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One thing that we need to remind ourselves is that part of coaching is just that, actually coaching basketball skills. We seem to get lost in thinking that Player A did this at his last school so that is exactly what he is and he can't be a different or better player for Nebraska and for Fred Hoiberg. Brice Williams was a 6th man. At Charlotte. He averaged 13.8 / 5.3 / 1.2 playing against AAC competition. He averaged 13.4 / 5.5 / 2.5 at Nebraska starting every game and playing in the Big Ten. Essentially you could say a guy whose role was Charlotte's 6th man in 2022-23 was arguably Nebraska's best and most important player in 2023-24 on the the best team we've had in a longggg time. He had more assists this season than he did in 3 years at Charlotte. No one last year would have been saying this guy would be doing all that. Rienk Mast shot 122 treys for us last year when his previous season totals were 92, 95, 68. Mast had 95 assists when his previous season totals were 37, 44, 70. He was more of an outside threat and distributor at Nebraska than he ever was at Bradley. Keisei Tominaga was not really a very good player for the first 1.5 years of his Nebraska career. Until Fred unlocked him and then he transformed his game into being a scorer both inside and out and getting to the free throw line. If you remember to 2021-22, he was not that whatsoever. Fred Hoiberg is our basketball coach. The Big Ten Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year. He is by all accounts an offensive genius. Our system and sets immediately put our players in a better situation than they have probably ever been in in their lives. The difference between last year and previous years is he stopped just taking the highest rated player they could get or biggest name they could get and instead actually found skillsets that would complement each other and make for a tough, good team. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that the players he is bringing in is because he sees something in them that he can bring out.

Not everyone in the portal is a scholarship player. Hoiberg was an avid user of the portal before it was cool so us flipping half the roster every year will be the norm for our program. As long as he has a base of guys who can run his stuff/self-motivated we should be successful most years.

But first, I was going to buy the CHI center and make Creighton play in Ralston

Doubt you could buy it. However, paying for the naming rights to the Kevin Ross Reading Center has possibilities.

I would add that if we can finally establish some consistent success, our recruiting will pick up as well. We're still held back by the perception that this isn't a good program. It's not all about the money with recruits. There's also fit and a chance to perform on the big stage.

A 13 seed is… something.

Okay, I looked it up now that players can’t enter the portal and over 2,000 Division I players entered the portal. 351 schools * 13 scholarships = 4,563. That’s almost 44% of all scholarship players. If you consider ~ 1/4 of the scholarships are incoming freshman who are not portalling, that puts you at 58% of non-freshmen with eligibility left in the portal. I know there are still some extra covid years hanging around, and some players move up and down divisions so these numbers aren’t perfect, but they’re close. We had 6/10 non-freshman scholarship players with eligibility left leave. We should expect this level of portal activity going forward since it’s so close to the average.

Another year of getting paid to watch Simeon being recruited over!

Morgan and especially Meah don't have the assist numbers you could see from Rienk at Bradley. I don't think we'll see nearly as much passing from our 5 given less aptitude from the position plus having actual PGs.

Kind of hard to judge without knowing everyone they may have contacted. We know of a few but there could be more. I hope they went after players that would push the starters for their spot and just did not make the cut. If they are done then let's hope we do not have any major injuries for the up coming season.

Just thinking out loud, but they could let him go as long as he can Wednesday. If it goes well, he then could start the following Thursday against Mich St. Then he could start our first game in Omaha on the following Tue or Wed. https://bigten.org/base/article/bltb02f7ee2424b465f/

Just you wait until I win one of those billion dollar Powerballs!

B1G standings thru week 7: 13-5 Illinois 12-6 NU 12-6 Purdue 12-6 Indiana 13-8 Iowa 11-7 Michigan 9-9 Mich St 10-11 Maryland 8-10 Ohio St 7-11 Penn St 7-11 Minnesota 4-14 Rutgers 2-16 N'western Week 8 B1G Schedule Indiana at NU Iowa at Illinois Purdue at Michigan Mich St at Minnesota N'western at Ohio St Rutgers at Penn St Maryland OFF Week 9 B1G Schedule NU at Mich St Illinois at Purdue Michigan at Indiana Ohio St at Rutgers Penn St at Maryland Minnesota at N'western Iowa OFF Remaining Schedule for Contenders Illinois: vs Iowa, at Purdue (remaining opponent record 25-14) NU: vs Indiana, at MSU (21-15) Indiana: at NU, vs Mich (23-13) Purdue: at Mich, vs Illinois (24-12) Michigan: vs Purdue, at Indiana (24-12) Iowa: at Illinois (13-5) We still have the easiest schedule remaining, although we missed a big chance to stamp ourselves at the favorite Sunday in Minneapolis. If Iowa can sweep Illinois this weekend, they'll be in the clubhouse with 16 wins and have a pretty decent shot of winning at least a share of the league, as crazy as that would seem. Maryland is going to be very interesting too. Their RPI is more than enough to be in the NCAAs, but if they struggle vs PSU in the final weekend, they could miss the B1G tourney and probably get left out of the NCAAs. Not likely, but who knows this season? _____ B1G Boyd's World RPIs (http://boydsworld.com/baseball/rpi/currentrpi.html) through 12 weeks: 22 Nebraska (30-16) 35 Maryland -- WLW (31-18) (3 H) 61 Indiana (27-19) (3 H) 62 Illinois (28-16)* 63 Ohio St (23-22) -- WWL (3 H) 66 Rutgers (23-16) -- LWL (3 A) 69 Purdue (31-17)* 93 Michigan (25-23)* 102 Iowa (28-18) -- WWL (3 H) 103 Michigan St (21-23) (3 A) 120 Minnesota (21-21) -- WWL (3 A) 136 N'western (13-30) -- WWW (3 A) 149 Penn St (21-20)* * NU doesn't play Non-con opponents: 17 Oklahoma (29-17) -- L (1 N) 36 K-State (28-19) -- W (1 H) 53 Texas Tech (30-20) -- L (1 N) 54 Coll of Charleston (33-11) -- WWW (3 A) 60 bluebirds (31-14) -- LL (2 A) -- L (1 H) 64 Kansas (27-17) -- L (1 A) -- L (1 H) 65 South Alabama (27-20) -- LWW (3 H) 89 Nicholls (30-17) -- WWW (3 H) 90 Grand Canyon (29-18) -- WWLW (4 A) 112 Wichita St (24-26) -- WL (2 A) 133 Baylor (20-26) -- W (1 N) 151 New Mexico St (23-24) -- WW (2 H) 225 North Dakota St (16-25) -- W (1 H) 250 South Dakota St (17-25) (1 H) 291 Omaha (15-26) -- W (1 H) The Pac-4: 48 Oregon (32-15) 98 USC (22-25) 148 Washington (18-22-1) 196 UCLA (16-29) What our quads look like right now: Q1: 3-3 (6 total games) L – Oklahoma (N) LL – bluebirds (A) WWW – Coll of Charleston (A) Q2: 10-8 (21 total games) L – Texas Tech (N) WL – Wichita St (A) WWLW – Grand Canyon (A) L – Kansas (A) W – K-State (H) LWL – Rutgers (A) WLW – Maryland (H) WWL – Minnesota (A) XXX – Michigan St (A) Q3: 11-4 (18 total games) W – Baylor (N) LWW – South Alabama (H) WWW – Nicholls (H) L – bluebirds (H) L – Kansas (H) WWW – Northwestern (A) WWL – Ohio St (H) XXX – Indiana (H) Q4: 6-1 (8 total games) WW – New Mexico St (H) W – N Dakota St (H) W – Omaha (H) X – S Dakota St (H) WWL – Iowa (H) --------- Quad 1: Home games vs. RPI 1-25, neutral site games vs. 1-40, road games vs. 1-60 Quad 2: Home games vs. RPI 26-50, neutral site games vs. 41-80, road games vs. 61-120 Quad 3: Home games vs. RPI 51-100, neutral site games vs. 81-160, road games vs. 121-240 Quad 4: Home games vs. RPI 101+, neutral site games vs. 161+, road games vs. 241+ Teams on our schedule with the best chance of shifting to a different quad (in case we want to know who to cheer for): Iowa +2 to go to Q3 Maryland +10 to go to Q1 Rutgers +6 to go to Q1 Kansas (A) +4 to go to Q1 Coll of Charleston -7 to go to Q2 Minnesota -1 to go to Q3 Wichita -9 to go to Q3 Tex Tech -8 to go to Q3 bluebirds (A) -1 to go to Q2 Hosting chances are miniscule at this point. Boyd's World gives us 0% chance of getting into the Top 16 RPI before the end of the regular season, but maybe if we win out and win a few in the tourney that'd be enough to be Top 16 RPI. And we may not need Top 16 RPI to get to host, as the northern teams nearly always get a little benefit of the doubt from the selection committee, as they really want to give northern teams a chance to host if it's really close. So I'd stay still a chance, but it's going to take a huge finish. League race is going to be crazy. Wouldn't surprise me to see co- or tri-champions. We probably need at least 4-2 to be in the mix. Won't be easy with Indiana & Mich St playing well, but with everyone at the top playing each other, it'll be a lot of chaos. And probably a lot of tarps on the field in West Lafayette. If PU wins Friday in Michigan to get to a .684 winning pct, they may try to avoid taking the field the rest of the year and hope everyone else finishes at .667. Only half kidding.

I hope / expect Bolt and NU's AD will be in contact with the B1G office this week to gain some assurances that Purdue won't be able to pull the BS it did a couple of years ago by pretending it was going to rain and leaving the tarp on the field to avoid having to play their final game to steal the #8 seed. We better get some assurances that the B1G will be deciding -- rather than the PU coaches and officials -- whether weather stops PU from playing at any time that final weekend if the race remains tight. The chances of everything lining up so that PU could win the league by not playing on the final Sunday are small, but PU's coach is a @&*$@#$@ and will try to do it if he can get away with it. Whether the B1G cares enough about baseball to make sure that doesn't happen remains to be seen.