamarques Lawrence Ramel Lloyd Wilhelm Breidenbach (would enter portal in May) Quaran McPherson (would enter portal in late April) Eli Rice Rienk Mast committed April 12 Brice Williams committed April 12 Josiah Allick committed May 2 Matar Diop committed July 23 Deep breaths everyone, it will be OK. We are in a much better spot than we were at this time last year.

Freshman will become vastly more important after the Covid year funnels out if the game. Going to be massively harder to get as old as teams were as able to this year and will be even more able to do next season.

It's worth recruiting HS guys because at some point you want to build a more solid base where you replace a couple of guys as opposed to half the team. Also, you can get away with not playing those guys right away and potentially retaining them. Finally, it would help if we recruited better freshman.

Nowhere close to soft. Kindness rivals few, if any, other characteristics a human being can possess.

I'm not too worried about replacing these guys, but thinking bigger picture, it's got me wondering...is there any point to recruiting High School players anymore? Our recent high school recruits: Eli Rice - gone after 1 year Jamarques Lawrence - gone after 2 years Ramel Lloyd - gone after 2 years Matar Diop - gone after 1 year Quaran McPherson - gone after 2 years Denim Dawson - gone after 2 years Oleg Kojenets - gone after 2 years Wilhelm Breidenbach - gone after 2 years Eduardo Andre - gone after 2 years Keon Edwards - gone after 1 year Bryce McGowens - NBA after 1 year From what I can gather, Thor Thorbjarnarson is the last high school recruit to complete even 3 full years at Nebraska (his fourth year was 2020-21). I think that is what stings about Jamarques the most. We finally had a HS recruit that was doing something positive on the court, and we couldn't keep him around.

I guess the question is, does he want to beat Indiana, or lose to Nebraska.

This is why JL should be higher than #431, or whatever it is.

Looks like she is having her foot surgey today.

Many boats have two masts. Rienk is the mainsail, Morgan is the headsail.

I, for one, appreciate the job you do on this website dimes.

Just...butter.

KU lands Zeke Mayo from South Dakota State. (He is from Lawrence). Hopefully his teammate, Kyle, will be closer to home as well when he comes to Lincoln.

When I ref I try to think that all 10 players are my kids and try to be fair as possible. Sometimes I miss something but hope that my partners would catch what I missed. I think it would be helpful to work as crews instead of sending three guys that only work together 4-5 times a sesaon. Just like the players the refs would learn their partners tendencies. Also if you watch the refs at a game all 6 eyes are on the ball rather than watching what is going on away from the ball. So that's where the missed the original foul but catch the retaliation. And like huskerpapa said traveling and 3 seconds have become obsolete. And it seemed like a couple years ago the "moving screen" would get called at least 4-5 times a game and that seemed to get pushed to back burner in last year or 2.

I have a hard time believing that referees are that much worse than they used to be. I think technology has allowed their mistakes to be much, much more noticeable than in years past.

When there were two refs, I knew each of their responsibilities. Now with three refs, I am unsure what the responsibilities are for each position. But as the three refs rotate, they each shift responsibilities and they each have their own nuances and they each see things slightly different. Then you factor in their egos, the speed of the game/players and the size of the players. Contact should be a foul. That is what the rule book says. But hey, let's tweak the rule book and yet not change the rule. We will simply judge whether or not the contact actually impedes the player, and oh yeah, it different if it is big on big, or small on small, and is completely different if it is small on big. Traveling, oh yeah, I remember when it was a violation. We will only call 3 seconds a couple times a year, we need to let fans know we can count...lol. I keep hearing how difficult refereeing is, hmm. Adherence to the rules is hard. Thank gawd police don't have that issue, right? If it is too hard for humans, computerize it. It can be done.

Can’t have two popes, too much a risk of a scism.

Looks like we're skipping the trip to Champaign. Either Dainja had better options in Memphis or we had good luck yesterday

Alabama is the future model. You’re gonna have to be a freak player to suit up for Fred as an underclassman moving forward, and if you are a bench player as a fr/so, you better develop and bust your ass because they’ll happily pay a better upperclassman transfer over you who already averaged 18ppg somewhere else. This is simply the coaches playing the same game the players have asked to play. For programs on the up, NIL is a quick conduit to roster overhaul. I don’t blame the kids or the coaches one bit. This is just the way it goes now. We’ll have a scary 7-8 man rotation next year. Probably the most talented team we’ve ever had coming off an NCAA tourney, great attendance, a fantastic coaching staff, and $$$. That’s my bet anyway.

Can I just say how blown away (in a good way) that at a P5, men's athletics program - that one of our culture values is "Be Kind"? Call me soft, I really don't care.

It wasn't just us complaining about the Big Ten officiating this year. Other fans did too. And I often wondered if poor officiating in the Big Ten might affect the conference's recruiting. At the very least, I could see it having an impact on player retention and people entering the portal. The gripe wasn't about losing games and blaming the ref. The gripe was about having a level playing field and feeling like you got a fair shake. If you have a rule, but the rule isn't enforced evenly or equally, then you don't really have a rule at all. And if you only apply that rule against me and not against others, then I'm going to feel like the system is unfair. I grant that some of the most contentious areas are judgment calls that can often go either way. But the problem is when the calls always seem to favor the blue team over the red team. If the same action is a block whenever I'm on defense and a charge whenever I'm on offense, I'm going to lose faith in the officiating. And I have lost faith in the officiating. The officiating is bullshit, and I don't feel like they're even trying to make it look like they're being even-handed anymore. That's all. That's it. Thanks for letting me vent.

I'll never forget where I was when I saw that.

https://d1baseball.com/columns/2024-midseason-field-of-64-projections/ Nice to see “Lincoln, Regional” on there.

When did the hand check become legal? This has changed a lot over the years. It is not even a hand check but a hold. This has filtered down to high school as well and has made the game so much more physical.

Academics related. Could have transferred to Arizona St but he should be good at KSU.

One of my pet peeves is when the offensive player TRAVELS into contact, and a foul is called on the defender.

Great moments in Matar Diop Nebraska basketball history

Take with a grain of salt about NIL as this is apparently what some coaches are relaying to a guy who runs a HS scouting service.

This probably belonged in this threat, not the JL specific one. My take on the transfer portal, is that most teams are basically saying, "we're going to fight to keep (pay, promise starting position) anyone who has shown above replacement value production." We really only have 3 of those guys on the roster. Gary, Mast, and Williams. Everyone else is very replaceable from a statistical perspective. JL (who I love and think still has massive potential) averaged 6.9ppg this year on 42% shooting from the field. On paper, you should pretty easily be able to replace a 6.9ppg guy. Btw, major props on JL for 6.9 on .420 shooting - HEY-O. Essentially, if you aren't promised to start and/or given a massive NIL deal, you're considered replaceable. Unfortunately, this really sucks as a fan, as we tend to get attached to these guys. But from a strictly "on paper" perspective, they're just numbers, and you should pretty easily be able to replace a guy who only gets > 8ppg. Losing guys like CJ and JL really sucks because as fans we've learned to love and appreciate them - but statistically speaking - we should very easily be able to replace them with non-tweener athletes with similar or better production. In theory at least.

Inconsistency is my complaint. As Huskerpapa indicated, a foul is a foul, first half and second, 5'11 or 7'2", home or away, in the paint or on the perimeter. Beyond the fouls there is also the possession and traveling calls/non-calls that impact momentum.

Correct, so leverage technology to actually help them.

Basketball is incredibly difficult to officiate. I want to believe they are all honest and trying to do their best. That being said, I am often mystified by calls, particularly by officials not in the best position to make the call. How a game is called should be consistent all 40 minutes.

My take on the transfer portal, is that most teams are basically saying, "we're going to fight to keep (pay, promise starting position) anyone who has shown above replacement value production." We really only have 3 of those guys on the roster. Gary, Mast, and Williams. Everyone else is very replaceable from a statistical perspective. JL (who I love and think still has massive potential) averaged 6.9ppg this year on 42% shooting from the field. On paper, you should pretty easily be able to replace a 6.9ppg guy. Btw, major props on JL for 6.9 on .420 shooting - HEY-O. Essentially, if you aren't promised to start and/or given a massive NIL deal, you're considered replaceable. Unfortunately, this really sucks as a fan, as we tend to get attached to these guys. But from a strictly "on paper" perspective, they're just numbers, and you should pretty easily be able to replace a guy who only gets > 8ppg. Losing guys like CJ and JL really sucks because as fans we've learned to love and appreciate them - but statistically speaking - we should very easily be able to replace them with non-tweener athletes with similar or better production. In theory at least.

What is Fred thinking? I would imagine something like this: When you have a close-knit group that accomplishes things that haven't been done here in a long time, it hurts personally to lose guys from that team, especially when they're choosing to leave with the option to come back. However, Ramel/Blaise/Matar literally lose us nothing on paper. They can all effectively be replaced by literally adding any 3 transfers with similar body types. Eli wants to play more minutes right now and had potential but was too slow and would not have been a starter here next year. CJ maxed out here and was also too slow and would not have been a starter here next year. Jamarques is the only one that frustrates me (Fred) but I understand because he wants to be a starter as a junior and I was probably honest with him that that is not guaranteed here because we believe Ulis (or another transfer) is our starting PG and Brice and Juwan are not coming off the bench. Fred had individual meetings with every single player. If anything, these departures should tell you that Mast/Williams/Gary are back because all these guys clearly did not see a path for them to get the minutes they want (or think they deserve) this year. It also tells me Ulis might be better than people think.

First and foremost, nothing that is discussed in this topic is a *personal* attack on anyone. Simply, these are observations and thoughts that I and friends/family have had over the last several years (so it's not a knee-jerk reaction to the end of the season). With that, please feel free to add and share what your observations and thoughts are. I'm generally interested to see what the consensus is on the board. These are my rambling thoughts. First, in terms of the future success of the program, I think it’s been shown that Nebraska needs to get much bigger, stronger/physical, and more athletic. We can beat teams of similar talent and athleticism, and we occasionally beat teams who are higher than us in those elements. But we can’t/don’t *consistently* beat those teams that are in the upper echelon and where I’d like to see Nebraska get to, at least off and on. We need guards who can get to the basket and who can create for themselves as well as others. I've heard several close friends/family members mention that the NCAA tournament has shown that the B1G doesn't have the athletic guards across the league (not like the SEC, PAC-12, etc.). Post play I’ll discuss later on. One way to shore up *some* of these deficiencies is through the portal. In my opinion, we simply don’t utilize it well or enough. It might seem cutthroat, but a coach's job (among others, obviously) is to win, and to do that you need to consistently bring in players who threaten to put your current starters on the bench. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you will always accomplish that, but if you aren’t actively trying to do that, then I think that’s where you get programs that stall out or decline because what you bring in isn’t better than what you have. It's one of the main reasons why volleyball is so successful. Sure, Cook recruits at an extremely high level, bringing in recruits that put multiple-year starters on the bench, but he also uses the portal to accomplish that too (or to fill glaring holes where we don't stack up). Back to basketball, take this year’s team for example. Realistically, out of our starting lineup, we had 2, maybe 3, players who would be considered bona fide starters. The rest were borderline starters/role players elevated to starters or much bigger roles than they might have somewhere else. And to the player’s credit, they played hard and did the most with the situation that they could. I know it’s Williams’ philosophy, but I don’t like, or maybe it's the fact that I don't understand, our sub-patterns. Too many times we get players that just start getting into a groove and then they are subbed out. That can mess with your offensive rhythm, both individually and team-wise, which we saw periodically throughout the year. Either we need to be better conditioned so that players can play longer, or we need to recruit players who can do that. You need to be able to keep your difference makers in the game for as long as possible. One exception that I can think of is the 2009-10 team, they often subbed in five at a time, but they were also a very aggressive in-your-face defensive team; we currently aren’t. I’d be ok with the subs if we pressed a lot and played an in-your-face style, but we don’t and that’s probably because we don’t have the athleticism to do so effectively. Breaking presses, I won't discuss that much. We seemingly have always struggled with it. Does anyone with expert knowledge in that area have any opinions? Now, let's switch gears to immediate success, starting next year. This *assumes* that the four seniors who walked on senior day are done (looks like it), we don’t have any players transfer out, and that Weidner returns and is at least close to her previous level of play (which is going to be difficult but I’m rooting for her). There is no magic formula to dramatically increase our current collection of guards' athleticism to get by quicker, longer defenders. However, every one of them can improve their ball-handling abilities which would certainly help negate those disadvantages a bit. From observations, we cross over in front of defenders a lot and I’m surprised we don’t have the ball stolen more. Being able to dribble between the legs at a high proficiency would also help. I have also noticed that sometimes when our guards drive, we don’t see who’s open, which, appears to be because of tunnel vision. I think confidence in ball-handling ability would help alleviate that. I also see a lot of guards from other teams that can drive in and then use a quick spin move and get to the bucket rather easily. I hardly see our players do that (maybe Jaz a couple times?). As far as post-play is concerned, it’s not *that* far off but certainly areas for improvement. One thing that I’m genuinely jealous of is Iowa’s ability to develop posts that have terrific footwork, use quick moves, and know how to use angles and touch to score in the post. I’ve felt too many times that we take very poor angles and/or rocket the ball off the backboard and those shots generally don’t have a chance. Now, the caveat that I will add here is that there was some improvement in this area between last year and this year so I’m leaving that on a wait-and-see mode. However, our defense in the post is....suspect. There are many times you can see the opposing team's post dribbling to one side of the lane and you *know* they're going to drop step back to the other side and it works quite often. I don't know if that's a philosophy thing or if we don't anticipate that move coming, but sometimes it's really obvious. Also, it really annoys me when the posts stop with their hands straight up in the air watching the ball after some contact that may be called a foul. I could put together a small movie of this happening and we lose the rebound because the offensive player simply goes and gets the ball. Like I said earlier, I don't think the post play is off *that* much and it seemed improved this year. In terms of general play, I hope we focus on defense in the offseason. If we could improve it even a bit to the degree we improved our rebounding that would help eliminate some of those losses that we can’t afford (like Rutgers/Illinois). I also hope, that with Prince and a hopefully fully recovered Weidner, we push the issue more on transition. I believe in both of their abilities to get the ball and immediately go. They both have great vision. There may be some growing pains early in turnovers, but I think it's crucial going forward, especially because I think that’s a real strength of both of them. Getting easy baskets in transition would help out immensely. Essentially, what I’m saying is I don't want us to waste opportunities where we have the ability. Last but not least, I think hosting the NCAA tournament is within reach and should be a legitimate goal for next year. This got long, but as I mentioned, these are observations from multiple people that I talked to. Now, rip this apart lol.

Yeah, we started Allick and Mast together toward the end of the year. Mast and Morgan wouldn’t be a fun scout for other teams. I haven’t watched much film on him though, can he be the primary defender on opposing fours in our system?

I watched Creme Abdul-Jabbar yesterday

There are unflattering things to say about Michigan but between McDaniels and not admitting Caleb Love you have to commend their commitment to academics

AJ Storr: “So, I would love to bring my talents to Lawrence. I just want $1,000,000 to do it.” Kansas: “I bet you do.”

Nope. But they'll be extremely rare. It would have to be guys that were true freshmen in 2020-21 and then redshirted afterwards.

This game should not be behind a paywall. That is all.

Was up above earlier, Bug eaters shared it.. post 589 if that helps Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll predict that we'll get better guys in the portal than those who left.

It's sing-along with Mitch time! A-one and-a-two ... "There is no place like Wherever, Dear ol' Wherever U."

This type of transfer makes me stop and pause as we think about culture fit. Someone who transferred to a team that was in the Top 25 for the majority of the season, started, and led the team in scoring. What else could he be looking for?